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Table of Contents
THE OMICRON OBSERVER Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, Tufts University
Fall 2015
President 1
Presidential Report Matthew Felsenfeld
Vice President 2
BDD 2
Alumni 4 4
ZBT Omicron 5
Secretary 3
Treasurer 3
Throughout this past year, the Omicron Chapter of Zeta Beta Tau has been incredibly successful. In the spring, we quickly laid out goals that would take us to the end of 2015. They included increased recruitment, diversified social events, and an increased service goal. I am proud to say that we succeeded in every one of those objectives. Both in the spring and fall semesters we have had very large classes. The spring Beta Iota class is made up of nine incredible now-‐sophomores, many of who have expressed interest in taking executive board positions at the end of the year. The fall class, Beta Lambdas, are a group of nine—yes NINE—men who are currently in the middle of their new member education. These two excellent recruitment seasons were overseen by Matthew Mazzarella. Philanthropy and service this year has been run by our hard-‐working and innovative Vice President Joey Cirone. In the spring, we ran our annual Get On the Ball event and raised over $2,000 for Boston Children’s Hospital. Joey has also worked closely with his newly formed philanthropy committee to develop the fall’s service project: constructing small libraries around the Tufts campus in an effort to bring fiction books to the school. Our social committee led by Secretary Jake Mittleman and Social Chair Morgan Gellert has done amazingly over the past year. We have maintained a great relationship with the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority on campus and now hold frequent mixers open to all of their sisters. We began the school year with ZBTahiti. The party was a success, our house was at capacity for the entire duration and risk management was handled perfectly. In late October, ZBT, along with the entire Greek community hosted the first Greek Fall Fest. Under the leadership of the innovative Brotherhood Development Director Ryan Hastings-‐Echo the chapter has had a number of unique bonding experiences as well as a revamped new brother process. During both semesters, the chapter held a 12-‐hour movie marathon for all brothers, as well as a tournament. Lastly, this past weekend we took a trip up to the Tufts Loj in New Hampshire. I have been lucky enough to work with an amazing group of men, all of whom I have the privilege to call brother. Now more than ever, it’s great to be a Zeeb. Cordially, Fraternally and Sincerely, Matthew Felsenfeld
Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, Tufts University
THE OMICRON OBSERVER
Vice Presidential Report Joseph Cirone
In the past year, our chapter has recommitted itself to our core values of service and community outreach. In collaboration with other Boston chapters of ZBT, we organized Get on the Ball for the Boston Children's Hospital, raising almost $2,500. In this event, we collected donations and signatures on a large inflatable ball that we rolled around the city. At the end of our fundraising, we came together with the other ZBT chapters to present a check to the Hospital and show the ball to the kids. This year, we visited Gifford Cat Shelter in Medford as part of a joint event with AOII, a local
Tufts Sorority. We are currently working on a little libraries project, in which we plan to place a small outdoor library for use by Tufts students and members of the local Medford/ Somerville Community. As part of this endeavor, we will also be raising money for Books for Africa, a charity dedicated to providing books for classrooms in underdeveloped communities. We look forward to scheduling even more philanthropy events in the future, including our traditional visit to Community Servings and a more local version of Get on the Ball.
Brotherhood Development Director Report Ryan Hastings-Echo
The past semester has been one of growth and change for our chapter. We far surpassed our fall recruitment goals, and on September 19th we initiated nine new brothers into our brotherhood. This was accomplished through the efforts of Recruitment Chair Matthew Mazzarella and Rush Chair Ben Pall, along with the BDD and recruitment committees. We hope to build on this success in the spring, and are expecting ten to fifteen new brothers next semester. The nine initiates are currently finishing our new brother education program led by David Bernstein and Trevor Vassallo.
We have a full schedule this semester, with movie marathons, jaunts into Boston, and a camping trip on the books over the coming months. These come as an addition to our more traditional brotherhood events. We have reinvigorated our academic programming, and are planning study hours where brothers can work on their coursework. We are hoping that this will be conducive to recruitment-‐-‐ allowing brothers to get to know potentials from their classes in a study-‐focused environment. Funding is always a concern, especially for the BDD committee. Part of our new eboard's agenda is a renewed focus on recruitment, which requires that we appropriate a portion of the budget traditionally reserved for brotherhood events. With generous alumni donations, we hope to continue to expand both our new brother program and our programming for current brothers. We would also like to set aside a small budget for house improvements, which will serve the dual purpose of serving the existing brothers and making our house more appealing for recruitment.
This semester has started off well. We held our annual ZBTahiti party the first week social events were allowed on campus. Even with more people coming through our house than ever before, the brothers handled the challenges of the event very well. We are very proud of the brotherhood’s risk management capabilities.
We have been in the process of expanding out social outreach to other groups that are in and out of Greek life, as well as on and off campus. In October, we worked with the
other members of the Greek community to throw an event called Fall Fest, open to the whole community. Brother input in house decisions and operations has been great. We recently formed three committees – Alumni, Social, and Brotherhood – to follow in the success that our Philanthropy committee has had. The social committee in particular will be working on our social media profile, expanding to Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram.
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Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, Tufts University
THE OMICRON OBSERVER
Secretary Report Jake Mittleman
As the current treasurer, I have re-‐vamped our operations budget in order to better manage and grow our savings. In this way, we are guaranteeing that our brothers in the future will be financially prepared for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
We are working with our alumni to strengthen our alumni network and financial
security. Of course, any donations are strongly appreciated.
Treasurer Report Jonathan Sirota
Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, Tufts University THE OMICRON OBSERVER
Announcements
This past June, Jonathan Garbose married Rebecca Matyas in Albuquerque. Jon and Rebecca were introduced to each other by Elliott McCarthy their sophomore year. Evan Rothstein served as a groomsman and several brothers were in attendance celebrating!
Ezra Dunkle-Polier married Anya Gelernt-Dunkle this past September.
Anya was a frequent visitor of ZBT during their time at Tufts, and many Zeebs celebrated with them at the
#SlamDunkle of a wedding.
If you have any life updates that you want featured in our next newsletter, or if you have any other general questions / are looking to reconnect with the chapter, reach out to our alumni chair, Jason Brillon, at [email protected]
Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, Tufts University
THE OMICRON OBSERVER
We are ZBT Omicron Beta Zeta
Beta Iota
Beta Theta
Jason Bril lon
David Bernstein Joseph Cirone Matthew Felsenfeld Morgan Gellert Ryan Hastings-Echo Ryan Havens Justin Lee Matthew Mazzarella Jacob Mitt leman Andrew Narahara Ben Pall Jonathan Sirota
Arlo Clarke Joshua Insler James Lacitignola Kevin Meli Benjamin Shipley Trevor Vassallo
Beta Kappa David Batubara Peter Bernstein Matthew Carr ington-Fair Rihab Fahad Jacob Hafey Kennith Lee Chris Kearns-McCoy Vance Matthews Daniel Meyers
Beta Lambda Alan Bartels Matthew Epstein Nicholas Fallah Benjamin Frances Daniel Kimmick Daniel Lang Kevin Lim AJ Malkani Alexander Ray
THE OMICRON OBSERVER Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity, Tufts University
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THE OMICRON OBSERVER
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Photo credit: Matt Mazzarella
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