Epsilon-Eta Alpha Update

Brian Orecchio, EH 1221 – High Alpha

Photo – Tom Perlman, EH 1210 - Brotherhood Badge

Our spring semester has started off excellent as we just welcomed six Associate Members who have strong potential to become great brothers. In other news, the brothers are gearing up to continue their community service by cleaning up Barker Park, hosting our annual Rock-A-Thon with Alpha Gamma Delta and once again aiming high for our $3,000 goal for RPI’s Relay-for-Life. We are also about to start the spring sports, basketball and volleyball. After coming up just short of a football title and being competitive in softball and soccer in the fall, we are looking forward to the spring sports season. Overall, the brothers are anticipating an exciting semester and look forward to seeing many Alumni at Founder’s Day Weekend in April.

EHZ High Pi – Roger Grice ’87 Ph.D.– ThU 426 wins RAA Teaching Award

Geoff Seber, EH 1250

The High Pi for Epsilon-Eta, Roger Grice ’87G – ThU 426, received the 2010 Rensselaer Alumni Association (RAA) Teaching Award on Friday, October 15 during the RAA Award Dinner at Reunion & Homecoming Weekend. The RAA Teaching Award was created in 1994 by the Rensselaer Alumni Association Board of Trustees to recognize current members of the Rensselaer faculty for their outstanding teaching techniques, contributions to the campus experience and commitment to students.

Roger is an outstanding High Pi and brother of Lambda Chi Alpha and

Center – High Pi, Roger Grice ’87 Ph.D.– ThU 426

we are lucky to share him with the brothers of Theta Upsilon of Lambda Chi Alpha. “I was very happy and honored to receive this award; it means a lot to me. Much of what I was recognized for was my work with the fraternity—being a teacher keeps me busy inside the classroom and outside of it too,” says Roger. “I’m very grateful to all the guys from the fraternity who have supported me in my roles as teacher and advisor. It’s hard to be a good teacher without great students and a strong support system. ”

Roger’s citation read during the RAA Awards Ceremony highlights his great value to us and to Rensselaer.

“Rensselaer is fortunate to count Roger Grice, who has been described by his students as “the quintessential professor,” as a member of our distinguished faculty since 1984. Roger is clinical professor of technical communication and information technology in the Department of Language, Literature and Communication. The Department of Language, Literature, and Communication at Rensselaer is an internationally recognized center for interdisciplinary education, research, and theory development, whose programs prepare students to understand traditional and emerging communication technologies from a variety of perspectives.

Roger’s unique teaching style encourages personal growth and student engagement, while keeping the learning fun and exciting. His popular courses on interface design and technical communications form the cornerstone of Rensselaer’s master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction Studies. He is known for classes that incorporate everything from animation and games, to light shows and a smoke machine – really! Roger’s commitment to students extends far beyond class hours. Students have high praise for his willingness to work with them on his own time, commending his “robust office hours,” and his availability on Instant Messenger anytime, day or night. The word “mentor” comes up time and time again as former students describe their relationship with Dr. Grice. His commitment to student life includes his involvement in the Greek community, as a long-time advisor to Lambda Chi Alpha, as current president of the Alumni Inter-Greek Council, and as a Rensselaer Alumni Association committee member. He is a regular visitor to the Advising and Learning Assistance Center, guiding students who have academic challenges. He is visible on campus nearly everywhere, from faculty meetings, to student activities, to sporting events. In Roger, the RAA has found the perfect embodiment of innovative teaching and a singular dedication to students that merit this year’s outstanding teaching award.” Congratulations Roger!

High Theta Update

by Eric Conway, EH 1205, Former High Theta

The brothers of Epsilon-Eta Zeta of Lambda Chi Alpha continue to support one of their main priorities of philanthropy, volunteering and giving back to RPI and the surrounding community during their yearly Food Drive (Bag Drop Off) program. The program, which has been a tradition for the past 23 years, collects food and other supplies from the local community and donates them as part of Lambda Chi Alpha’s national relationship with the Northeast American Food Bank. This year the brothers collected a record 20,069 lbs of food and supplies that were donated to the Unity House of Troy. This amount of food has ranked us 11th in the nation amongst all of Lambda Chi Alpha chapters.

Food Drive takes place is different phases, first the brothers dropped

Brothers following Bag Drop Off

plastic bags at houses around the local community asking for a donation of a non-perishable food items. One week later the bags are collected from the community. In addition to this collection, the brothers expanded the program and collected food outside of the local Walmart in Brunswick. This collection was very successful, raising over 5,000 lbs of food. “”We have to thank the Troy community for their support in this yearly tradition,” says Eric Conway, former High Theta. “Food Drive really supports the local community, especially around the holiday time, and we are excited to provide such a large amount of food to those in need.”

In addition to Food Drive, the local chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha focuses on many other philanthropic needs by fundraising throughout the year. Fundraising initiatives include: Watermelon Bash in the fall, yearly Rock-a-Thon in the spring. Lambda Chi Alpha is part of the outstanding Greek Community at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that continues to show support for the local community. Lambda Chi Alpha has also maintained its relationship with Barker Park, a small park in downtown Troy. Each month, brothers go down to the park to help clean up leaves, garbage, weeds and get the park in shape for the monthly Troy Night Out.

75th Anniversary of Epsilon-Eta Zeta – 2012

Planning has started as we design the celebration of our 75th Anniversary in a grand way. We are still looking for alumni from all eras that are interested in helping to discover ways to appropriately celebrate next year. To date, plans include a celebration dinner, monthly era based e-mails, a scrap book, and a fundraising goal.

Pictures/Memorabilia Needed
Please contact us if you have special pictures or memorabilia that we can use during the celebration. Contact the High Rho, Tom Holland ’12 – EH 1218. thomas.l.holland@gmail.com

75th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign
We have set a goal of raising $7,500 for 75 years that will support Epsilon-Eta. Fundraising will start this spring and will continue for the next two years. Consider contributing $75 for 75. All contributions given to the chapter between 2011 and 2012 will count towards this goal. Click here to see the contribution page on the alumni website for more information.

Reunion & Homecoming Recap

Thank you to all of the alumni who were on campus during this special weekend. It is always special for the active brothers to interact with alumni from all era’s, and that was apparent when Bob Campbell ’55 – EH 302 attended the Kappa event and the Alumni Ritual to give hindsight and perspective. It was an honor having a brother with such history and perspective.

The weekend included campus tours given by active brothers of LXA, an open house, an alumni ritual, a Kappa event and of course our newest and exciting tradition, Cross, Crescent & Clams. Save the Date: Reunion & Homecoming 2011 (October 21 – 23, 2011)

Contributions

A special thank you to all of the alumni who have contributed to any of the funds of EHZ at LXA. A list of donors is available on the website at http://ehzlxa.com/alumni/contributions.

If you are thinking about making a yearly contribution, please consider any of the EHZ designations, including the tax deductable EHZ of LXA Scholarship Fund. Any gift is appropriate and we thank you!

Alumni Scrap Book Project

by Howard Zimmerman, EH 426, John Faricelli, EH 712 BOD Alumni Affairs

LXA IPC Basketball Team - L-R: Chuck Kinney, EH 417; Unknown, Ron Gleasman, EH 454; Andy Longo, Eh 429; Unknown, Walt Towslee, EH 419; Joe Clancy, EH 472; Bob Madden, EH 404

When we put out our most recent call for alumni news, we asked brothers to send along pictures from their college days at RPI. We got a tremendous response from Brother Howard Zimmerman, who not only digitized his entire collection of

photographs from the late 50’s and early 60’s, but also put them online in the form of an online scrapbook (www.hfzimmerman.com/Rensselaer). We contacted Howard to thank him for his response and to get some background on what motivated him to do this:

“You asked for pictures to develop an on-line scrapbook. We know there are thousands of pictures in old albums most of which are in old men’s attics. They will eventually be discarded by the next generation. I think your scrapbook is a very good idea. We still have hundreds of brothers that can contribute if given a method and motivation. You can start to build a photographic history of the chapter. At all reunions (school or family) old pictures that you can relate to are always a favorite. Our two reunions of brothers of EH from class years 1950 – 1960 in Williamsburg, VA was a great event and in part gave me the inspiration to start this project.”

Float Construction - Around the World in 80 Days. Globe rotated with small motor and generator. L-R Joe Clancy, EH 472, Dick Rittelmann, EH 420 is on top.

“I think this project can be of enormous benefit to the future brothers of EH and therefore the house in total. Consider the list of my classmates. Those pictures are of some very successful men. Show the world a biography of men that have had part of their formative years influenced by one fraternity.

“Howard stated that although he is pleased with the concept of his online scrapbook, he’d like to see this picked up by a group that can continue to develop it and maintain it. The chapter house web site (http://ehzlxa.com/alumni/digital-archives) already has an alumni section with digitized composite pictures. The addition of online scrapbook where alums could download their pictures and display them by class year would be an excellent addition. This

LXA IFC Football Team - Back row L-R: Fred Breismeister (partial); Unknown; Walt Towslee, EH 419; Rick Skrzynarz; Don Lorch, EH 412; Richard Owens, EH 461; Paul Rogers; Mike Green, EH 474; Jim O'Neal, EH 406; Joe Clancy, EH 472; Bob Madden, EH 404; Al Bauer, EH 449; John Wise, Howard Zimmerman, EH 426

project is in its initial stages, so we don’t have a web site we can point you at just yet. Stay tuned for more information! We’ll close with another quote from Howard: “It’s all about people and the good times I remember with some of the closest and longest lasting friends of my life. Pictures help us recall these good times.”

Biographical sketch for Howard Zimmerman Howard received his Bachelor in Chemical Engineering, class of 1960. While he was at RPI, he was on the swim team, water polo squad, IFC football and hockey. He was a member of the infamous Hoosick Street Players and was bar co-manager with Bob Madden, EH 404. His proudest technical achievement was the development and patenting of a

non-phosphate detergent that was subsequently sold to Proctor and Gamble. Its use significantly reduced pollution in inland waterways. Over the last forty years, he has headed several manufacturing firms in the eastern Massachusetts area, including ten years as President of Hood Sailcloth Division, Hood Sailmakers, Marblehead, MA. During that time, he spent a lot of time racing yachts and met some of the world’s most powerful men. His passion today is golf, which he plays every possible day in season.

Save the Date – Upcoming EHZ Events

Plan you year – Dates at a Glance
Northeast Conclave (Brooklyn Poly) – Friday, March 25 – Saturday, March 26, 2011
Alumni Founders Day Weekend – Friday, April 1 – Sunday, April 3, 2011 (See Invitation)
Brotherhood Week – Sunday, April 3 – Saturday, April 9, 2011
Summer Bash 2011 – Friday, July 22 – Saturday, July 23, 2011
Reunion & Homecoming Weekend – Friday, October 21 – Sunday, October 22, 2011
75th Anniversary Celebration – January – December 2012

Stay Connected with EHZ

EHZWeb Site
This site, designed by Bay Phillips ’11, EH 1196, features updated information, RSS feeds of all of our news, an updated alumni section of the site, plus more. Be sure to stop back often!

Alumni Site
The alumni section of the new Web site allows you to stay up to date with chapter news, special events dates, pictures, our group on LinkedIn and our Facebook fan page. Be sure to join all of our social networking groups.

Facebook
Join our Facebook fan page – You are able to access the fan page from the EHZ website – Click here to join the alumni and actives Facebook page.

LinkedIn
Are you already a member of LinkedIn? Be sure to find our subgroup which now has over 100 brothers connected. We will use the LinkedIn site for job and career advice for both actives and alumni. Click here to join.

Communications
In 2011 we will increase communications to the alumni. These communications will be mostly e-mail, and will be designed to keep you up to date and in communication with our chapter. We encourage you update your e-mail address through our website so you can stay connected. Click here to update your address.

Thank You

The Lamplighter is paid for by voluntary alumni donations. A special thank you to John Faricelli, EH – 712; Howard Zimmerman, EH 426; Brian Orecchio , EH 1221, High Alpha; Tom Holland, EH 1218, High Rho; Geoff Seber, EH 1250; Eric Conway, EH 1205; Tom Perlman EH – 1210 (photos) for their contributions. If you would like to contribute to future editions of The Lamplighter please contact John Faricelli at john.faricelli@comcast.net