Spring Pi Alpha Phi
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09 SPRING PI ALPHA PHI The Official Newsletter of Pi Alpha Phi National Asian American Interest Fraternity www.pialphaphi.com GENERATIONS VISION Pi Alpha Phi is to be recognized and respected by campus leaders, college administrators, and the general public as the premiere Asian American Interest Fraternity. Pi Alpha Phi binds and inspires its members through the shared common values of Academic Excellence, Brotherhood, Leadership, Philanthropy, and Asian American Aware- ness. By applying these values in their everyday actions, our members become positive contributors to the community. - the Strategic Plan 20 YEARS AND COUNTING Generations A publication of Pi Alpha Phi Na- tional Fraternity for its members, alumni, donors, and friends. By Gordon Wong, UCB Pi Alpha Phi t’s been 20 years since I first joined the National Leadership Alpha chapter at UC Berkeley. College Iis the time where individuals have the opportunity to form their personal identity. I President pledged in Spring 1989. Some of you who Keith Chu (UC Riverside) [email protected] are reading this were barely born then. When I pledged I didn’t know exactly what I was Vice President getting myself into. There were times I wanted Ken Hui (UC Santa Barbara) to drop out of pledging. I didn’t particularly [email protected] have the “bonding” experience with my pledge brothers that was advertised. Treasurer Sujay Karve (UC Berkeley) I did meet some good men in Pi Alpha Phi. The [email protected] real lesson I learned about pledging and being Secretary active in Pi Alpha Phi was the importance Jason JA Wang of recruiting the “Right Guys”. Pledging (UC Berkeley) cannot teach a person to value academics, [email protected] brotherhood, leadership, philanthropy, or Asian American Awareness. Either someone Alumni Relations has those values; or they don’t. David Jung (MSU) alumnirelations@pialp- haphi.com We all have our memorable and forgettable moments during college, but I am more Membership Develop- appreciative of the connections and bonding ment and Education Doug Radtke that continued after college. In Pi Alpha Phi (UC Riverside) we preach about lifetime brotherhood, but [email protected] how many of us are fortunate to maintain the brotherhood that after college? Risk Management Brian Gee (UC Berkeley) Realistically, how do you view Pi Alpha Phi in riskmanagement@pialp- haphi.com YOUR life after college? It’s great to want the best men in your wedding (which most of our fraternity brothers do), but that’s still just an example of friendship. Brotherhood requires an extra commitment. Not of sacrifice, but holding each other accountable to the values of the organization. To respect and live up to the legacy of the brothers that came before. To mentor those that are coming after. RETURN TO THE PILLARS by Doug Radtke joined Pi Alpha Phi in the Fall of 2002 at San in determining what is truly important in Jose State University. I had rushed almost taking in pledges AND actives and molding Iall of the other fraternities at San Jose them into “men of Pi Alpha Phi”. Are we truly State before I finally came upon Pi Alpha Phi. executing the Pi Alpha Phi Mission? At the time, I was impressed that brothers from Riverside, Irvine, Davis, Berkeley, and Pi Alpha Phi upholds a Tradition of Excellence Santa Cruz bros, as well as alumni came out stemming from the vision of our Founding to support the chapter during its rush. This Fathers. stood to me in very stark contrast to the Excelling in the five pillars molds young other fraternities who only had San Jose State men to be successful in endeavors beyond chapter representatives at their rush events their academic pursuits. We cannot be so and no alumni present. To me as a young arrogant to simply move ahead and ignore bro, Pi Alpha Phi stood for an unbreakable what the founding fathers were trying to brotherhood which when I was rushed was achieve in the first place. described as “the only fraternity where you will know people from every campus we are Much of our discussions regarding the at on a first name basis”. This was true for many fraternity seem to focus solely on pledging, years in my involvement in the fraternity and but the ideas of the Five Pillars really for myself, is still very true. expand beyond pledging into all the facets of our fraternity. We should truly focus Brothers oftetimes focus very often solely on on developing our members into men of the brotherhood aspect of Pi Alpha Phi. But we excellence who make a lifelong commitment an organization of more than just one pillar. to the values of Pi Alpha Phi. There are We have five unique pillars: Brotherhood, tangible connections to our grades, our Leadership, Academic Excellence, Asian connections with the asian community, and Awareness, and Philanthropy. The pillars our willingness to serve others. We know the were created and called such because they symptoms afflicting our organization, but are “what holds our fraternity up”. If we are to we are debating the method of treatment. simplify the Pi Alpha Phi mission statement We should realize that if the symptoms in one sentence - it should be to uphold the have been on-going while the treatment five pillars. Too often, we focus only on one has remained the same - that change needs or two pillars, without much emphasis given to happen. A holistic approach to tackling to the rest. these issues is necessary. We need to take Pi Alpha Phi back to the We have to focus on all the things we will “glory days”. I’m sure many of the younger gain from further development and refining bros have heard older bros and alumni of our fraternal practices, which will take speak of. It begins with understanding the Pi Alpha Phi into the 21st century and concepts of the five pillars and then applying beyond. the pillars in all of the fraternal activities we engage in. We need to take a “back to pillars” approach UC BERKELEY CHAPTER UPDATE t the beginning of the spring 2007 semes- ter, only nine brothers made up the active Achapter. Almost two years later, our fraternity has grown to 34 actives. The last 3 semesters, each pledge class – Zeta Lambda, Zeta Mu, and Zeta Nu – has consisted of nine strong members. Each new class brings younger brothers and leaders into the chapter; but for the most part, the leadership/cabi- net has always been composed of older brothers. The Spring 2009 Cabinet, however, was an excep- tion, composed of mostly sophomores, the new cabinet was motivated to lead the young “genera- tion.” Challenges arose right from the beginning with the two most evident being a decrease in brotherhood and leadership transitioning. Our chapter grew very quickly over a period of two years; but the size increase of our house created distance between brothers as the fraternity is not as close-knit as the house two years ago. Leadership transitioning was also a problem as older members graduate. Howev- er, we are working with Berkeley fraternity advisers and the chapter’s alumni advisory team to fix these problems moving forward into the future. Apathy and laziness of chapter members were dealt with right away. Our Vice President of Internal James Zheng planned and executed more brotherhood events so that brothers simply just spend time with each other. A brotherhood trip to Clearlake, coupled with our annual ski trip to Tahoe and rafting trip to Cache Creek serve as important bonding events for bros in the house. Furthermore, we created a posi- tion’s guide to help new members see what their position is supposed to do and what old chairs did. On March 22, the Zeta Xi’s – Jordan Cui, Bryan Hard- jadiparta, James Lee, Victor Mu, and Andrew Popov successfully crossed into the fraternity. They were led by Pledgemaster Jeff Louie and Pledge Dad Ben Mo. Zeta Xi installations took place on April 10th with 15 different organizations presenting. Furthermore, our Spring 2009 Cabinet implement- ed successful internal changes to improve how the fraternity runs including revamped committee and fine systems. Additionally, new chair positions were created to give brothers more leadership opportunities and keep them accountable. Other efforts to improve the chapter include more transparent and open communication with alumni, increased siblinghood with our sister sorority Sigma Omicron Pi (SOPi), a growing online testbank with almost 3 gigabytes UC BERKELEY of files, a Berkeley Pi Alpha Phi Windows Live Groups groups, particularly individuals of Asian and Pacific which includes a calendar of upcoming events, a Sky- Islander (API), Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Drive for storage of pictures, next generation online Russian, and African descent for hepatitis B (HBV). collaborative tools. On a related note, we opened up a new chair in the More efficient meetings were rune with the use of Pow- house, health worker, to educate brothers on the erpoint. We gained more rush sponsorships, and new importance of sanitary conditions, alcohol aware- fundraisers (Kaplan) in addition to food concessions we ness, and sex education. The inaugural chair was usually do for Cal football games. Fall 09 president elect James Zheng and the new position will be carried on by me. Glenn DeGuzman, a member of the Cal Office of Student Leadership, recently joined alumnus Gordon Wong on Alpha chapter has also been improving in terms of the chapter’s advisory team. Glenn DeGuzman joined academic excellence the past year. We have had a our chapter’s executive board. Glenn worked with our rising chapter GPA for 3 consecutive semesters. chapter a couple of years ago to organize a leadership workshop and I am excited to work with him again.