Brothers,
I am happy to report that the Gamma-Pi Chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity is in great condition and continuing to improve. With the members of our new freshman class taking on responsibilities within the fraternity and the leadership of our upperclassmen, great things are in our near future.
The semester started strong with our second consecutive spring rush. Thanks to our current rush chair (Mingwei Gu '10) and the efforts of the brotherhood, we successfully recruited three new pledges: John Romanishin, Kashif Rayani, and Viksit Arora. We hope to continue this rush success as we prepare for CPW in the coming weeks.
With winning seasons in football, basketball, soccer, dodgeball, and hockey last semester, our IM sports teams are looking forward to another successful spring. We are fielding some highly competitive soccer, volleyball, unihoc, ultimate Frisbee, air pistol, and softball teams. Additionally, our foosball team is currently undefeated.
The Fraternity still maintains a GPA above a B-average, and the efforts of the Academic Task Force continue to expand. In addition to the course mapping with freshman and online bible resources the Chapter already provides, the Task Force has taken on a number of other projects. These include HASS class evaluations, UROP listings, a list of course "experts," and a series of documents that outline everything from Athena to MIT?s library resources.
The weeks ahead have a lot in store for us as well. We will be holding our annual Ritual Retreat in April and various community service events. Most notably, Gamma-Pi will have its own water station in the Boston Marathon this year near mile 13.
These and other social and individual events are now compiled to a house Google calendar. This common location has created an increase in brother support at individual events, such as varsity sports games, culture shows, and other activities around campus. At one point, 13 Brothers painted P-a-m-i-d-i-m-u-k-k-a-l-a on their chests in support of Brother Praveen Pamidimukkala ('08) at a recent home volleyball match.
Gamma-Pi is looking to improve its recognition outside of our chapter as well. At MIT, we look forward to another strong showing at this years Greek Week competition. After coming in second at last year's team competition (largely due to our partner Sorority being outperformed), we will be back with a vengeance this year. In regards to the International Fraternity, we look forward to another strong showing at the 2008 Leadership Conference as we are currently applying for many individual and Chapter awards.
As you can see, the Gamma-Pi Chapter is continuing to do quite well. I look forward to hearing from you and welcome any comments you may have. Please look for our 2008 edition of the Gamma Pride in the months to follow.