Fall 2020 Semester

The Alpha Lamda pledge class was the largest recent pledge class with 9 new brothers!

Spring 2017 Semester
The following are excerpts from this semester’s Alumni Newsletter

Dear Alumni of the Tau Pi Chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity,

It is my honor to write to you, the alumni who have built our illustrious chapter over the last 10 years,  laying the groundwork for the incredible experience our active brothers have the privilege of enjoying  today. This has been an incredibly successful year for our brotherhood. This semester, our chapter  initiated its largest ever spring rush class, as we added 6 fine new members to our ranks, and during the year, we  have grown from 25 to 39 members, rapidly approaching the 40+ member mark. While we’ve achieved  rapid growth, we’ve also managed to maintain our core identity. We have strengthened our pledge  program, hosted a number of events this year with Hillel, and have worked to teach our brothers to be  Jewish leaders both on and off campus. Most importantly, we’ve managed to strengthen our  brotherhood through this period of growth by emphasizing brotherly love and our Jewish identity.

Some of our chapter’s most notable accomplishments this semester were our development within the  fraternity, and our increased involvement in the greater Greek community. We held a number of  successful sorority mixers, elected two brothers to the Interfraternity Council, and successfully courted  our soon-to-be neighbors Phi Mu to homecoming. Our chapter is quickly becoming better known and  more active on campus, not only for our parties, but also for the safe atmosphere they provide, which  has remained a staple of our identity. As many of you may know, AEPi Nationals awarded our  chapter 1st place in Risk Management at Convention last summer, and we’ve maintained our strong risk  program throughout this year. Additionally, our brotherhood initiated 13 new brothers this school  year, with a 100% pledge retention rate. After our chapter was lucky enough last semester to be able to  incorporate you, our alumni, into our pledge program over homecoming weekend, we continued to  strengthen pledge this semester. All of the 6 pledges this semester completed over 90% of their pledge  tasks, were trained extensively in risk management, and experienced our first ever Bid Day ritual. The  pledges also got to experience our chapter’s furthest reaching philanthropy, AEPancakes 2017, which  has raised over $2,700 for charity.

We have also taken other steps to fulfill our fraternity’s motto of building leaders for the Jewish  community. This year, a new Jewish women’s organization, Shevet, started on campus and we  continued to strengthen our ties with them this semester. In addition, we’ve been increasing our Jewish  Identity programs, and recently held We Walk to Remember for Holocaust Remembrance Day with  Hillel. Additionally, the fraternity scheduled a Jinterships representative to visit the house and conduct  interviews, and many brothers have received internships through this program. I’d like to encourage all  of you to check out the Tau Pi chapter’s newly introduced LinkedIn page, the newest resource we have  for expanding the job network for our brothers! Lastly, I’d like to thank all the alumni who have visited  in past year, as it’s been incredible meeting the men who created all the traditions we enjoy today. I  promise you, your hard work and love for this fraternity have not gone unappreciated, and the  brotherhood today strives to keep working hard in your legacy.

Fraternally,

Ben Schloss (’19)

Fall 2016 Semester
The following are excerpts from this semester’s Alumni Newsletter

Master’s Letter

Dear Alumni of the Tau Pi chapter of AEPi,

I am proud to say we achieved unprecedented success this semester and primed the  chapter for long term growth. We now have 32 active brothers who excel across campus and  in their communities. We built positive relationships with W&M, Nationals, and AEPi chapters  around the globe including St. Andrews, Hebrew U, and Sydney! We continue to develop  Jewish leadership on campus and support a thriving Jewish community at the college. Though  the chapter evolves constantly, at our core we are still the tight-knit, Jewish, illustrious brotherhood many of you remember.

Most notably, this semester we improved our risk management plan and held social  events like the pledge-planned party, sorority mixers, and Christmas with the Jews without a  hitch. Due to our efforts, Nationals awarded us 1st Place in Risk Management among all  chapters! Yes, this really happened. We understand the inherent risks of our social events, but  we’ve found ways to have fun while keeping brothers, guests, and the chapter out of trouble.  As many alumni know, we had an amazing first homecoming with Alpha Chi Omega (AXO)!  We hope to improve upon our first homecoming events and alumni outreach for next year. For  fall rush, we piloted a new CRM software for Nationals (ChapterBuilder) to replace  spreadsheets. We’ve initiated 12 men in the past year and are on track to become a  brotherhood of 40+ in the near future. Our pledge period now includes pledge task manuals  and actual risk management training. We retained 100% of our pledges and 100% of them ran  for AEPi and/or Hillel E-Board. For the first time, two brothers were elected to IFC Executive  Board! Peter Brooks (VP of Scholarship) and Jonah Yesowitz (VP of Finance/Administration)  will represent us well. We continue to support Shevet, the new Jewish women’s group on  campus, and hope to come together with Hillel to strengthen the Jewish community on  campus. We also wrote and passed a J-Board amendment, cloture amendment, and election  timing amendment; all of which will make meetings quicker and cases smoother. Lastly, we  established a formal officer transition process to ensure our progress continues.

Through our growth, we never forget the roots of Tau Pi and you, the brothers whose  contributions have helped shape our college experience. It’s always a struggle to balance  brotherhood and organization, but I believe we’re discovering a mix that works. This year  we’ve done a lot for the good and welfare of our chapter, however there’s still much work to  be done. I’d like to personally thank our alumni for keeping in touch and supporting the  chapter’s efforts. I hope you take as much pride in the brotherhood today as you did in your  college years, because we wouldn’t be where we are today without you! I have high  confidence in the brotherhood and incoming E-Board to take us to the next level, and I hope  you’ll take the chance to reconnect and support us too.

Fraternally,  Steven Simon

Jewish Identity

On October 21st, I had the distinct honor  of perpetrating AEPi’s first ever “Pizza in  the Hut” celebration. The event was  designed to bring Jewish students  together in order to celebrate the holiday  of Sukkot. Fortunately for us, Hillel had  already purchased and built a Sukkah near  the Sunken Gardens, so we were able to  spend our entire budget on the most  illustrious, tantalizing pizza you could  ever imagine. As soon as I clicked “submit”  on my online Chanello’s order, it started to  drizzle. I figured it would clear up by the  time the pizza got there. Boy was I wrong.  Once rain started coming down like  bullets, it became clear that the sukkah  was not going to be the best setting for our  event. We moved the pizza and brothers  to the second most Jewish place we could  find, the James Room of the Sadler  Center. Hillel was just finishing up their  meeting there, so we ate, talked, and  celebrated together. The following day, I  offered to walk through the Sukkah with  any brothers who wanted to, so we fit the  Jewish component in too. As much as this  shift totally negated the purpose of the  event, “Pizza in the Hut” united Hillel and  AEPi in a way which we don’t usually,  making me thankful for the Jewish  community on our campus. I really hope  we can do this in the future.

-Jonah Yesowitz, Jewish Identity Chair