Bradley Alumnus Nominated for Cybersecurity Excellence Award

Matt Stephenson, Bradley '91, has been nominated for a Cybersecurity Excellence award for his podcast, InSecurity.  

In 2019 InSecurity aired 50 episodes for its full second season. InSecurity looks to make the world more secure by talking to people in tech, executives, teachers, and artists – anyone who has hacked an inefficient system while they were trying to make it more secure. Via the press release:

 Notable guests include Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist and author of Billion Dollar Whale, Bradley Hope; athenahealth CISO Taylor Lehmann; LaColombe Coffee founder/CEO Todd Carmichael; former WIRED magazine editor & Loeb Award winning journalist Rob Capps; and Joseph Menn, Reuters journalist and author of Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the world.

 Stephenson shares that he has found several brothers within the cybersecurity world via Phi Tau’s social media, and even connected with them at shows.

Congrats, Matt, on this nomination!

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Phi Taus Take AFLV

17 Phi Taus representing 14 chapters attended AFLV Central in early February.

 AFLV, the Association of Fraternal Leadership & Values, is the largest and most diverse gathering of fraternity stakeholders in the country. Via the ALF website, more than 3,750 participants from over 200 campuses gather each year for the conference in Indianapolis with programing at all levels of expertise. AFLV exists to accelerate progress in the Greek community through change and operates by challenging conventional wisdom to discover new solutions, commits to providing an inclusive and accessible experience, and prioritizes time and resources to support the people who are most likely to affect systematic change. 

Erik Raisys, Washington State ’17, was among the Phi Taus in attendance. “I joined IFC to make a difference in my Greek community and to move us in a more sustainable direction overall,” he shares. “AFLV was an incredible experience to learn from members of other Greek communities, meet brothers from around the nation, and listen to many powerful speakers. I gained a lot of perspective on what other communities did and a lot of skills that I could bring back to my community.”

Kendrew Scott, Eastern Kentucky ’18, was another participant. “I wanted to become involved in IFC because I wanted to improve the Greek community on our campus. I also wanted to increase my chapter’s presence and be an example for my brothers to follow,” said Kendrew.

Guillermo Flores, Southern Illinois ‘08, who attended as a Greek life professional said of the event, “ Every year the number of Phi Taus that come to represent their campus IFC's grows and it makes me proud. If you want something to change then you need to get involved and put in the work. These Phi Taus are doing just that and I thank them for being leaders on their campus. Thank you for all you brothers do!”

Participating in the greater Fraternity & Sorority community at large is a meaningful part of unifying our shared experience. We value brothers who go above and beyond to share the best of Phi Taus mission and learn about the good work of other Greek orgs. Go Far!

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Gamma Alpha Wins Annual Ice Competition

The winning ice sculpture

Gamma Alpha chapter at Michigan Technological University has once again won the school’s annual ice sculpture competition.

Photo via mtu.edu

This is their third time winning in the past four years, but the chapter has been sweeping the competition for decades. This year’s theme was “Discover What Shines from Prehistoric Times” and the Phi Tau’s statue was called “Dongson Fishing Village.”

These elaborate sculptures, on display for an entire month, are part of an annual winter festival tradition on Michigan Tech’s campus. Second place in the overall division went to Tau Kappa Epsilon for “Stone Age” and third to Alpha Gamma Delta for “Wooly Mammoth Surrounded by Saber Tooth Tigers.”

We look forward to seeing your work next year, Go Far!

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Photo submitted by Ryan Heetderks, Michigan Tech ’16.

A Trip to Flying Horse Farms

Leaders Regional Conference is held at beautiful Flying Horse Farms, a SeriousFun camp north of Columbus, Ohio. Flying Horse Farms was opened in 2010 and is home to 22 buildings, including the picturesque “Big Red Barn,” cabins, archery ranges, and two lakes, all housed on 200 wooded acres.  

Regional Conferences are a one-day leadership development and officer training program offered across our nine geographic regions. Each Regional Conference offers three distinctive tracks with their own goals and objectives; Recruitment, Leadership, & Prevention. These tracks are designed so brothers can approach problems in their chapter with candor and develop real-world solutions to return with a plan for improvement and growth. Regional Conferences target officers for Recruitment and Prevention, but are made special because all are invited to attend Leadership track to work on their skills and network with other brothers.  

 For Leaders, chapters from Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan are expected to attend. In total this ended up including 44 brothers, representing 9 chapters.  

Some of the Recruitment participants

A few participants in Prevention

 After the introductory session, participants break into their tracks and start by playing ice-breaker games within their small groups, before diving into the material. The Recruitment track was the largest. They worked on skills like selling Phi Tau as a lifelong experience and best-practice tactics for recruitment on campus. They discussed what strategies work best for their chapter and what challenges the groups face.  

At the Leadership track, participants worked on assessing chapter brothers’ strengths and weaknesses and how to use those strengths to benefit the chapter. They practiced delegation by playing “To Delegate or Not to Delegate” and discussed time management and effective communication. The Prevention track focused on mental health, the fastest growing area of university life, and the best way to provide support for chapter brothers. They held discussions on what it means to be a “Fraternal Gentlemen” in 2020 and how to create a proactive environment for good mental health and its expression, as well as positive ways to place expectations and boundaries.  

Simultaneous to Leaders was the West Coast regional conference at University of Southern California in Los Angeles, with 58 attendees reporting from 9 chapters in California and Arizona. Remaining Regional Conferences this year are Bluegrass (Kentucky, Tennessee) and Southeast (North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida) on February 15th, as well as Heartland (Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin) and New England (New York, Massachusetts) to close the program on February 22nd. 

Bradley Alumnus Named President of GLMA

Scott Nass, Bradley ’93, has been elected President of GLMA, Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality.

Nass, MD, MPA, FAAFP, AAHIVS, was welcomed among the new Board Officers at the 37th GLMA Annual Conference in New Orleans last fall. Nass is the first family practice physician in nearly two decades to serve as GLMA President. He’s based in Palm Springs, where he also serves as Program Director for the Eisenhower Health Family Medicine Residency Program. Nass has been a recipient of the Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity by the Atlantic Institute and Member of the Month by the California Academy of Family Physicians, as well as a Front-Line Scholar with TEDMED and a Southern California Super Doctor Rising Star.

GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, previously known as the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association, is the largest and oldest association of LGBTQ healthcare professionals in the world. It was founded in 1981 with the mission of ensuring equality in healthcare for LGBT individuals and healthcare professionals. 

Congratulations, Dr. Nass, on this huge accomplishment!

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National Organ Donor Day

Ferri as USC

February 14th, the day of love, is also recognized as National Organ Donor Day. National Organ Donor Day draws attention to five different types of donation – organs, tissue, marrow, platelets, and blood. Approximately every two seconds, there is someone in the United States who needs blood. This translates to 41,000 daily donations.

There are an estimated 114,000 on the waiting list for a lifesaving organ, and one of them is Phi Tau’s Gerard Ferri, Southern California ’76. Ferri has been involved with the broadcasting world for over 30 years. He is the founder of Safe and Secure TV channel, an internet broadcast channel, and the owner of Peak Performance Properties (P3), a company that specializes in intellectual training to improve focus.

Ferri has been on the waiting list for several years and is now in late-stage kidney failure. According to the American Transplant Foundation, 20 people die on average every day waiting for organs. About 6,000 living donations occur each year and one-in-four donors are not biologically related to the recipient.

Phi Tau places one of its core beliefs around being a good and loyal citizen. Consider today singing up to be an organ donor or give blood. Your small contribution will go far in the lives of many. 

To find out more about Gerard Ferri’s quest and to see if you can be of assistance, email him here.

Chris Elser Nominated to Muhlenberg Athletics Hall of Fame

Chris Elser, Muhlenberg ’87, has been nominated to the Muhlenberg College Athletics Hall of Fame.

Elser 1989

Elser, a three-year starting quarterback on the football team, compiled a 21-9 record for the school to a share of the 1986 CC championship. At the time of his graduation he held records for completions (383), yards (4,549), and passing touchdowns (42) in a career as well as yards (1899) and passing touchdowns (19) in a season. Elser was a co-captain of the 1988 team and earned All-CC honors in two of his three years as a starter, including first-team laurels as a senior.

The induction ceremony will take place in April.  

Go Far!

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Phi Tau Seeking National Council Nominations

From Wm. Tim Hudson, Chief Executive Officer:

 PHI KAPPA TAU NOMINATING COMMITTEE SEEKS APPLICANTS

The Phi Kappa Tau Constitution mandates that, every two years, the Fraternity assemble in National Convention to elect brothers to the National Council. The National Council serves as Phi Kappa Tau’s legislative body when Convention is not in session.

The Nominating Committee anticipates that Phi Kappa Tau will elect a national vice president and two national councilors at the 64th National Convention, in Fort Worth, TX from July 15-18, 2020.

The national vice president will hold office for two years and, at the 65th National Convention (2022), will succeed to the office of national president for a two-year term, following a vote of confidence by the National Council. The national councilors will hold office for six years.

Any alumni member in good standing may be nominated for election. The nominating committee will receive and review nominations/applications until the deadline of April 15, 2020.

Alumni interested in serving on the National Council can find information about the candidacy process and online application here. Members wishing to submit names for consideration should be emailed to nomination@phikappatau.org for follow up.

ABOUT

Founded in 1906 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Phi Kappa Tau is a national fraternity that develops men of character into men of distinction. Phi Kappa Tau includes 86 chapters and 9 colonies with more than 4,500 undergraduates in the United States, and has served more than 100,000 initiates throughout the past 113 years.

The mission of Phi Kappa Tau is to champion a lifelong commitment to brotherhood, learning, ethical leadership and exemplary character.

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Phi Tau Welcomes 100,000th Member

Travis Gerbert, Texas State ‘20, become our 100,000th member over the weekend

Phi Kappa Tau is pleased to welcome our 100,000th brother to the Fraternity. Initiated over the weekend at Texas State University-San Marcos, Gamma Psi chapter, Travis Gerbert is officially our 100,000th member.

Travis (left in the gray t-shirt) and his Gamma Psi chapter brothers

William Lee Hidy, Miami ’53, and his father, Frank Hidy, Miami ‘25

Travis is a sophomore at Texas State majoring in Marketing, and shares that he was drawn to Phi Tau by the brotherly environment from the chapter, along with its determination to represent a good fraternity. “The idea that 100,000 men came before me in this process is mind blowing and the pride that I feel is beyond measurable,” he said. “Coming from a smaller chapter in Texas, it’s pretty special to carry this distinction. In my future with Phi Tau I’m looking forward to holding other positions within my chapter and experiencing its growth.”

This moment has been highly anticipated. Phi Tau began tracking major initiation markers at the French Lick, Indiana, National Convention in 1953 when William Lee Hidy, Miami ’53, became the 20,000th member. William Lee Hidy was a legacy and his father, Frank Hidy, Miami 25, was initiated some thirty-years earlier at badge number 2,774, demonstrating exponential growth in 3 decades.

The next major initiation came six years later when Toward Wells, Penn State ’59, became the 25,000th initiation (See excerpt from the spring 1959 Laurel below).

By the time Robert Cowan, Kentucky ’79, initiated, our membership had doubled in size to 50,000 men. On November 11th, 1996, Michael Revis, Washington State ’96, became the most recent major initiation at 75,000.

To put these numbers in perspective, between 1996 to 2020, Phi Tau has initiated more members than we did our first 47 years of existence. More than half of our members have been initiated since 1979 - just 41 years of our soon-to-be 114 years of history. This reminds us that in many ways, we are still a young organization, and the best is yet to come.

Go Far!

Cornell Alumnus Named to Inc.'s "Most Important Entrepreneurs of the Decade"

Osborne (right) with Red Antler co-founders Simon Endres and Emily Heyward

JB Osborne, Cornell ’01, has been named to Inc.’s list of “Most Important Entrepreneurs of the Past Decade.”

Osborne is the CEO of Red Antler, a Brooklyn-based marketing firm he co-founded with Emily Heyward and Simon Endres in 2007. Osborne graduated Cornell Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in business and spent several years in the marketing industry before starting Red Antler. Today, he works with clients on branding, user experience, and business strategy.

Just below Elon Musk, the Inc. article describes Osborne’s accomplishments and company as follows:

The agency is arguably the nation's most sought-after and respected brand-builder, crafting clients' identities virtually from scratch: logos, packaging, industrial design, advertising, digital experiences, and even naming. Venture capitalists point their portfolio companies in Red Antler's direction; and many of the decade's starriest direct-to-consumer brands were born in its Brooklyn offices.

Red Antler certainly has an impressive portfolio, including mattress company Casper, lifestyle company Brandless, and the eco-friendly footwear line Allbirds. According to Inc.:

Heyward, Osborne, and Endres were behind Casper's positioning as a lifestyle brand for the well-rested, which helped drive that startup's early success. The team also gave Brandless its signature generics-reimagined labeling system. And Allbirds owes virtually its entire brand identity to Red Antler, including its name, its comfort-meets-curiosity messaging, and its now iconic shoebox-cum-mailer packages.

Red Antler is a versatile company, and among many options on their website, services include research, strategy, brand identity, creative production, and advertising. Via their website, the company communicates its own minimalist-powerhouse identity and purpose statement:

We're helping to build and reimagine businesses and to launch them into the loving (and very discerning) arms of consumers everywhere. We set off in 2007 with a mission to build brands that shift categories and add value to people's lives. It's quite magical.

As of 2018, Osborne is also on the Board of Directors for Bed Bath & Beyond. 

Go Far!

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