Chi Upsilon Sigma, Delta Zeta, Pi Kappa Alpha win Dean's Cup

By: Janhavi Purohit

Posted: 5/16/08

The Dean's Cup award, presented annually to a chapter in each of Drexel's three Greek councils, was awarded this year to Chi Upsilon Sigma sorority of the Multicultural Greek Council, Delta Zeta sorority of the Panhellenic Council and Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity of the Interfraternity Council.

Each chapter on campus is required to submit a yearly chapter assessment plan, a seven-section compilation of the chapter's accomplishments from the past year, according to Kathleen Peoples, director of Fraternity and Sorority Life.

According to Peoples, the seven sections are chapter management, membership development, citizenship and philanthropy, community relations, programming, statistics such as GPA and community service hours, and values and identity.

The plans are reviewed by a committee made up by Student Life representatives, including individuals from the counseling center and Residential Living.

The cup is merit-based, according to Peoples. Each section is given a score, and the chapter with the highest scores from all seven sections is the winner.

"Pike's [assessment plan] was, for example, on top of most of, if not all of the categories from the fraternities," David Ruth, dean of students, said.

According to Mike Ruggieri, Pi Kappa Alpha's president, the most difficult thing is to "stay on top and not get complacent."

"We pride ourselves on trying to be the best, and academics is something we always try to be first in," Ruggieri said. "Our motto is 'Scholars, Leaders, Athletes and Gentlemen.' We strive to be great scholars, we pride ourselves on building and developing great leaders and we won the IFC cup for athletics. It's hard to quantify how much of a gentleman you are, but we won the philanthropy event, which shows how we are as gentlemen."

Ruggieri added that having to compete for the Dean's Cup every year is beneficial to the Greek community.

"Having to create an application means showing that we are not the stereotypical fraternity, which is really the biggest thing we have to overcome," Ruggieri said.

According to Delta Zeta president Kim Boyle, the Cup is important because of the competition it provides between chapters.

"We're all competing, and the best part of it, really, is that it pushes us, individually as chapters, to be our best," Boyle said.

For Delta Zeta, striving for the Cup is something that "comes naturally" with the sorority's original purpose, Boyle said.

"We try to make sure that during each term during the year, we're fulfilling all the different categories and [making sure] that they go hand-in-hand naturally with what we already do," Boyle said.

Boyle added that one of Delta Zeta's main strengths was the level to which the sisters committed themselves to events.

"As a sisterhood, we have a lot of tight bonds, so when we do an event, it's not that four or five girls come out, but we get a large number of girls attending the events," Boyle said. "I think it shows that it's not that we're doing the event for the sake of doing it, but that we're doing it because we really want to."

Ruth added that the Greek community has contributed a great deal to the campus community in the past year.

"The amount of campus involvement they bring to Drexel is unbelievable," Ruth said.

Peoples wrote in an e-mail that the Greek community has "achieved amazing results in the past year."

Lisa Ciechanowski, Panhellenic Council president, added her support of the Dean's Cup award.

"It helps a lot in that it shows the truly great things we do, the amount of community service hours that we've done, the funds we raise for philanthropies, and it shows that we have a lot of non-alcoholic Greek hours," Ciechanowski said.

Josh Murphy, IFC president, added that the competition and standards that the Cup requires for all the chapters help to dispel the stereotypes of typical fraternities and sororities.

"You get that typical mentality of frats, or 'animal house,' and that's not the case at Drexel. We bring a lot more to the community," Murphy said.

For the full list of Greek awards winners, visit www.thetriangle.org.