Posts by: Michael De Lisi
Lafayette College hosted its first Greek Life Virtual Town Hall this afternoon. It is available for download and viewing at this link. I suggest everyone interested in Greek Life, DKE, and the progress of IAGGL (pronounced Eagle), watch and listen to the presentation. The first half hour is an overview by Dr. Celestino Limas. The second half hour is a Q&A session with a mix of pre-submitted questions and questions submitted during the virtual town hall by online participants.
The main speakers are:
- Bob Massa – VP of Communications – “Moderator” of the town hall
- Celestino Limas – VP of Campus Life & Senior Diversity Officer – Main speaker, Chair of IAGGL
- Stuart Umberger – Director of Fraternity & Sorority Life
- Other speakers were faculty/students, who introduce themselves when they speak
This Lafayette’s first time using this technology to communicate with its alumni base and parents of students. They covered a lot of ground and this is a good opportunity for alumni to see, hear, and think about how IAGGL is approaching their work.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or opinions about the virtual town hall or IAGGL’s work, please write them in the comments section of this post or e-mail them directly to Michael De Lisi.
In a recent speech at The Episcopal Academy, Will Forbes ’96 recognized his Great-Uncle Frank Forbes, who today is 94, a retired fighter pilot from the Flying Tigers in the 14th Air Force during WWII. Frank was shot down and MIA for 3 weeks and managed to get out. In telling his Great-Uncle’s story, Brother Forbes reminds us of the lasting impact the experiences of our formative years has on our lives. Will passed along the following note:
If you have 15 minutes to watch it, it is a great story. How many times in your life do you get the chance to honor someone who is still with us?
This week’s edition of The Lafayette is now available online here. There are again several articles of interest to the Greek Life community.
First, is the article Conversation begins at first IAGGL town meeting, which describes the first on campus meeting between students and members of the IAGGL (pronounced Eagle):
Limas stressed that the requirements were not purposefully ambiguous, but that the ambiguity came as a cause of the ever-changing campus demographics. “You’re going to have to trust that this process is fair,” Limas told students, “and that it is objective.”
The article also quotes a Deke:
“Certainly, many people are afraid that the ‘discussion’ is jumping right to whether Greek life should be ousted from the campus or not,” Delta Kappa Epsilon member Jared Piette ‘12 wrote in an email interview. “But I personally feel that the administration is truly interested in hearing Greek life’s side before making any rash decisions.”
Piette, as well as some faculty members expressed their disappointment at not seeing more non-affiliated members attend the meetings. Piette stressed that their inclusion is “paramount” and Limas was “surprised that we still don’t have a critical mass of non-Greek students at these events.”
Other articles of interest include summaries of presentations by the final candidates for the new Dean of Students. This week’s edition covered presentations by Brian S. Mauro, the Dean of Students at Farleigh Dickinson University , and Anamaria Cobo de Paci, who is “working on her dissertation at Widener University, but she has worked in higher education for 20 years.” Click on the links for the summary of each presentation.
Read through the articles to learn about the potential next Dean of Students at Lafayette College.
As a reminder, you can receive electronic editions of the newspaper by registering here.
This week’s edition of The Lafayette is now available online here. As the undergrad website noted, Billy Leonard ’14, a Deke, is featured in the “Proud of our Pards” segment:
Away from the track, Leonard is a proud member of Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. “The 4×4 is a lot like being in a fraternity,” Leonard said. “Your contributions are going to something bigger than yourself and other people are relying on you.” This type of mentality and effort is something that Leonard brings to all aspects of his life.
His Coach, Robert Farrell, expects nothing less than a complete effort from the talented sophomore. “He is very competitive and always exhibits the kind of confidence that’s necessary for success,” Farrell said. “He trains very hard but can always keep practice fun with his sense of humor.”
Several other articles are noteworthy to Greek Life at Lafayette College. The first is the article “Living Learning Communities Cleaning up Monroe,” which describe the new LLC initiative:
Every department sponsoring a LLC chooses which students will live there. Interested students can collaborate with a department to secure a LLC.
Twenty LLCs are in the works for next semester including one for French, Wall Street and the Association of Lafayette Feminists (ALF)/Women and Gender Studies partnership.
Read the full article for more details with comments by the administration, faculty, and students.
The other articles of interest are summaries of presentations by the final candidates for the new Dean of Students. This week’s edition covered presentations by William Stackman, currently Director of Student Activities for Texas A&M University and Paul J McLoughlin, currently a professor of higher education at Boston College.
Read through the articles to learn about the potential next Dean of Students at Lafayette College.
As a reminder, you can receive electronic editions of the newspaper by registering here.
The New York Law Journal recently reported Brother McCurdy ’82 was elected chair of the law firm Kelley Drye & Warren:
Kelley Drye & Warren has announced the election of Paul McCurdy as firm chair, succeeding John M. Callagy, who has been in the role since 1992. James J. Kirk, a partner in the real estate practice group, will continue to serve as managing partner, a role he has held since 2004. Mr. McCurdy, 51, said that among his goals as chair will be to create an environment for partners to become more engaged in firm governance; to continue to recruit high-quality lateral partners; and to build on Kelley Drye’s culture of “collegiality, inclusiveness, diversity, transparency, community service and pro bono.”
The Am Law Daily has more detailed information on Brother McCurdy’s background, the firm, and the selection process including:
The firm brought in consultants Dominick Volini and Bob Rosen from Healthy Companies International, a consulting firm McCurdy says a client recommended, to lead a thorough review of Kelley Drye’s governance structure. That review is not yet complete, says McCurdy, adding that his first goals as chair will be to successfully adopt new policies to shape the firm based on the feedback the consultants and firm leaders have gathered via their extensive interviews with the partnership.
Please join us in wishing Paul well in his new role of firm chair at Kelley Drye. Paul previously served as the President of the Rho House Association and President of the Lafayette College Alumni Association. He currently serves as a trustee of Lafayette College.
Brother Glock ’86 is again rallying the Rho Dekes from ’86 (plus or minus a few graduation years…the more the merrier!) Contact Peter Glock for more information.
Gentlemen, we are having our 3rd annual Rho ’86 DKE summer outing this year on May 5th (and 4th for those who are interested) in Washington, DC. We are planning to see the Phillies play the Nationals on the 5th at 1:05 pm, sandwiched by obligatory “cultural events,” of which there are certainly plenty in our nation’s capital. Given some of our brothers’ ties to DC, I’m sure we can also plot some outstanding night spots for Saturday night. We had a great time a couple of years ago in NYC. Our group continues to express a desire to reunite with Dekes from the years around us, so this is the perfect vehicle to bring the larger group together.
A few of us are planning to arrive in DC around noon on Friday, and do some sight-seeing, so we’ll be staying for 2 nights. Still, it’s fine if you just want to do Saturday night as well. If there is interest, I can see if we can get some group rates for hotel rooms if enough guys are interested.
I have been in touch with the group ticketing office of the Nationals, and it sounds like we will be able to get tickets together for the game, but because it’s a Phils game, they expect high demand for group tickets for the game. So the earlier we can get our request in, the more likely we’ll be able to get seats together in a desirable section. Please let me know if you’re going to be able to attend by Thursday so that we have a pretty firm grasp on the number of tickets we’ll need, and I can get our deposit in to give us a better chance.
We got 15 of us last time for the Yankee game (picture below). I’m hoping with this larger audience that we’ll be able to get double that for a major DKE reunion.
Feel free to extend this invite to any other Dekes that I may have missed, and “persuade” your fellow Dekes to attend with you. The more, the merrier !
Hope you can make it !!
Rho Dekes at Yankee Stadium
Our hosting transfer is complete. We’ve added RSS feeds from our students (see right sidebar), and two from Lafayette College. One is for progress reports from the Implementation and Assessment Greek Life Group IAGGL and the other is for general Greek Life news (see left sidebar). rhodke.org is your one-stop shop for all Lafayette College Greek Life information relevant to Rho Dekes!
We also added an RSS feed you can subscribe to with your favorite RSS reader here or by clicking on the RSS icon in the top right of the page. You’ll also notice a button up there that takes you to the Rho DKE LinkedIn Group for professional networking and development.
As part of the hosting move, we decided to archive the forums. If there is demand, we can bring them back up. We have the data offline. Since we don’t have forums, please comment on the individual articles we post here or any of our pages.
All e-mails accounts have been setup. We are still in the process of setting up the individual class mailing lists. When we setup each mailing list, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with instructions on how to use the discussion list with your classmates.
We’re in the process of transferring to a new host. Please pardon our appearance and check back soon because the transfer is almost complete!
Lafayette’s Communications Department agreed to post Greek related news to their Greek Life website under Fraternity/Sorority Community in the News. Please remember to send all alumni news updates to rhonews@rhodke.org. We’ll make sure your updates get published to rhodke.org as well as Lafayette’s website for Greek Life.
In late December, Lafayette posted an update from Dr. Celestino Limas, who is the chair of the Implementation and Assessment Group on Greek Life on the college’s website. He outlines their work as:
1) Establish metrics by which we can evaluate the Greek system’s ability to meet the four objectives spelled out by the Board of Trustees after their October 2011 meeting;
2) Discuss how to best implement the twenty-three Board-approved recommendations from the previous Working Group on Greek Life study and also the six recommendations that needed further clarification;
3) Transition our efforts to that of an oversight group that can receive data/input and assess how well the current Greek system is meeting the four goals outlined by the Board of Trustees.
Dr. Limas also announced tentative dates of February 17 and April 13 for virtual town hall meetings where all members of the Lafayette Community may participate via the internet. Stay tuned as those dates approach for more information.
Sample from DKE Gallery
Latest Update from IAGGL- An Update from the ChairFebruary 8, 2012 To Lafayette alumni and members of the on-campus community: Greetings from unseasonably warm College Hill. I am writing to provide an update on the work of the Implementation and Assessment Group on Greek Life (IAGGL) and to … Continue reading → […]
- An Update from the Chair
- Undergraduate news
- DKE Super Fans February 14, 2012 John Burke
- Jon Williamson Futures Quest February 8, 2012 John Burke
- Brother Leonard Excels on the Track February 3, 2012 John Burke
