Delta Tau Delta recently honored the Iota Beta chapter at Wittenberg University with several awards at the Fraternity’s Northern Division Leadership Conference in Muncie, Indiana.
Iota Beta was given a Court of Honor award, established in 1965 and presented to the top 20 chapters in the fraternity each year, and was also recognized for achieving a grade point average (GPA) above the campus all-male-average/all-fraternity average by the international fraternity.
Wittenberg’s chapter acquired 22 new members, spent its first year in a new house, added more alumni to its advisory team, formed a house corporation and has started the search for a new house according to Patrick Kenny, class of 2020 and the chapter’s president.
“Our chapter has had a busy, but exciting year,” said Kenny, from Denver, Colorado, who is majoring in finance and accounting, is a member of Wittenberg’s baseball team, serves as an accounting tutor in the math workshop, is a member of the class of 2020 cabinet, vice president of the Accounting Club and a member of Phi Eta Sigma honor society.
“We have stayed incredibly active in our philanthropy events; in the fall alone, we raised more than $3,000 by hosting a fall festival, working with the Make-A-Day Foundation and Lesotho Nutrition Initiative to pack thousands of meals for Lesotho, and partnered with Phi Kappa Psi for a 5K event. We have also been focusing on helping brothers learn and grow on relevant topics for them as people -- from understanding finances and budgeting for post-graduation to changing a tire, to mental health, diversity and inclusion. In addition, we have helped structure our organization around members growing as people. Overall, we are very proud of the year we have had and can’t wait to grow the family and continue improving upon ourselves next year.”
For the Court of Honor award, chapters provide documents to measure compliance with the fraternity’s minimum operating standards and exceptional facets of their operations and Delta Tau Delta programming. Chapters were graded on excellence in chapter finance, recruitment, membership education, academics, alumni relations and community service. This is the first time the chapter has received the Court of Honor award.
“We placed 12th out of 138 chapters, nationally," Kenny said. "Five years ago, we were near the bottom and have since committed to growing and re-developing our chapter to make sure it lives our values and impacts the members and the Wittenberg community positively.”
Iota Beta was also recognized for having a 3.06 GPA.
“Our GPA is something we are very proud of,” Kenny said. “The senior class that is graduating this year has played a huge role in this transformation. Troy Boucher (class of 2019 from Delaware, Ohio) was also recognized at our annual division conference for serving as Interfraternity Council President on our campus, and our chapter currently holds four of the eight seats on the IFC Executive Board. Our former president, Justin Luby, has been a huge driving force for the fraternity the past three years and was just recently recognized as Wittenberg’s 2019 Greek Leader of the Year. We will miss our seniors dearly, but the next generation of Delts is ready to continue the tradition of excellence and continue to improve.”
Founded in 1858 at Bethany College, in Bethany, West Virginia, Delta Tau Delta is actively affiliated at 131 colleges and universities in 39 states and the District of Columbia. It has a membership of more than 9,000 undergraduates and 120,000 living alumni. Delta Tau Delta strives to develop its members’ leadership skills, seeks superior academic achievement, promotes community service efforts and helps its members launch successful careers. The fraternity’s most recent aggregate grade point average was 3.1, making it one of the highest-achieving men’s fraternities academically.
Wittenberg’s Iota Beta chapter of Delta Tau Delta has grown substantially the past five years and currently has 61 members.
“Our chapter is involved widely across campus; in fact, 100 percent of our members are involved in at least one other thing,” Kenny said. “From being orientation assistants to members of the baseball, football, lacrosse, volleyball, cross country and track teams, to music, and Pocket Lint. In the local community, a strength of our brotherhood is being committed to involvements beyond just Delta. We preach to new members that it is important to try to make this campus a better place every day we are here, and I truly believe we do so. Most importantly, Delta Tau Delta is a brotherhood that is the closest thing to a second family to me that I could ever imagine. These guys have been the support I have needed away from home the past three years, and I don’t know what I would do without them.”
Delta Tau Delta is hosting its Spring philanthropy event, Dunk-A-Delt, on Thursday, April 25, from 4-7 p.m. Cost is $5 per person to attend and includes a plate of food and a chance to dunk your favorite or least favorite member.
For more information on the event or if you are interested in working with or enlisting the support of the brothers of Delta Tau Delta, email kennym@wittenberg.edu.
