Delta Chi Chapter (Founded 3 December 2001) is located at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. The Chapter was founded with the help of Hoyt Craver, Director of Expansion, and Rich Freed, Chapter Advisor and Theta Chapter Alumnus, Alpha Eta Chapter Founder. Delta Chi is a member of the East Region.

Chapter History

Founding

After the discovery of an Alpha Eta, University of Delaware, alumni working in the Career Services Department of Lehigh University, Phi Sigma Pi Nationals decided to give those students with a 3.0 GPA or higher the opportunity to start a Lehigh University chapter of Phi Sigma Pi. Invites to an information session were sent out to these students on October 5, 2001. Of the hundreds of students who received these letters, some attended the first ever Lehigh University Phi Sigma Pi meet night held on Monday October 15, run by Nationals and Richard Freed, the Alpha Eta alumni who initiated the entire endeavor. Due to the interest generated, the staff arranged an organizational meeting for the next Monday, October 22. Many attended this meeting, including the National President, Tammy A. Mleziva.

Determined to begin this chapter, the group elected student officers for the chapter: Cheryl Foster, President; Justin Federici, Vice President; Pamela Passerello, Corresponding Secretary; Stella Maher, Recording Secretary; Martin Uteras, Treasurer; Sara Ferris, Rush Advisor; Kristin Matchica, Initiate Advisor; Amy Gilbreth, Parliamentarian; and Marika Deppmeyer, Historian. The next week, the budding chapter officially motioned in Richard Freed as their advisor and requested that Alpha Eta, of University of Delaware, be their sister chapter, officially beginning the process.

Service, Social, Scholarship and Exams

As they worked to become a chapter of Phi Sigma Pi, the group was named the Alpha class at Lehigh’s chapter and therefore needed to complete several requirements of the Phi Sigma Pi Tripod of Service, Social, and Scholarship; and the Delta Chi Chapter of Lehigh University was well on their way to doing that in November 2001. The first Monday of the month the chapter held a canned food drive and a pizza party before their official meeting, completing their requirements for service and social. At this same meeting, new bylaws and operating policies for the chapter were rising, as the chapter instilled policy that disciplinary action would be taken after three unexcused absences.

With all the fun of other activities, another requirement loomed amidst the group, the National Exam. In order to become a brother of Phi Sigma Pi, students must pass the National Exam, an exam testing the students knowledge about Phi Sigma Pi values, history, and present. To prepare for this exam in two weeks, the students involved took one quiz with questions similar to those on the exam on November 5, and then two more on November 12.

The exam date was set for November 26, but before that day, their fundraising and scholarship requirements still had to be completed. Fundraising was fulfilled with the producing and selling of Alpha class Phi Sigma Pi t-shirts, made for less than five dollars and sold at ten dollars to yield a profit and effectively fundraise for the chapter. In addition, candy canes would be sold from December 3-5. These shirts were completed and sold on November 19, the same day that the scholarship event was completed. Richard Freed, the chapter’s advisor, came to the chapter as a Career Services Speaker, and educated the group about topics such as resumes, job hunting, and interviewing. By the end of this chapter meeting, the class achieved the completion of all the requirements, except for the test the next week. In order to take the pressure off the test, a holiday party was planned for after the exam. That next Monday, November 26, 2001, the Alpha class of the Delta Chi Chapter of Phi Sigma Pi took the National Exam, and they all passed with over 80%. With this success, Alpha Eta Chapter inducted 36 brothers into the Delta Chi Chapter on December 3, 2003, the founding day of the Delta Chi Chapter of Phi Sigma Pi, at Lehigh University.

The first executive board consisted of Cheryl Foster, President; Justin Federici, Vice President; Stella Maher, Recording Secretary; Pamela Passarello, Corresponding Secretary; Martin Uteras, Treasurer; Sara Ferris, Rush Advisor; Kristin Matchica, Initiate Advisor; Amy Gilbreth, Parliamentarian; and Marika Deppmeyer, Historian.

Early Years

The spring semester of 2002 came to a close at the end of April, and the Delta Chi Chapter of Phi Sigma Pi properly completed the semester with officer votes and awards. On April 22, the chapter gave Cheryl Foster, the founding president of the Delta Chi Chapter, the Most Valuable Brother Award and the following week they presented her with flowers for her hard work and dedication. All of the members of the E-Board, and honorary brother and faculty advisor Richard Freed also received gifts for their hard work as well. At this time, the old officers transitioned into the new officers: Justin Federici, President; [Stella Maher]], Vice President; Kevin Shephard, Corresponding Secretary; Katie Bex, Recording Secretary; Kristin Matchica, Treasurer; Rachel Zief, Rush Advisor; James Pontius, Initiate Advisor; Pam Passerello, Parliamentarian; Suzanne Ennis, Historian.

Although only one semester old, the chapter graduated 13 brothers at the end of this semester, and so it was a time filled with both the joy of becoming a real chapter, and the sadness of loosing so many brothers so soon.

Summer 2002 and Stella Maher

Grand Chapter, the gathering of representatives of all Phi Sigma Pi chapters convenes during the summer each year to discuss National business. In 2002, the chapters met in Tennessee for the weekend of July 19-22. Because of location difficulties, Justin Federici, the president of the Delta Chi Chapter requested that Stella Maher attend the gathering because of her nearby location in North Carolina. At this Grand Chapter, Stella Maher witnessed and realized what Phi Sigma Pi was really about. After this epiphany, Maher left Grand Chapter wanting to make the Delta Chi Chapter representative of Phi Sigma Pi and all of its other chapters. When Stella through a house party at her home in North Carolina, she invited Phi Sigma Pi brothers from across the nation, and her thoughts and feelings about the situation were verified. The crusade to improve the Delta Chi Chapter began. On July 26, the Delta Chi executive board met online to discuss the chapters next semester. Exploding with enthusiasm, Maher requested money for the purchase of a Phi Sigma Pi banner for the chapter. With the request granted, Maher ordered the banner on August 7. In addition, Maher wrote the chapter’s bylaws and operating policy, and so began the enactment of her vision for the Delta Chi Chapter of Phi Sigma Pi.

Exec Board Shrivels

Within the first two weeks of school, the Delta Chi Chapter experienced much havoc as much more was now expected of Phi Sigma Pi. Kristin Matchica, the former initiate advisor and then elected treasurer for the chapter, refused to return emails or phone calls from other executive board members the entire summer, and did not attend the executive board’s online meeting in July. Due to this behavior, she was put on probation and she rescinded her position as Treasurer. After she had missed 25% of the meetings, by not attending any, a motion was made for her expulsion, and it was passed.

A similar situation occurred with the recording secretary, who after taking minutes for the first two meetings, stopped attending meetings and events, eventually leading to her expulsion. This same behavior was seen in corresponding secretary Kevin Shepard.

Parliamentarian Pamela Passerello also decided to step down from the executive board, doing so in a more respectable manner as she soon applied for inactivity for the fall and spring semester, and then graduated in May 2003. James Pontius, the Initiate Advisor, also went inactive, but only for the fall semester.

As a result of half of the executive board of the Delta Chi Chapter defecting, elections were held on September 2, 2002. Before the elections on this day, Stella Maher motioned to amend the Chapter Bylaws and combine the positions of Recording and Corresponding Secretary into on position of Secretary. The amendment passed. With this new amendment, only four positions had to be filled. Elections yielded Jeff Samuels as Secretary, Samuel Wallace as Treasurer, Mark Elloff as Initiate Advisor, and Suzanne Ennis as Parliamentarian.

Rush Pins 40 Future Brothers

Despite the recent problems with the executive board, the chapter started the semester with a scholarship event on the same day that the chapter instated the new officers. Guest speaker’s came from other chapters to speak about Phi Sigma Pi and the tripod and suggestions for strengthening the chapter. Within the next weeks, several social events were also planned and attended by brothers: bowling and a horror movie night.

Amidst the events, rush info sessions were held on September 16-18 and the first event was held on September 20, 2002: a very successful and well attended rush BBQ at a brother’s off campus home. Those rushing also participated in creating cards for sick children at St. Luke’s Hospital. For the final rush event, brother’s learned about those rushing through information sheets, conversation, and a canned food drive, held in the Ulrich Student Center on September 26.

At the meeting on September 30, the brothers voted to pin all of the rushes, who were then pinned on October 1.

Fundraising Goes Wild

Fundraising for the fall semester of 2003 started off strong with a bookstore tent at a football game on September 13, then continued with another tent at the September 27 football game, and then again at the November 1, Parent’s Weekend, football game.

Halloween Grams were sold once again from October 27-29, and then delivered to the students’ mailboxes. At this time, Deana Willard, the fundraising chair, stepped down from her position to focus on school work and track, and so Andrea Luebbe filled her spot. As fundraising chair, Luebbe ran the buying, organizing, and selling of Lehigh-Lafayette t-shirts. This fundraiser involved selling t-shirts that showed that Lehigh is better than their arch-rival Lafayette. These t-shirt sales gained over $600 for the chapter, making it the one most successful fundraising event seen by the chapter.

Epsilon Class Does it Right

After participating in a comprehensive and well done rush process, the Epsilon Class was initiated and started the pledging process. This process consisted of weekly meetings run by Initiate Advisor Stella Maher, completing an event for each part of the tripod, interviewing ten brothers, and passing the national exam. During these meetings the pledges learned about the national and chapter history of Phi Sigma Pi through power point slides prepared by Maher.

Their first project was to take pictures with all ten mules in Bethlehem and all groups completed it on time, but this amount of work and effort was too much for two of the initiates, who soon dropped out of the process.

The Big-Little process and bond is an important part of pledging for any fraternity, and to make this aspect stronger in the Delta Chi Chapter, Maher organized an icebreaker event at which potential bigs and littles could get to know one another on September 25. After this event, each would choose who they would like to partner with. Once assigned littles, the pairs were able to get to know one another better through interviews. Their knowledge of one another would be tested at the Big-Little Quiz show held on October 23. Big Rachel Mandeville and her Little Yos Priestly won the game at this event.

At the second initiate meeting on October 7, elections were held as they are held in the chapter meetings, for the initiate officers: Katie Rikkola, Gamma Class President; Lauren Halgash, Secretary; Matt Griffiths, Treasurer; Suzanne Whitten and Craig Foo, Co-Historians. In preparation for brotherhood, Maher divided the initiates into committees, which would then plan the specific events that had to be completed. Committees were also formed to plan the events that the pledges had to complete to become brothers.

For their service event, the pledges went to the Boys and Girls Club again to play with the kids on November 4. As a scholarship event, as a class they saw the play Picasso at Lapin Agile on October 30 which was playing at Zoellner Arts Center. The fundraising committee sold class t-shirts as all initiate classes do, but with the help of Treasurer Matthew Griffiths, the class obtained Play Station 2 games, an X-Box with games, and a computer game pack all free of charge. They raffled off these items and raised over $150 for the chapter. The class also went on a initiate class retreat on October 25 to Sayre Lodge where they were able to complete interviews with one another and bond as an initiate class should. On October 27, the chapter did a midway vote on the initiates, and all of them were voted to continue the pledging process.

The National Exam approached the group quickly, and as a study tool for the exam, the chapter’s scholarship committee and Maher organized Brothers vs. Initiates Jeopardy on November 10, and all of the questions would be related to those on the exam. Despite the fact that the brothers had much less schooling in than the Epsilon class, the Brothers won Jeopardy.

First Ever Brotherhood Retreat

A retreat had been in the works for the previous semester, but due to lack of interest and funds, the event did not go through. With the help of Vice President Jessica Maurer, the retreat this semester happened, and it became a camping trip.

October 17, 2003, the twelve people brave enough to go camping left Lehigh at half past four to head towards the campgrounds in the Poconos. When they arrived, the ground was damp and it was becoming dark. Immediately all of the brothers took a task and some began to set up the tents, while others collected dry wood and leaves and started the fire, while others prepared the food for dinner.

Although difficult to start because of the rain, the camp fire was soon built with the help of lighter fluid, and stories and laughs were shared all around such as now inside jokes as the “Ass Link” and the “Chapter Pyro”. Soon President Jeff Samuels decided that he needed to become more rustic than before and attempted to make the fire as large as possible. Others, such as Secretary Kai Schlingmann were not far behind.

As everyone grew tired, slowly they went to sleep in the tents they put up themselves. They awoke early and decided that one night of camping in the cold was enough, and so they quickly packed up and went to breakfast with brothers who did not come camping at the local Perkins.

First Annual Semi-Formal

At the request of several brothers, a semi-formal was planned for the fall 2003 semester for the brothers of Delta Chi. From the beginning of the semester, Historian Rachel Mandeville searched for venues at which to have the semi-formal. She quickly discovered Carmine’s, a small Italian restaurant with a banquet room and a dance floor. With the right price and the right room size, the place was quickly booked for Thursday November 6, 2003. The semi-formal was huge a success. Centerpieces of live fish in vases awed the crowd and were given out at the end of the night. Many of the brothers attended and had a fantastic time dancing and eating

The Active Chapter

The current chapter has about 60 active brothers.

Past Chapter Presidents

Chapter Events & Activities

Founder's Weekend

A required event in the chapter’s Operating Policy, Founder’s day is a very important event, and so planning for it began on November 17 2003, when the chapter was asked by Historian Rachel Mandeville if they would prefer to order food, or to have a potluck dinner for the celebration. The chapter decided to have a potluck, and so the list began to organize what everyone would make.

The dinner would be held at Sayre Lodge on December 3, 2003, the second birthday of the chapter. As it was a required event, 95% of the chapter attended and everyone enjoyed themselves, and the food, which ranged from soup to meatloaf to cookies and much more.

While the chapter dined, Vice President Jessica Maurer awarded certificates to many brothers. The following brothers received awards: Stella Maher, Most Devoted Brother; Craig Foo, Volunteerism Award; Angela Rizzo, Most Hardworking Brother; Brian Dunst, Eagle Scout Award; Laura Spessard, Best New Addition to E-Board; and Jessica Maurer, The Loud and Lovable Award.

Delta Chi has since continued the tradition of holding a potluck dinner on its Founders Day.

Kickball

Started in the fall of 2005, Delta Chi holds an annual kickball weekend. Brothers from nearby chapters come for the weekend events which include kickball and a service event.

Current Executive Board

President - Katie Graul
Vice President - Stefie Kan
Recording Secretary - Julia Mauk
Corresponding Secretary - Krystal Kaai
Treasurer - Andrew Kump
Rush Adviser - Therese Quinn
Initiate Adviser - Kevin Ford
Parliamentarian - Garrett Wadsworth
Historian - Ariana Tibaldi

Current Committee Chairs

Social Committee - Tara Goldberg
Service Committee - Melissa Berenholz
Awards and Scholarship Committee - Cali Roth
Fund Raising Committee - Rachel Hughes
Public Relations Committee - Alex Alhadeff
Alumni Committee - Seetha Chandrasekhara
ICR Committee - Justin Capalbo
Regional Delegate - John Gilpatrick

Notable Alumni

Stella Maher (Α)

CSK 2004

Jeff Samuels (Β 42)

CSK 2006

Chapter Honors and Awards

National Awards

2005 Clarence O. Williams Most Improved New Chapter Award

University Awards

year AwardName
None to date

Other Awards

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None to date

Further Resources

Delta Chi Chapter Website

Delta Chi Chapter

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