2021 Fraternity & Sorority Life Awards Banquet Transcription <Start of Awards Ceremony> <Image Description: Slide with a rolling out of a red carpet that reads: Welcome to the Fraternity & Sorority Life Awards, Office of Student Life and Student Engagement & Activities, May 6, 2021> Samantha Thompson: Good Evening, everyone! It is my pleasure to welcome each of you here to celebrate the accomplishments of Stony Brook University's fraternities and sororities. My name is Samantha Thompson and I am the Associate Director for Student Engagement and Activities. I am very excited to be here this evening to celebrate your many accomplishments. I would like to welcome our Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Dr. Rick Gatteau to start off tonight’s event. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide that reads: Opening Remarks, Dr. Rick Gatteau, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students> Dr. Rick Gatteau: Thanks a lot, Samantha. Hi Everybody! It’s great to see you. Second year on Zoom with this and I am just telling Samantha that the balloons are still here so I guess the helium lasted all year, didn’t it? Okay good. So thrilled to welcome you to the 2021 Fraternity and Sorority Life Awards. I think this is such a great way for us to gather and celebrate this past year. For those of you who may have joined us on Zoom last year for this event, we are back, but this is going to be it! This is going to be in person after this. From now on, we are making it so. I just wanted to on behalf of Student Affairs and the University, thank you so much for your incredible leadership. Our fraternity and sorority life at Stony Brook is really important the University and that is really because of the values that all carry everyday in your work as students, as leaders, the scholarship, the service, the friendship , the philanthropy, all the work that you do to support the community is so important. I always ask Samantha, what happened this year to make the Greek Life so exceptional and I am just so impressed that even in a year of the pandemic the fact that you were able to not only recruit 300 new members this year is incredible but also the fact of how giving you all are as a student group which included 400 hours of community service initiatives, donated more than $53,000 to charitable causes, an amazing number. 1,400 virtuals programs and events over the course of the year. I just think that is really impressive. I also want to quickly highlight how appreciative I am of the IFSC this year. I have had the opportunity to work with several Student Affairs colleagues and some student leaders from our IFSC on our sexual assault prevention and response working group and I jsut want to say how much I appreciate the student leaders that have taken such an active role in not only the University’s response plan, but also how we can educate and work together to prevent sexual assault and violence on our campus. So I hope that you and many of you will continue next year to help with that movement because it is really important for the safety and health of our campus community. I just wanted to thank all of you for your involvement in that. I do also want to say to anybody here with us that is graduating, congratulations! I am so thrilled for you. I hope your experience at Stony Brook has been just the best part of your life and that it has been rewarding and fulfilling and that you are carrying with you all that you have, those amazing leadership skills that you have developed from our fraternity and sorority community. We are just so thrilled, you are going to be Seawolves for life. So congratulations on that. And last I just wanted to give a huge shout out to Samantha Thompson and Kevin Grunder for this year. They have just done amazing work in the fraternity and sorority community. I am so appreciative for their guidance and leadership among all of you. I just think they are just amazing role models and really carry so much in terms of the time and effort 1 they put forth to keep this community strong. So thank you both for all of your hard work. And with that, I will pass it back to Samantha and I am looking forward to tonight. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide that reads: Judges for Fraternity & Sorority Life Awards with the names of each individual awards judge> Samantha Thompson: Thank you Rick for your welcoming remarks. To begin our program this evening, I would like to thank our Fraternity & Sorority Awards Judges. These individuals spent countless hours reading through all of your outstanding awards applications and selecting winners for each of our organizational, programming, and individual awards. Thank you so much for your time and commitment to recognizing our fraternity and sorority life community! <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide with a gold and red star that reads:Chapter Awards> The Fraternity and Sorority Life Awards is a time to celebrate the achievements of our fraternity and sorority leaders, advisors, and campus partners who are committed to contributing to the progress, importance, and relevancy of our organizations. This year especially the need to celebrate and recognize one another is paramount. Please utilize the chat feature on this Zoom call to share congratulatory comments and the “reaction” buttons to show your support and recognize the contributions of our award recipients. Additionally, we are pleased to offer a live transcript or subtitles of this year’s award’s ceremony to all participants. As a participant, you may choose to enable this feature. If you need assistance please message any of the hosts in the chat. We begin our Awards Ceremony with our Chapter Awards: <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Outstanding Chapter Management with its description> The Outstanding Chapter Management Award recognizes a chapter that has excelled in balancing the many facets that go into a fraternal organization. This chapter exemplifies the highest standards of management, teamwork, and communication and has made it a priority to focus this year on their pillars of fellowship, leadership, scholarship, and service at the chapter and community level. Having a majority of newer members at the start of the Fall 2020 semester, this organization worked very hard to balance priorities of organizational management, cultivating membership involvement, and working as a collective to attain their goals. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Kappa Sigma and a picture of its organizational crest.> Please join me in congratulating Kappa Sigma for their outstanding chapter management. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Excellence in Academic Achievement with its description> Scholarship is the cornerstone of both Stony Brook University and the fraternal community. The Excellence in Academic Achievement Award recognizes a chapter for their outstanding commitment to scholarship and is awarded to the chapter with the highest overall GPA. This year’s recipient has an overall GPA of 3.74, which is well above the all-men’s, all-women’s, and all campus GPA. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Phi Delta Epsilon International Medical Fraternity and a picture of its organizational crest.> Please join me in congratulating Phi Delta Epsilon International Medical Fraternity for their outstanding academic achievement. 2 <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Excellence in Campus Involvement with its description> The Excellence in Campus Involvement Award is given to an organization who has members heavily involved in campus life. This chapter made a concerted effort to use this new virtual environment to extend their ability to intentionally collaborate with more student organizations and campus departments. This organization actively collaborated with other organizations to raise money for Black Lives Matter, the B+ foundation, and collaborated with a total of 14 student organizations for an AAPI Awareness fundraiser. This chapter also partnered with the Center for Prevention and Outreach and participated in their available bystander intervention training opportunities which resulted in many of their members earning an Upstander Award. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Alpha Omega Epsilon and a picture of its organizational crest.> This year’s Excellence in Campus Involvement Award goes to Alpha Omega Epsilon. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Persistence Award with its description> The Persistence Award is given to a chapter who has made outstanding strides in overcoming barriers related to the COVID-19 pandemic and shares how they persisted with overall chapter operations. This year’s award recipient has focused on ensuring connection between chapter members and the Stony Brook University community by actively collaborating with other organizations and departments virtually. This organization has made a personal commitment to ensuring their members were informed of how to take care of themselves and their community, and did so by partnering with the Center of Prevention and Outreach to complete all five bystander intervention sessions as a chapter. This organization intentionally designed opportunities to help their members and chapter as a whole grow and develop. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Theta Phi Alpha and a picture of its organizational crest.> It is for these reasons that we recognize Theta Phi Alpha with the Persistence Award. <SLIDE CHANGE to a slide which reads Excellence in Virtual Engagement with its description> The Excellence in Virtual Engagement Award is given to a chapter that has created a strong connectedness with their members and the community through effective communication via social media and offering of virtual engagement opportunities.