Spring

Recruitment: Alpha Zetas

Recruitment was definitely an outstanding success this semester! Right away we started the semester off with 3 different information sessions and had good turnouts. I am still in shock that we got 30 rushes this year. But if you look at the numbers, it makes sense. We had 80 names on the bros wish list, and 40 people sign up at the club fair. Unfortunately, the registrar was less than helpful, and I did not get to send the mass email to all applicable sophomores and freshmen. So how did we end up with 30? Personally I feel like many of us at Lehigh feel this push to be involved in something, or else you will be constantly missing out. And this year, PSP became that safe haven for so many eager initiates.

For the rush events, we did Disney Trivia, a Hot Coca Bar, and Valentine’s Day Cards for the children in St Lukes. Hot Chocolate Bar was definitely the biggest turn out, because who doesn’t love a warm cup of hot chocolate? We played this or that, and people stayed an entire hour later just to talk to brothers. I knew we would find some excellent rushes, but I didn’t know how many. Pref week was a little crazy, with four events. We did People Bingo, Mocktails, Egg Drop, and Team Builders. This was the second pref in a row doing Egg Drop, and everyone loved it. Something about being in teams just added an extra energy to the air. This new initiate class is filled with so many diverse and wonderful students I am sure they will make valuable additions to our chapter here at Delta Chi!

-Written by Stephanie Cook

Leadership: Free Rice Competition

On January 30th, I held one of my first events called “The Free Rice Competition”. For this event, I looked back into my middle school days to the website freerice.com. This non-profit website is a program run by the United Nations as a part of their World Food Program. For the event I asked bros to bring a buddy and laptop and prepare to have a bit of friendly competition. Each team was to try and answer as many questions correctly in the time allotted all while donating hundreds of grains of rice to help end world hunger. In the end we donated 22,920 grains of rice! Overall I enjoyed this event because it was lovely to see my fellow brothers have so much fun all while helping to make our world a little better.

-Written by Sam Randall

Eastern Regional Conference

The first East Regional Conference of the Spring was held at Rutgers University in Brunswick, New Jersey. Fifty-two brothers from all six chapters gathered for a weekend of games, scavenger hunts, leadership modules, and above all, fellowship. The weekend began on Friday night with a wholesome game of PSP trivia followed by countless ice breakers. The following morning began with a scavenger hunt around the campus followed by a presentation by a HOBY representative. This was followed by a leadership module regarding diversity and the role that it played in each of our chapters. Groups took this time to compare chapter tactics regarding diversity, chapter procedures, etc. all coming away with new improvements to propose to our own chapters. The night ended with cake in honor of PSP's 100th anniversary followed by an epic lip-sync battle which I am very proud to report our very own Delta Chi won after a stellar performance of "Everytime We Touch" by Cascada. The night ended in a swaying circle of new friends singing Ted Daniels's "Brother." It's amazing how quickly and deeply friendships were built between the participating chapters and we look forward to the next opportunity to see our extended brothers.

Scholarship: Spelling Bee

On March 23rd, Delta Chi hosted its first ever spelling bee! The hype for this event started more than three weeks prior, with it being advertised as the “Event of the Century,” and enticing people to study with promises of prizes. As it turned out, these methods worked, and a mix of twenty brothers and initiates showed up for the competition. With more than 200 difficult words prepared and ready to go, the competition began. There was a lot of nervous tension in the air since nobody wanted to be the first one out. Chelsea Hipwell was first to take the stage, and set the scene for the night by getting the first word correct. However, after a vicious first round eliminating half the competition, only half of the spellers remained vying for the glory.

After many grueling rounds, there eventually ended up being only three spellers remaining. In a nail-biting finish, resident middle school spelling bee champion Jaclyn Sands swept up the competition by correctly spelling the word “conceit.” Despite this final word, Jaclyn was quite humble in her victory, as was runner-up Chelsea Hipwell. The spelling bee invigorated such passion in the spellers that many of them demanded a second “redemption round.” Competing for nothing but personal pride, members of Phi Sigma Pi showed their dedication to scholarship and bettering themselves. Overall, PSP’s first annual spelling bee was a rousing success, and if this is an indication for the events to come, than it will be a very promising semester.

-Written by Chris O’Neill

Fellowship: PSP Does Improv

This past week the Fellowship committee held an Improv Games event with fourteen brothers and initiates of all different experience levels in attendance. The event was largely lead by brother Chris O'Neill who has been featured in multiple Lehigh plays and is a part of the school improv troupe The Hobo Army. Improv is a form of theater that is comedic yet unscripted, forcing the actors to think on their feet. The event featured games ranging from "Words of Wisdom" where participants each contribute one word to a sentence to "Freeze" in which two participants engage in an improvisational scene until a third participant yells freeze, taps out one of the two actors, assumes their posture, and begins an entirely new scene. Due to the nature of improv a lot of trust is required in order for participants to be comfortable putting themselves on stage quite literally not knowing what will be thrown at them so it was great to see the high levels of participation from both Seniors and initiates in addition to many, many laughs.

-Written by Susan Zea

Alpha Beta Volleyball

Alpha Beta Volleyball was held the weekend of April 15-17th this year in College Park, MD as always. Twenty brothers from our chapter attended. What we lacked in numbers we sure made up for in spirit including one of our teams, “Team Blackout,” actually winning the championship game! When we arrived on Friday night, brothers grabbed dinner in small groups before heading to the first event of the weekend, the highlighter party, where brothers from a variety of chapters gathered wearing white shirts with highlighters in hand; this year they even had highlighter body paint. On Saturday morning, the troops were rallied and we headed down to the playing field chanting, “Service in the streets, scholars in the halls, mess with our brothers, and we’ll kick you in the...what?” as well the croc salute. We started the day with rounds of red robin followed by the tournament, where two of our Lehigh teams actually played each other. We then spent an hour or three...waiting for lunch before finishing the tournament, which as I mentioned, Lehigh won! After a short pep talk, given by yours truly, we all headed off “To the River!” where we captured the obligatory river picture. Finally, we all headed back to hotel, where we examined our burns and cleaned off the river slime. Then, groups of families went out for dinner and returned to prepare for the last night’s festivities, which was Masquerade themed. Delta Chi showed up in our snazziest attire and blew away the competition, literally we were the first ones there so it was empty, but we did as we always do and got the party started! The end of the evening concluded what was yet another successful Alpha Beta weekend filled with brotherly love and shenanigans...until next year!

-Written by Jenny Fichter

Ad Hoc: Philadelphia

This year Delta-Chi chapter ambitiously explored new territory with what is expected of ad-hoc. Events off-campus are normal for such a major event like ad-hoc, but to caravan to Philadelphia for the first time was an exciting step into the larger Pennsylvania area. Adding to excitement was sleet, rain, & snow, which ultimately failed to dampen our spirits. The day’s options after traveling and parking near Chinatown was visiting Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Reading Terminal, and the brothers’ choice of any other museum within walking distance of the Independence Mall. For lunch Delta Chi traveled to Rosa’s Fresh Pizza, where every slice purchased is matched for donation to the homeless of Philadelphia. The day was quite successful despite the weather, and continued the high standard of events expected of ad-hoc every semester.

-Written by Carl Blew

Formal: Lost at Sea

One of the most exciting events of the semester, Formal, occurred on Thursday, May 5 during the last week of classes. The event was held at the Iron Lakes Country Club in Allentown. The theme for this formal was “Lost at Sea” so the room was beautifully decorated to fit the occasion, featuring gold painted pineapples and a Polaroid photo booth full of beachy accessories. It definitely got all of us excited for summer break to begin! It’s always nice to see your fellow brothers all dressed up for the fun occasion. The night started with an excellent dinner and then everyone danced the night away to all types of music! Like always, the night concluded with everyone singing along to my favorite song, Brother, before getting back on the bus to ride back to Lehigh. Our fellowship chair, Susan, put a ton of work into the event, which shows since we all had a blast! It was great to end the semester with a super fun event where everyone could just let go and have a good time before buckling down for finals!

-Written by Zachary Port

Alumni Barbecue

The annual Alumni Barbeque this year was again held at our brother Frank’s house. The event started with everyone enjoying some snacks and delicious baked treats! Then, the event continued with superlatives, hosted by our scholarship chair, Chris O’Neill. Many brothers won an award, and each of the graduating brothers received a personal superlative that matched their own unique personalities. After, the formal alumni ceremony was held, where each graduating brother was given a nice farewell from the chapter. After the ceremony, everyone watched the heartfelt senior slideshow, where three photos of each brother were featured, showing their involvement throughout different times of the chapter. The graduating brothers also received their senior gifts, purple blankets engraved with a Delta Chi logo for the chapter. The event was a great way for brothers to relax a bit before having to get back to studying for finals.

-Written by Helen Ard

Fall

Recruitment: Alpha Etas

This semester’s recruitment was a lot of fun! The first event of the new rush season was Walking Tacos, where we filled bowls with crushed chips and taco meat so we could walk around and eat our “tacos” with a fork. By the end of the day, we had eaten our way through six pounds of meat! Our second event was a valiant attempt at learning how to make ice cream. Most of us just ended up with cold, vanilla-flavored milk, but shaking the bags was a a real bonding experience! Last for rush week was Random Acts of Kindness, where we wrote nice messages on sticky notes to put up around campus.

Pref week started with a tie dye event. We met inside STEPS and moved outside to the lawn, which was a little less green when we were done with it! All of the shirts looked cool and colorful by the end, and some people even showed Phi Sigma Pi spirit by choosing a purple and gold color scheme. Next was a game called Salt and Pepper. Everyone was given a card to hold up to their forehead without knowing what it was. They had to ask questions to figure out what their card said and to find the person whose card paired with theirs—some of the pairs were salt and pepper, up and down, and Holmes and Watson. Our third pref event was a team effort called the Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower Challenge. Teams were given tape, dry spaghetti, and a marshmallow, and the challenge was to build the tallest tower for the marshmallow to sit on. There was fierce competition and lots of sneaky marshmallow eating, and all teams managed to pull together some sort of structure. Finally, pref week was once again ended by Team Builders, with one classroom for Tanks, one for Charades, and one for planning an event for a leg of the tripod. After two fun weeks, we delivered 18 bids, and everyone is excited for initiation process!

-Written by Nicole Reisert

Fellowship: Open Mic Night

On October 20, 2016, the Delta Chi chapter of Phi Sigma Pi held one of its biggest Fellowship events of the semester, an Open Mic. One of my main goals as Fellowship chair was to help people step out of their comfort zone by hosting activities in a judgment-free zone that would allow everyone to show the chapter who they truly are and simultaneously give people the opportunity to do something they might normally not do. The Open Mic event was one of the best ways I could think of doing this, and it went spectacularly. Participants were allowed to sign up if they wanted to, with no obligation to do so or even to commit to performing if they decided later on that they did not want to perform. During the event, we had a range of performances from singing and playing the guitar to interpretive dancing while playing the Didgeridoo. Over 40 members had come to support the performers and we had nearly a dozen people step up on stage and perform. The event truly allowed people to express themselves in any way they wanted to, and by the end of the night, we all learned a lot about each other and grew closer as a chapter.

-Written by Michael Whang

Leadership and Scholarship: Victory House

It was election night when a handful of brothers and initiates piled into the kitchen of the Victory House here in South Bethlehem; a nonprofit community-based organization that helps to combat some of the difficulties that homeless men in the area face on a day-to-day basis. With some coordination, we decided to create a joint Scholarship and Leadership event, wherein we would go to the Victory House to learn how to make a fairly cheap and easy dinner (perfect for the average college student!) and then would serve the food to the 25 men who would be there for dinner. Having never been before, we didn’t really know what to expect, but it was all hands on deck as we split the tasks of our chicken cordon-bleu and worked together, all the while having fun and listening to music as we chopped, tenderized, and breaded our way to a successful and rewarding dinner with the Victory House.

-Written by Kirsten Hernandez

Ad Hoc: Escape the Room

Science. History. English. Math. These were the challenges that faced the chapter as they crowded into the top floor of Christmas-Saucon on a Sunday morning to try and “Escape the Room”. With four different rooms, each was designed to mimic different school subjects; the teams would have to rotate through each room and try to beat the other teams’ times. Each room consisted of its own set of challenges, from riddles and logic in English, to decoding Hieroglyphics in History, to creating solutions in Chemistry. We watched as each team worked together with their brothers to crack the different obstacles that they encountered, each person playing an integral role to the group’s success, but it didn’t only involve teamwork. While none of the puzzles explicitly drilled specific knowledge in any of the subjects, a base knowledge of each was required, and the goal of the rooms was to challenge the intellects of the teams and test their ability to think outside of the box; whether through clues placed in strategic spots, or riddles and math problems that required objective thinking and physical cues. While only one team walked away as the winners, everyone left with an afternoon well-spent and new stories to tell, but it wasn’t just an afternoon of bonding and community. We were able to collect canned goods from the teams to donate to local facilities in the Bethlehem community, as every canned good that was brought in equated to ten seconds taken off their final time. This, coupled with our educational theme, turned a normal escape the room event into an opportunity for the chapter to explore all three legs of the tripod.

-Written by Kirsten Hernandez

Bro Retreat: Bropocalypse

Bro Retreat this semester, also known as Bropocalypse, was held on Nov. 5th at the Trexler Nature Preserve. The fun consisted of five original teams (Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, Robots, and Aliens) competing to see which being would take over the new found world after an apocalypse had destroyed all of mankind...or so we thought. A sixth team, the Humans, emerged a couple of hours into Bropocalypse--originally hiding disguised in amongst the other teams.

We had various survival items the corresponded to different point values--teams could win these items by placing in our events (a Cornucopia, relay, fort building competition, obstacle course, and an orienteering scavenger hunt we ran out of time for). Humans, maintaining the devious reputation they already have, worked a little differently. Instead of being award items, they had the ability to steal items from other teams. Bropocalypse, although being competitive and closely matched, was a light-hearted day of activity that truly brought bros together.

-Written by Jason Sadler

15th Annual Founder's Day

Founder's Day this year was celebrated on December 5th, 2016 in our usual home base Packard 466. As many of you might already know this founder’s day was extra special as our chapter came together to celebrate our 15th anniversary of Delta Chi’s founding on December 3rd, 2001. Each family was in charge of preparing a special dish and bringing supplies and let’s just say there was plenty of cheesy goodness and pasta galore. During the meal families gathered to play a game of jeopardy where we all had to scavenge our brains for information back from when we had to take the national exam. Afterwards the senior send-off began with a video replaying many of this past year’s favorite moments for Delta Chi and we said good bye to three of our beloved seniors. Overall Founder's Day was a beautiful reminder of how special our chapter is.

-Written by Helen Ard

Semi-Formal

On December 8th, the Delta Chi chapter of Phi Sigma Pi celebrated our annual semi- formal event at Broadway Social, commemorating another successful semester as a brotherhood. The event had an astounding 53 brothers attend as well as 12 guests, and the night progressed very smoothly. The venue put out snacks for everyone to enjoy, which of course is a favorite of ours, however the most remarkable moment occurred within an hour of the event starting. Slowly but surely, brothers made their way to the dance floor, gradually encouraging others to dance with them. By the end of the night, everyone was dancing and enjoying the company of their fellow brothers. Needless to say, it was an excellent way to say goodbye to the Fall 2016 semester.