Alpha Omega Epsilon Theta Chapter Newsletter

Alpha Omega Epsilon
Theta Chapter Newsletter
In this newsletter:
President – 1
VP - 2
MED – 3
Sisterhood & Social – 4
Professional,Alum,Float – 5
Philantropy,Risk,Technology – 6
Awards,Historian,EC Rep - 7
2014 Executive Board
Greetings from the Theta Chapter!
Our sisters, officers and executive board have put in an incredible amount of hard work to make
this semester a success. One of the strengths of our Chapter is the diversity of backgrounds and
interests of our sisters. Thanks to the dedication of our officer board, we were able to
successfully host a wide variety of events throughout the semester. We continued many of our
traditional events, such as Day Away, Day at Chicago, Paddle Painting and Philanthropy
Pancake Dinner. We also tried out several new events this semester. Our sisters enjoyed a Body
Combat Workout Class, took a hike together through Turkey Run Park, participated in an
Emotional Intelligence Workshop and learned about healthy nutrition, just to name a few.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to serve this Chapter as president for 2014. It has been
a privilege to work with each of my sisters throughout the year. Each brings something unique to
this Chapter and has given me a chance to learn and grow. As I finish up this presidential term, I
am excited about the future of the Theta Chapter. Thanks to the commitment and creativity of
our membership, I think our Chapter will continue to grow and thrive!
I hope you enjoy taking a moment to look through our newsletter and hear a little more about our
semester!
This semester, our recruitment theme was the
Avengineers based off of the Avengers and
superheroes in general. We hosted a variety of
events this semester. We had a cookout with
the Sigma Phi Delta Fraternity where we ate
burgers and played volley ball. We also had a
few co-hosted recruitment events with fellow
officers. One of those was with professional
where we invited a representative from
Engineering Career Services to talk to us and
after we critiqued resumes. Another event was with merchandise where we tie-dyed some
shirts. The tie-dye event was a big hit and the PNMs felt really comfortable talking with actives
while participating in the craft. At our informational sessions, all the potential new members
were able to walk around and talk with the actives present. The PNMs and actives were having
such a good time talking with each other! For bid day this semester, we invited the PNMs to
dessert pot luck with delicious food provided by
our actives. Our sisterhood chairs helped out and
provided some chocolate fondue which the girls
loved. The event was a hit and everyone enjoyed
themselves. We ended up with a lovely class of
11 candidates who were very excited to become
actives soon. Many ideas for next semester’s
recruitment have been talked about and we are
looking forward to implementing them spring
semester
This semester, we welcomed 11 new actives to our
chapter. I was excited to see high attendance from
our candidates right from the start. The majority of
our new members had outgoing personalities and
attended several sisterhood, philanthropy and
social events during their candidacy. I also held
several events specifically for candidates like lunch
dates, speed sistering and craft nights.
As MED, one of my goals was to encourage
leadership and to prepare our candidates to
assume officer positions in the sorority. To
achieve this goal, I asked current and previous
officers to speak during candidate meetings.
During the week of Halloween, our candidates
were in charge of organizing a Week of
Charity event with Triangle Fraternity. Our
candidates and the Triangle pledges were
successful in planning 4 events in 5 days and
raised $200 for Habitat for Humanity. I’d like
to mention two candidates who were elected to be officers for their first active semester. Vivian
Wong will be risk chair and Brianna Freitag will be Historian. Congratulations Vivian and
Brianna!
Day Away was held at the Arthur Community Center this semester. As always, it was great to
see the entire sisters bond with our
candidates. The candidates seemed very
entertained by our Day Away traditions. I
know they made some fantastic first
memories with AΩE that weekend. Ritual
week was filled with fun and relaxing
activities including half-priced burgers at
Joe’s for lunch, cookie baking/decorating,
and plaque painting. It was a worthwhile
experience bringing these lovely ladies into
the sorority, and I can’t wait to see what
they’ll contribute to the sorority as actives.
Hello all! We have had a fantastic semester of sisterhood at the Theta chapter. We kept a few of
our traditional events, such as the initiation potluck (with a surprise chocolate fondue bar!) and
the return of Sisterhood-Merchandise co-hosted events, but there were some new additions to the
schedule. The hiking trip to Turkey Run State Park and scarf knitting event went over great!
Creating strong bonds of sisterhood is so essential to the success of our sorority; thanks for
letting us have the opportunity to be a part of that process.
Our Theta chapter was super busy this semester with exciting social events! The sisters on
average had the option to attend 1-2 social events per week, each of which we aimed to cater to
the variety of the sisters' interests.
Sticking to our annual fall social traditions, we held our Semi-Formal at the Clybourne, a venue
near campus. There was a great turn out of sisters and dates, and it was a wonderful time! We
also organized events such as Pumpkin Carving with Sigma Phi Delta, our brother fraternity,
during which sisters carved pumpkins and enjoyed good company.
Some of our most popular events this semester were our Country Club themed exchange with
Alpha Delta Phi, Taco Night and Beverage Olympics with Phi Kappa Sigma, and our Holiday
Party with Kappa Sigma.
From themes to food to good fun, the sisters of the Theta chapter had many opportunities to
spend time with their sisters and meet new friends!
Professional had a set of varied and exciting events this semester. We held events like Emotional
Intelligence Workshop, Matlab/Excel workshop and several career fair preparation opportunities!
We also implemented a resume book for our chapter and hope to host it on our website as well.
This semester went well communicating and
coordinating with the alumni of our chapter.
We were able to organize a visit to Chicago to
bring our active members and alumni together.
It was great to see current and graduated
members getting to know one another better
over dinner and sharing the stories from their
time at Illinois. Furthermore, the chapter
hosted our alumni for a brunch following the
homecoming game when Illinois beat
Minnesota! The most bittersweet moment from
the semester came at the final chapter during the ceremony to transition our graduating seniors to
alumnae status. It is always hard to see them go, but we appreciate all they have contributed to
the chapter during their time as active members. We are so proud of our graduates and wish them
the best with all they go after in the future!
This year we decided to work with SPD for the homecoming parade
float. Together we were a great team! We decided to have the theme
of the float be robots in order to show off our engineering skills. The
main feature of the float was a twelve foot tall robot football player
holding a sledge hammer. His arms were motorized so that he was
playing whack a mole with a Minnesota gopher. All in all we had
good participation, especially from our wonderful candidates! We
had a great time working on the float this fall!
The theta chapter held five philanthropy events this semester and raised almost $1000 for Big
Brothers Big Sisters, Habitat for Humanity, and Relay for Life. We partnered with Sigma Phi
Delta for a pancake dinner and Triangle for our Candidate Week of Service. Our chapter also
visited the local animal shelter and supported a local women’s center.
This semester I wanted to continue to improve the
Risk Management position like the last RM chair
while remaining the traditional RM formula. First, I
talked to the last RM chair and knew that fitness
events were some of the successful events for this
position. So the first event I decided to hold was
group fitness class. The most welcomed one was the
Body Combat class. This event was held in
collaboration with sisterhood. More than ten girls
went to the Body Combat (fifteen is the maximum
number for one class), including a candidate. The
feedback for the event was very satisfactory as well. Another event risk held was an in chapter
workshop focusing on how to fuel for finals. Most sisters thought it was helpful to learn about
how to balance nutrition during final week. Furthermore, I kept the tradition of weekly health tip
from previous RM chair. In addition to the health tip, I added the weekly weather report to the
email to help sisters gear up for the crazy weather. Thanks to those who helped and supported
RM events this semester!
As Technology Chair, I'm in charge of maintaining the A.O.E. website. In addition to updating
the links and photos, this semester I've tried to reorganize the site to make it more user friendly,
particularly for prospective members. I'm looking forward to putting up a new site early next
semester (it had come to my attention that our site had
been compromised) and trying to make it a more useful
tool for all our sisters.
We had an awesome time as co-award chairs together. This semester, we continued with having
weekly superlatives instead of a long list of superlative awards at the end of the semester. We
rewarded each week’s winners with candy or little trinkets. The girls seemed to have really liked
those. To celebrate birthdays, we started writing each month’s birthday on the calendar in our
A.O.E. office.
I had such a great time documenting our chapters' growth and adventures this past semester. One
of my favorite parts of the historian position is the chance it gives to really be involved in every
aspect of the sorority, and to get to know all the other officers.
Engineering Council hosts monthly general body meetings, typical activities of which include
providing information about upcoming engineering events on campus, inducting new societies
into EC, voting for various positions of the EC executive board and recognizing students for their
exceptional contribution to their respective societies through awards & honors. My role as
Engineering Council representative was to attend these monthly meetings and serve as the point
of contact between our chapter and Engineering Council. I enjoyed attending these meetings as
they gave me the opportunity to make new friends within the engineering community and
understand how a student organization as large as Engineering Council functions. In particular,
the town-hall style meeting conducted in December was a great chance to offer suggestions on
how to increase interaction between the various societies and improve funding.