Welcome Back

School is back in action, and the brothers of Lehigh Delta Chi are starting to get back into the swing of things. Be sure to check our public calendar for all kinds of events and opportunities to meet with the brothers, spend time with alumni, and to get an idea of what the fraternity is up to in general.

Fall recruitment is officially underway! If you or someone you know is interested in Lehigh Delta Chi, please feel free to contact our recruitment chair, Dan Lockman at djl511@lehigh.edu

Public Calendar Now Online

Due to popular demand, we've launched a public calendar section on our website to keep our alumni, family, and friends informed of our activities.  The calendar will include all relevant events during the school year including alumni meetings and activities, colony meetings, public events and fundraisers as well as many popular rush outings.

If you already use Google calendar or even if you only have a Google account, you can click the "add calendar" button at the bottom right of the widget on the calendar page to add the Lehigh Delta Chi Public Calendar to your own calendar, keeping you informed with updates and allowing us to automatically send you reminders regarding what's going on.  Even if you like to keep it old fashioned, you can keep checking back from time to time to see our updates posted on the website under the calendar tab.  As always, important events will be sent out via the Delta Dispatch and our "E".  Either way, make sure you don't miss out on all the great things we have lined up for this semester!

ITB,

Azim

Brotherhood Spotlight - Jeremy Thiesen

I'm pleased to introduce a new weekly feature which will run through at least the end of the year; The Lehigh Delta Chi Brotherhood Spotlight. Each week we will sit down with one of our brothers and learn a little bit about them. I hope you enjoy it. Our first Brotherhood Spotlight has focused its beam on Jeremy Thiesen. Jeremy is a Senior, Statistics Major, and our current B.

For starters, how did you end up at Lehigh University? It's quite a distance from your home in Colorado.

Well, it was my last hope. I applied to 9 schools, most of which were Ivy leagues or equivalent, such as MIT. I was rejected to all but Lehigh and Rose Hulman. Lehigh was rated higher on the party list, and seemed to be in a better location. So here I came.

Are you glad you chose Lehigh over Rose Hulman?

Most definitely. There has rarely been a dull moment here. I have also received amazing experience that I believe will help me both get a job and succeed. The experience I am referring to is my Delta Chi experience. I learned so much about leadership, dedication, and what work needs to be done in my positions within Delta Chi. If you don't know. I started as Public Relations Chair, then I was simultaneously Brotherhood Chair and Intramurals chair, and now of course, my dream job, "B".

What made you decide to join Delta Chi over the other fraternities on campus?

I actually did not want to be in a fraternity my freshman year, and had pretty much decided against fraternity life at the time. I didn't particularly enjoy their parties because they were all the same, which is one focus I have for the coming semester. So, I decided to not be a "frat brother".

However, when the opportunity to start something new was presented to me, I could not pass up the chance. I applied to be president and vice president along with Tim, Esposito and others. I wanted to make a perfect fraternity for me. I now realize how much work that is, but it does fuel my desire to improve Lehigh Delta Chi.

How has being in Delta Chi affected you?

Well, like I mentioned earlier, it has grown my leadership, work ethic, and management skills. Other ways it has changed me is I used to be very shy. However, starting my college career I wanted to change that. Delta Chi has been a great social facilitator giving me many opportunities to grow socially that I have taken advantage of.

Perhaps a negative effect would be my grades have suffered slightly since joining, however the benefits I describe above far outweigh those losses.

You mentioned various leadership positions you've held within the fraternity, the latest, and largest being the position of B. What challenges have you faced as B?

Many. The first I would say is within though. To become Vice President, you have to learn to lead. I would say it has really taken a full semester to understand leadership, and I know I still have a long way to go. Challenges on the outside are devoting the time needed, listening to many different opinions as well as making sure that people get both heard and don't scream.

I have gotten calls about quitting chairs wanting to quit their positions, which I have had to talk them out of doing so, and re-motivate them. I have had to sacrifice some nights that I was planning on staying in to host a fraternity event, and even following my vision for the future has been challenging at times when it seems like everyone is trying to lead you in the opposite way.

What would you like to see for the future of this colony?

Well, the first thing that popped into my head is to no longer be a colony, however that is not my vision. I in a way would prefer to not become a chapter, and succeed just to set an example that becoming a chapter isn't everything.

My true vision, which I hope to come to fruition in the coming semester and year is to make this a leader's fraternity. What I mean by that is to take everyone and grow them into brothers that take initiative, fight for their fraternity in terms of prosperity, and become business/political leaders or revolutionaries in their field of expertise.

In basic terms, the way I plan to do this is by giving everyone the opportunities to help them succeed. Let them contribute in a big way in the area that they could really grow in due to their passion in their areas of interest.

So tell us, what was the craziest thing you did as a child?

This is a hard one. After all the denser material, I want to analyze what crazy is, but we should forego that. I am going to have to go with telling my parents that cold didn't affect me, then proving it by running outside naked in the snow. There are even pictures to prove that one.

How old were you when you did this?

Probably about 6 or 7. Hard to remember.

How do you like to spend your free time?

Watching Movies, hanging out with my best friends, pondering the way of the world, and trying to have some fun by trying out some of the more "odd" activities in life.

Can you share an example of one these "odd" activities?

Testing the limits of your shame. For example, Dutch and I have acted like statues in front of Linderman Library. Other things I have tried would be the didgeridoo, kayaking, getting lost, meditating, speaking in a British accent for a day, basically I like to try things "normal" people don't do.

If you could meet anyone, alive or dead, who would it be?

This is a tough one because I kind of want to meet someone from my dream job, medieval strategist, however I will have to go with Martin Luther King Jr. at this moment. I choose him because one thing that I am curious about right now is motivation, how to create it and how to bring massive crowds to follow you is an amazing skill. I am not sure if he would have an answer for me, but I think meeting him would give me a hint.

Last question. You are a Statistics major, so this should be pretty easy. 12 members were present at a board meeting. Each member shook hands with all of the other members before & after the meeting. How many hand shakes were there?

Ok. Forgive me if I am wrong here. If we think about the problem: the twelth person shakes hand with the other 11, so thats 11 handshakes. Then we can consider the same problem with 10 people. Thus 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. 11 + ... + 1 = 12(11)/2 = 66. Multiply that by two to get 132 handshakes. Perhaps enough to cause a little global warming.

Well done, fraternity life obviously hasn't been that detrimental to your education

No, but perhaps a couple more times on the Dean List could have been in order.

Thank you Jeremy, we hope you enjoyed being in the spotlight. If you have any comments on this new feature, or would like to suggest a brother to undergo the spotlight treatment, send an email to Brian Lafond - bwl211@lehigh.edu Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for next week's installment.

Convetion and other updates

Convention is just about a week away!  If you're planning on going and still haven't registered, you still can at http://www.deltachiconvention.org.  Send in your pictures of convention and check back here for updates when it's all done.

In other news, we'll be putting up a website section with a public calendar as well as an alumni calendar soon, including dates for rush events, alumni events and meetings, as well as other fraternity happenings.  An easy way to stay tuned into website updates is to subscribe to this blog following the links on the left under the heading "Subscribe to Lehigh Delta Chi".  There you can follow links to subscribe via Google, Yahoo, or any other RSS reader for that matter.

With summer sessions winding down and vacations drawing to a close, I hope everyone's as excited for another successful year of Delta Chi as I am!

ITB,
Azim