• Congratulations to Chris and Keri Salustri. Their daughter, Laurie Marie, was born on July 20, 2004.
• Thanks to everyone who is helping Pi Lam get a new kitchen — I’ll provide a fundraising progress update soon.
• After many years in the Washington, DC area, Chris Garbe has accepted a job in Seattle and will be moving there soon.
• Thanks to Marvin Meistreich ‘62 who checked in with some changes to the family tree. Yes, the online family tree is not 100% perfect and in need of an update. Marvin still keeps in touch with several of his classmates.
• Hadn’t heard from Dan Venditelli in a long time: “By the way.. just to catch you up.. went to art school instead of the whole engineering thing. Of course I’m doing web-apps and graphic design now - it was either that or sidewalk portraits.”
• Several people have contacted me with questions about the message from RPI concerning disciplinary measures against RPI fraternities. I don’t believe that Pi Lambda Phi is one of the fraternities in question. If I find out any more information, I’ll let you know. http://www.rpi.edu/dept/doso/greek/gazette.htm

“Over the past two years, at least six organizations went through the judicial process because of alcohol. Fraternities Tau Kappa Epsilon, Acacia, and Pi Kappa Alpha are currently under suspension for providing alcohol to minors. Meanwhile, other groups like Theta Xi, Alpha Gamma Delta, and Phi Kappa Tau received stiff sanctions due to alcohol-related incidents. As of this writing, one other organization is going through the judicial process because of it.”

According to Jason Haarman: “There were two letters that were sent. One was from the Dean of Greek Affairs and the other was from Eddie Knowles. The first from Mark Smith was to advisors. The second was to all alums is my guess. “

Greek Man of the Year and recent graduate Ryan Wetmore provides the mother lode of information. As for his attempts to lead efforts for social changes, “I’ll drink to that!”: “As a recent graduate and former Greek Senator on the Student Senate, I was in on the conversations discussing this subject. Basically, there has been a spike in the number of alcohol related incidents over the past year and a half…a huge spike. Dean of Students Mark Smith and Director of Greek Life Brian Dominguez are pushing fraternities away from having parties in their houses and trying to prevent the worst alcohol related incident from happening (a student death). With the huge spike in problems lately and an “Alcohol Task Force” actively looking for underage drinking, RPI is a little concerned with student safety and some house Presidents having been enjoying rides to jail. If you’d like a better update I suggest getting in touch with the current Rex, Dan Opp (oppd@rpi.edu), or Pat DiCaprio (dicapp@rpi.edu) who is currently sitting as VP of RUSH in the IFC. The best information can be gained from e-mailing Brian Dominguez directly at dominb@rpi.edu.

Dan Opp, Pat DiCaprio, and I have been helping to lead efforts for social changes in the fraternity system at RPI. NYKT is doing GREAT! I have talked with Brian Dominguez before graduation and as far as he is concerned, “PiLam is of the houses other fraternities should model after.”