CHAPTER NEWS AND UPDATES

CHAPTER

NEWS & UPDATES

(as submitted by chapters during Spring 2021)

94 ARIZONA STATE

VENERABLE DEAN BEN DEBENEDICTUS

No update received.

83 CALIFORNIA OF PENNSYLVANIA

VENERABLE DEAN ALEX ADAMS

The California University of Pennsylvania (C.U.P) Chapter of the Acacia Fraternity experienced a crazy past year. The pandemic has changed college as we know it, and the brothers were forced to adapt to the situation. Collectively we came together to make the best out of the situation, while still continuing to shed the light on what Acacia is all about, human service and brotherhood. The coronavirus forced the brothers to learn how to continue our mission of finding fine fraternal men through online recruiting. In the Spring of 2020, the C.U.P chapter introduced the pledge class of Beta Phi which brought us Brother, Wade Wolfgang. Also, in the Fall of 2020, the chapter initiated the pledge class of Beta Chi and added one new brother, Mason Ramsburg. We look forward to introducing the new brothers to the alumni when the times allow us to meet again.

Due to the pandemic, we were not on campus this past fall semester, however, the brothers were still able to meet their philanthropic duties. In the fall, the brothers were able to collect and donate to the “COVID 19 Solidarity Fund”. This past holiday season, the Acacia C.U.P chapter set a new record for themselves of donations for Acacia Clause! As a chapter, the brothers collected over $1,000 which was used to donate all of the proceeds online through the Toys-For-Tots program. The brothers who were in town also helped with the California trick-or-treat crossing guards’ program this past Halloween.

This upcoming fall, we are hoping to return to a normal college life. The brothers are looking forward to being able to participate in on-campus Greek activities as well as events where the alumni can return to the house and interact with the active chapter.

VENERABLE DEAN DAVID JOHNSTON

It has been an interesting year here in the great white north, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge but not one witch the Carleton Chapter could not deal with. This year despite the challenges of an online rush and pledge ship we initiated a great group of new guys, who are now involved and bettering the chapter at every chance.

As a chapter, we reclaimed one of the old ACACIA houses from another fraternity, and now we are ready to bring back some of the old memories and make some new ones in the coming years.

This year was our 32nd Anniversary but unfortunately, we were not able to celebrate in person, that being said a visual founder was held and enjoyed by Carleton alum who would normally be unable to attend the festivities.

Our Jr chapter advisor Josh Wittkie stepped down due to a job opportunity, he will be missed but this allowed the chapter to elect Br Colton Crawford as our new Jr Chapter advisor, we are all looking forward to working with him. The brothers at the Carleton chapter have also been keeping up with the Human Servies motto, this year despite the challenge of the Pandemic our brother Dean Husar raised about $1800 by auction off his hair for relay for life.

The Central Oklahoma chapter has gone through a lot of changes in the last year. We are proud to have obtained an new house on campus directly on greek row.

We are proud to be partnered with a new philanthropy, Hope Center of Edmond. Where we will be providing outreach to the community with meals, clothes, and clerical duties to make the community better.

Although it has been a tough year, we remain vigilant in our desire to serve the community as Acacia men and hope to continue making an impact on campus.

61 CENTRAL OKLAHOMA

VENERABLE DEAN AUSTIN PHILLIPS

14 COLORADO

VENERABLE DEAN CALEB JIMENEZ

No update received.

CHAPTER & COLONY CLOSURES

Bloomsburg Chapter

Our chapter at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, had some issues for a couple years that had led to losing recognition from their university. A screen-recording of messages in a group chat with racist and insensitive remarks from the past surfaced and the International Council immediately made the decision to suspend their charter and close the chapter.

Missouri Chapter

Located in Columbia, Missouri, our chapter at the University of Missouri struggled to maintain membership numbers, while also struggling with functioning as a chapter of Acacia. The school closures during the last year due to COVID-19 multiplied these issues to a level that was no longer sustainable.

14 CORNELL

VENERABLE DEAN LORENZO DE ALBA

The Covid pandemic has proven challenging for the Cornell University Chapter of Acacia Fraternity. With many of our members unable to return to campus for several semesters, our in-house membership has dropped significantly since the beginning of my time as an Acacian, and we have subsequently struggled with virtual recruitment. We are hopeful that the fall semester will be a turning point, and that this brief struggle will be merely a blip in the more than hundredyear history of our chapter.

At our beautiful house, Northcote, we completed an extensive renovation of our Bar Room in January, giving the home of the longest bar in the Ivy League a much deserved facelift. While the moratorium on social events has prevented us from putting it to good use, it has certainly helped us strengthen the ties of friendship through brotherhood events, and we have grown closer than ever.

VENERABLE DEAN NATHAN REID

The past few months, the Brothers of the Heth Chapter at The University of Illinois have really came together and have been making improvements on a daily basis.

As a brotherhood, we have been doing great things not only for ourselves, like joining various organizations and making tremendous efforts academically, but also for the community as a whole. For instance, on Monday March, 8th, we had our annual blood drive which was a great success. Through the help of many of our own brothers and outside members, we were able to donate 24 units of whole blood and 4 units of double red blood cells. We fell a tad short of our goal of 28 whole units of blood, but passed our goal of 1 unit of double red blood cells. We have many other events that are ongoing and planned for the rest of semester, as well. We currently have a gift card drive going on which has been very successful.

Overall, this semester has been going very well and everybody has been working together to ensure a quality and safe semester for all. We are extremely excited to end this semester on a high and positive note!

The Illinois State Chapter currently has 87 actives with nine pledges. This year we have dedicated our efforts to maximize accountability within our Chapter to ensure we are exceeding to the best of our abilities during the midst of COVID restrictions and online schooling. During these challenging times, we initiated both our Pi and Rho pledge classes for a total of 29 initiated men.

In February, Illinois State had its Greek Gala, where our Chapter took home six awards. The previous Venerable Dean, Naren Bhende, won Chapter President of the Year. Greg Yonan won the Living the Ritual Award. Kye Thompson won the Emerging Leader Award. Our Chapter Advisor, Jeff Boaz, won Chapter Advisor of the year for the second year in a row. Our Chapter won the Academic Excellence Award. Finally, I, the current Venerable Dean, won the Fraternity Member of the Year Award.

We are constantly trying to push the boundaries of what success can look like during this pandemic and trying our best to find the silver lining in these challenging times. Keeping our high morals and tight sense of brotherhood are critical missions we have as we continue through the school year and as we move forward as Chapter. No update received.

30 INDIANA

VENERABLE DEAN MARCO TROIANO

No update received.

27 INDIANA OF PENNSYLVANIA

VENERABLE DEAN SEAN O’DONNELL

No update received.

20 IOWA

VENERABLE DEAN CALEB FITCH

The Iowa chapter of Acacia had a very successful 2020. Although covid-19 hindered our plans, we tried to make the most of our experiences. Last fall, we initiated 9 new members and we currently have 6 pledges for the spring. Our GPA was the 4th highest of all housed chapters and our newly initiated members had the second highest GPA of all new member classes.

Last summer, we raised over $2,000 for the National Cares mentoring program by running over 400 miles as a chapter. In December, we organized a virtual Acacia Claus and raised almost $3,500 to buy toys for the University of Iowa children’s Hospital. We are planning to do our first seven days of service in April, so we are looking forward to that.

TOP 10 CHAPTERS BY ROLL

(up to date to 5/15/2021)

1 Indiana (2749) 6 Texas (1481)

2 Illinois (2657) 7 Nebraska (1392)

3 Purdue (2081) 8 Colorado (1329)

Currently, we are the largest we have been since the 1990’s and we are already planning for fall recruitment. We are just 23 initiates away from hitting 1,000, so we are hoping to achieve that in the next year. We are super excited by this upcoming year and everything we will achieve.

The future is very bright for our chapter. So Live!

19 IOWA STATE

VENERABLE DEAN STEVEN PARKS

Hello From the Iowa State Chapter! The last year has been a time of great change and challenge for the chapter as our new house was finished and we finally moved in.

In the Spring 2020 Semester, we were all living out of apartments or dorms here while our new house was getting built. Even when classes shut down because of COVID, the construction on the house still continued without issue. We ended up getting our housing permit on July 31, 2020 and were able to move in. The first few weeks were involved by the many trucks coming to the house delivering furniture and us having to move it all in. Our new house is a really nice place which includes suite style rooms, kitchenettes on each floor, several dedicated study rooms, a full service recreational room and theater. Our old house capacity was 29, while the new house is 42.

With COVID going on, the rest of the semester lacked many of the other social events usual to fall semesters, like Homecoming or an alumni tailgate. We got many requests for house tours that we had to respectfully have to turn down or get rain checks for in order not to risk our guys. As for new members, we ended up initiating 9 men in the fall, 5 of which were holdovers from the Spring. We couldn’t do an in-person philanthropy, so we instead did an online one. We ended up doing an online Crowdchange fundraiser for Acacia Claus with Toys for Tots where we ended up raising Looking forward to the future, we are looking forward to when things can go back to relative normalcy and we can hold large events and really show off the house and the brotherhood. With a larger house, we have a large drive to recruit and expand the chapter to be larger and better than it ever has been before. In the future, expect big news coming from the Koph Chapter!

27 KANSAS STATE

VENERABLE DEAN MAX IMMENSCHUH

The Kansas State Chapter of Acacia started off the semester strong bringing in 13 new Young Men and later initiating 10 of them. Our Chapter had an average GPA of 3.58 which ranked as 3rd in Kansas State’s IFC rankings. Our executive team cleaned, painted and finished our boiler room and put a toolbox with all the power tools and hand tools we had in the house so that our members have a place to work on hands-on projects.

We have been fortunate enough to have multiple covid-friendly brotherhood events. We rented out a sand volleyball court at the city park and played volleyball for a couple hours and recently we went to Manhatchet and participated in some axe throwing. These events were needed and highly enjoyed by all!

Our chapter participated in a virtual Fundraiser for K-State Proud. We fundraised to benefit K-State Proud, a student-led philanthropy organization. Through in-house made bingo boards and utilizing member’s Instagram accounts, we collected donations to ‘fill’ each bingo board.

The Acacia Chapter at Kansas State is off to a strong start for the Spring 2021 semester, we can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us!

52 LOUISIANA STATE

VENERABLE DEAN GRANT LAPEYRONNIE

The Louisiana State University chapter of Acacia currently has 114 active brothers. During the fall 2020 semester, we added 39 brothers to our ranks and hosted two philanthropy events.

The first event was delivering lunches to various first responders along with Brother Dominic Impasto, and the second event was Acacia-Claus, which raised over $2000 dollars for Second Harvest Food Bank.

During spring 2021 semester, we held a blood drive with the lovely ladies of Delta Zeta sorority, giving a total of 29 bags of blood during a nationwide blood shortage.

To wrap up the semester, we went public with our Capital Campaign Fundraiser, which aims to make some much-needed updates and repairs to the original, 44-yearold house.

84 MILLERSVILLE

VENERABLE DEAN JAKE CANALE

No update received.

4 NEBRASKA

VENERABLE DEAN CHRISTIAN BRODERICK

Hello, Brother from all over the world! Our Chapter at UNL has had success over the past semester so far! We have had six spring pledges hoping to initiate within the next up-and-coming weeks. These new guys show great promise and initiative to take on significant leadership roles and excel in academics, with the lowest GPA being 3.7. As well as a promising start to fall recruitment. We have high goals for fall recruitment and hoping to rush 30 new members. This is a lofty and challenging goal, but the UNL Acacia Chapter men have never been afraid of a challenge. Over this past month, as covid slowly starts to get better, we have been able to partner up with other sororities such as Phi Mu, AXO, and AOPI in new virtual social events, which has helped us make more connections on campus as well as getting new partners and opportunities for philanthropies.

The men at UNL Acacia have started a new ABL (Acacia Basketball League) with the brothers in the house, which has been a massive step for us. We originally started it up as a weekend project, but it has slowly turned into more. This new activity has helped us in Rush because we now use it as a rush event when games are being played and a tool to help grow our brotherhood. We have also purchased a new pool table that fits our living room which gives it a much cozier feel and an eye-catcher as soon as you walk into our house. The men of the Acacia fraternity at UNL have been improving day by day. We are excited to continue to grow in brotherhood, service, academics, social life, and intramurals one day at a time.

42 OHIO

VENERABLE DEAN BRICE MILLER

The Ohio Chapter of Acacia currently sits at 53 members. We remain the highest-earning philanthropy in Greek Life with the 5cacia and maintain an average GPA of 3.0.

Our fall 2020 recruitment yielded seven pledges that successfully became brothers despite the challenges of COVID restrictions and guidelines. Our spring 2021 recruitment successfully yielded five pledges that we look forward to welcoming as brothers very soon.

We successfully completed our 13th annual 5cacia: A 5K for Pancreatic Cancer on March 27th. This year was a virtual event again due to restrictions, but we raised $12,000 and awareness! Thank you to all who supported our cause!

We have been paired with Sigma Kappa and Kappa Alpha Psi for Greek Week 2021 and look forward to finishing our spring semester with this opportunity to unite with other Greek Life.

As we reflect on the past year we are grateful for the successes we have had and proud of the obstacles we have overcome. As we look forward we strive to stay strong as brothers and growth in numbers and strength.

VENERABLE DEAN KONSTANTINOS KANTAS

Through the constant help of our Buckeye alumni, we have been able to continue the rebuilding of the Waw Chapter during 2020. Although Covid has impacted the ability to rebuild, due to the University suspending all student organization for most of the year, we did initiate 21 members in the fall…which included the President of the Board’s son, Will Thornton!

During the summer of 2020, Arlo Sommers and Bill Thornton led the effort in total renovations of 12 of the 16 bedrooms. This included all walls repaired, repainted, and recarpeted bringing those rooms to almost new condition. The remaining bedrooms are expected to be completed in the summer of 2021 with the help of any volunteer that we can get. Additional repairs in 2020 included gutting and rebuilding the 3rd floor shower as well as the tankless water heater failed and was replaced. We were only able to complete these projects, that totaled over $20k in 2020, through the generous donations from our alumni to the “Ohio State” fund at the Acacia Fraternity Foundation.

For 2021, we are well on our way to a Spring pledge class of 30 young men, which will bring our membership to over 70 going into the fall. Thank you alumni for all your support. During Covid we would like to limit any contact, but Bill is always in contact with the Chapter and can get ahold of me.

35 OREGON STATE

VENERABLE DEAN DREW SAIN

No update received.

21 PENNSYLVANIA STATE

VENERABLE DEAN JAKE MCKEOWN

The Penn State Chapter of Acacia has had a very successful year as a chapter and as a brother. This fall, we had the pleasure of welcoming 28 young men into our fraternity and brotherhood, one of our biggest pledge classes in recent memory. During THON weekend, we raised over $176,000 as an organization. This put us at the 4th highest total among all Greek Organizations here at Penn State, but more importantly marked our highest ever total as an organization. This summer, we look forward to having some renovations done on our house, to make it even a greater place than it already is. This past fall, our brothers had an average semester GPA of 3.57, and we look to top that this Spring to keep exceeding Acacian expectations.

VENERABLE DEAN BEN WALBAUM

Greetings from the Purdue Chapter in beautiful West Lafayette Indiana!

In 2020, the Purdue Chapter made remarkable progress in many key areas despite the obvious challenges brought on by the world circumstances. Despite the pandemic, our chapter continues to grow both in numbers and quality. We have re-energized our incredible alumni base, and undergone a capital campaign centered around the idea of returning to preeminence. The active chapter has worked hard to build a culture of accountability and fighting complacency. We understand how important it is to build on our recent success, continue to grow, and always be improving.

Last year, our chapter worked hard to recruit and initiate 18 new members. We successfully implemented a recruitment scholarship and through a partnership with a recruitment consultant, have developed an extremely effective system to continue our pattern of healthy and sustainable growth well into the future. Our young members are already making significant contributions to the house, and we feel extremely confident about the organization’s future in their hands.

We have also brought on a new chapter advisor, Brother Ernie Avellana. Ernie brings with him a wealth of knowledge, connections, and a positive energy which will be an asset for years to come. Additionally, through the help of our alumni, we have raised a significant amount of capital to improve the physical infrastructure of our house. We are fortunate to have a historic house with one of the best locations on campus, but after 70 years and thousands of brothers living in it, it needs some attention. Last year, we replaced the roof, and in 2021 will be replacing the front façade, and replacing all of the windows to better the physical house. We are extremely grateful to our alumni for contributing their time and talents for the betterment of the chapter.

In 2021, we are looking forward to having 28 brothers living in the chapter house, more than at any time in recent history. If the pandemic allows, we will be hosting our traditional “Night On the Nile” event, where we convert our front lawn into an Egyptian landscape, complete with a giant sphynx and the “Nile River”. We are excited about the progress we have made, and look forward to the future we are building!

28 RENNSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE

VENERABLE DEAN CONNOR BUCKLEY

No update received.

28 SAINT CLOUD STATE

VENERABLE DEAN GAVIN DANDELET

The brothers at SCSU Acacia Fraternity have had a jam-packed spring semester. Whether it was spring rush, 7 days of service, or anything in between, we have been working our hardest to better ourselves and our community.

For recruitment this semester, we are planning to initiate 3 pledges (Ramon, Jaxon, and Adam) on April 17th. Our Initiation week will begin on April 11th, which the majority of our chapter is looking forward to. Not concerning recruitment, but shortly after April 17th on the 28th, we will be hosting our Fall Formal at the Coyote Moon Banquet Center/Golf Course.

As for our community, we just wrapped up a very strong 7 Days of Service where we cleaned our highway, cleaned our campus, volunteered time at our local Polar Plunge event, hosted a philanthropy event for Shriner’s Children’s Hospital, and lastly volunteered time at Feed My Starving Children. All-in-all we collectively volunteered more than 45 hours to our community, raised over $500 dollars for Shriner’s, and cleaned up our campus making it much prettier for all of the students.

We plan to carry on our strong sense of brotherhood and community service going into Fall Semester where we are aiming for no lower than 8-10 pledges (recruitment).

Thank you for giving us this opportunity.

28 TRINE

VENERABLE DEAN JON TYLER

The Trine Acacia chapter has been trying our best to focus more on recruitment this last year due to a lack of philanthropy events around our area. With a great increase to our chapter, we hope that when we can help our community again, we will have plenty of manpower to do such. Our last semester was a test to see what we can do in our area with the current restrictions in place from Trine University, which is that we are not allowed to host events and we are not allowed to have philanthropy outside off school grounds, this was a major issue.

Now with a new plan in order from our last semester we are hoping to head forward into this semester with the ability to have philanthropy soon. Currently there a few chances we get here and there around the school and we take what we can get. Once covid-19 restrictions are lifted we can continue with our usual plans of helping our community and holding our brotherhood stong. If we can get through these hard times like we are not there is nothing that can stop us.

38 WASHINGTON STATE

VENERABLE DEAN NATHAN HASCALL

Greetings from Washington State University, in mid-February we were extremely lucky to be able to get a new chapter house. The new house will allow our chapter to continue to build upon the previous momentum that we gained in the fall of 2019 in terms of recruitment that was stunted due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Even with the pandemic causing us to lose out on recruitment opportunities we were still able to initiate 5 new members during that time. We are also in the process of creating out leadership scholarship which will allow us to gain new leaders in the future. Following a change in our scholarship techniques two semesters ago

we have become the second highest GPA in IFC here at WSU.

When our campus was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in March of last year we responded and dealt with it as best as we could by implementing a mask policy at the house. Once the active chapter returned in August, we were more equipped to deal with the pandemic and were able to implement multiple policies that have successfully kept our number of cases to only a single brother.

The policies that were implemented include a guest policy and a mask policy. In the Guest policy we allow all brothers, partners of brothers, brothers’ families, and up to 8 other people who have provided a negative COVID-19 test result within the last 48 hours. The Mask Policy has been implemented so that we can keep our brothers safe from each other as well as protecting their friends and family. The mask policy requires masks to be worn in any and all common spaces unless one is actively taking a bite of food or drinking a beverage.

MOST INITIATIONS FOR 20-21

(For 20-21 Academic Year as of 5/15/2021)

1 Indiana (50)

2 Penn State (39)

3 Wisconsin (37)

4 Louisiana State (36)

5 Illinois State (29) 7 Arizona State &

Ohio State (23)

8 Iowa & Purdue (18)

9 Kansas State &

Nebraska (16) VENERABLE DEAN XANDER ALLISON

Greetings from Wisconsin!

While 2020 was undoubtably a challenging year for many, I am proud to reflect on our brother’s perseverance and commitmen to recruitment and philanthropy in such a unique environment.

The Wisconsin chapter welcomed 22 new pledges in the 2021 spring semester to complement a strong fall recruitment. These last two pledge classes are an extremely tight knit group and are eager to begin representing our chapter through recruitment, campus involvement, and philanthropy this upcoming year.

With some creative fundraising ideas, brothers were also able to successfully execute two philanthropies including a fall semester virtual yoga raising over $1,000 for Badgers 4 Special Olympics as well as a polar plunge to raise $3,200 for the Alzheimer’s and Dementia Alliance of Wisconsin.

What’s next? The Wisconsin chapter is eager to begin renovations on our chapter house’s basement and main floor this summer. These renovations will provide additional common areas and study space to help accommodate our growing chapter size. We are extremely thankful for the sacrifices and work that our housing corporation board has undertaken to make the renovation a reality as it has been a long time in the making.

We look forward to the challenges and excitement 2021 will bring!