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GREAT NEWS! SIGMA NU’S AT DAVIS ARE BACK!
To our Alumni Brothers of Sigma Nu… I hope that most of you received our recent e-mail informing you of this exciting news. If not, it is my honor to inform you that the re-colonization effort of Zeta Xi Chapter at UC Davis that commenced last March has been a tremendous success. The new colony members submitted their 400+ page petition to national to be re-instated as a fully recognized Chapter of Sigma Nu Fraternity on 2/4/09 and it was voted on and approved by the High Council on 3/10/09. We are all the way back!! We have a lot more Sigma News to share with you, so please read on.
I know that many of you share our joy that we have regained our Charter and our presence on UCD campus after a 16 year absence. It was a sad day when we had to close the Chapter and sell our house in 1992. But we always knew that we would come back and continue the great legacy of Sigma Nu and Philos Delphos at UCD. Even without an active Chapter, our alumni have stayed strong and connected during this time. And now for the first time in nearly 2 decades we are welcoming new brothers as Knights of the Legion of Honor when they are initiated and installed this spring. And soon, some of these same founding members will be joining our ranks as part of the alumni chapter and giving us a much needed influx to increase our membership. We really want you all to come to meet and congratulate these fine young men and celebrate our mutual victory at two major events this spring.
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We must tell you how impressed we are with this new generation of Sigma Nu. We started with a first candidate class of 29 outstanding men with an abundance of leadership talent and drive. They now have 41+ members and have quickly been recognized as one of the best Greek organizations on campus. They have embraced our values of Love, Truth, and Honor and have crafted a vision statement that targets becoming a “Rock” Chapter of SIGMA NU within 5 years. They drafted one of the best petitions ever submitted to National, and did it in record time of less than one year since inception. They have been very interactive with the Alumni Board and crave a closer relationship with the alumni at large. When you meet them, you will see what I mean.
I personally have worked closely with our first eminent commander, Adrian House. He has been the perfect man to lead our chartering effort and phase I of our re-establishment. Here are a few words that he would like to share with the alumni:
“Only a year ago, and until meeting Chris Healy (the national recruitment director), I myself was unaware Sigma Nu even existed. Yet over the past twelve months, I have grown extremely close to my forty brothers and have managed to lead these men to complete a four-hundred page petition to bring Zeta Xi back to UC Davis. My life has been forever changed by my interaction with these members, the alumni, and the national advisors of this great fraternity. My brothers and I believe firmly in our creed and values and are committed to the virtues of Love, Honor, and Truth. I often ponder what it must have been like to be a Sigma Nu back when you, the alumni, were active members; wondering how much fun it must have been, how much of a strong brotherhood you all must have had. But I also look to the future, to the possibilities of recruiting hundreds of new men and leaders, to invest in a communal house to evolve our culture, and to chart a course to become the best fraternity on campus and a Rock Chapter of Sigma Nu. We can not accomplish these high objectives without the support of the hundreds of great Zeta Xi Alumni. We are grateful to those alumni who have helped mentor us through this process. And we really want to meet more of you at some of our upcoming events. As we will all soon be alumni members ourselves, we want to foster a superior alumni organization to which both you and we can continue to be an active part of Sigma Nu. Please join us to celebrate this momentous Chartering occasion on May 9 and Picnic Day on April 18. Thank you all for your contributions and I look forward to meeting you and joining you as a Knight of the Legion of Honor.” Adrian House, past Eminent Commander
| | | HOUSING
One of our goals last year was to find a modest fraternity house that can support 15-20 actives and give them the same communal experience that we all shared and remember as one of the greatest benefits of membership. This will give them a solid  foundation on which to build, a place to meet and socialize, and an aid in recruiting other high quality members. It will also give the alumni a place to visit when we visit Davis, a place to re-establish our history. We are even bringing back the White Rock that was saved and held in safe keeping by Chiles Wilson. Fortunately, we have an account with National of $117,000 for this purpose as a result of the sale of our previous house and donation. This is a great start to our goal, although we need to raise some additional funds. We have formed a Housing Corp. led by Kim Stephenson studying this issue now. Kim is seeking some help from others of you who have interest and expertise in this area.
| | | ALUMNI SUPPORT/FUNDRAISING
Many of you have sent e-mails of support throughout the last year as we have updated you on our progress towards this goal. And some of you have asked what more you could do to support this effort, including donating $. To date, we have self-funded this effort with most coming from National, the new colony members, and the 13 member alumni board. But now we do need your help and generous donations to fund upcoming events and furnishing the house. We have set a short term goal to raise $15,000 to help fund the fraterntity and to create a reserve fund for future events and the continue our housing initiative. With our large and successful alumni base, this should be a fairly reasonable target. I realize that the economy is tough and that you may have other charitable requests to which you have already committed. But this will be a gift that has already given to each of us and will keep giving for years to come – to all of the past generations of SIGMA NU and Philos Delphos that sacrificed to make our chapter and house possible, to the current men who believed in us and busted it to earn our charter back, and to future generations that will come and be forever influenced by the brotherhood and credos of SIGMA NU. We are offering/suggesting 5 levels of support for you to choose from:
Sigma Nu Fundraising Drive
- Founder’s Level $5000+
- Rock Level $1000+
- Star Level $500+
- White Rose Level $100+
- Knight Level <$100
But please give in any amount with which you are comfortable.
We have tried to make this donation process easy for you by clicking on or linking to the PayPal account listed below and on the “Donations” and “Alumni” tabs of this website. No checks, stamps, or delays. We will notify you of the receipt, send thank you notes, and issue running tallies of our progress throughout. You can also see a budget of how these $ will be used on our site. Maybe you can challenge your pledge class, or better yet, your class can challenge another one.
To donate now, please click on this link:
| | | CLOSING/NEXT STEPS
In closing, yes we are excited about the events of this last year and coming this spring. But we are even more excited about the future of SIGMA NU, both nationally and at UCD. SIGMA NU is truly setting the gold standard for fraternities today and as a result, is attracting men who are a cut above the rest and who are ready to lead and contribute. I am proud to be a SIGMA NU and I am proud that we are again offering this same opportunity to young men at UC Davis and making a difference in their lives. It is exciting to see these young men exhibit the same passion for brotherhood that we shared and still share today.
And one of the key premises that is attracting these men is that Sigma Nu is not just a social club or college years experience – rather it is a lifetime connection where many of the fruits are in the decades to come through continued association with brothers across generations. And this now is one of their and our biggest goals – that is to build up the alumni chapter by reconnecting our past members and growing it further by new graduating members. This is why we are promoting your attendance at the Picnic Day and Chartering Day events this spring. We need you!
We sincerely hope to see you at these upcoming events to renew and celebrate our brotherhood. Be on the lookout for another mailing from Chapter Alumni Relations Director, Todd Polidore (tbpolidore@ucdavis.edu) regarding updates on these 2 events. Communicate with him directly if you would like to help or want more information on our progress.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not recognize the many alumni and other men that have donated their time and energy to making this happen. First, I would like to thank the national representatives, (Chris Healy, Jake Welshans, and Andrew Meeks) that targeted Davis for expansion and then came to live on campus for 4+ months to recruit and train our first candidate class. They have become close brothers of ours during this time. And I am blessed to have 13 alumni volunteers as part of our alumni board to help mentor these young men and oversee the effort. A special thanks to 6 of our members who attended universities other than Davis, but still responded to our appeal to participate in this recolonization. Thank you all as we would not have the positive result today without all of these men’s efforts.
Fraternally Yours,
Mike Wheeler, Alumni Chairman (ZX #412) | | |
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