B TERM ISSUE December 2020
Hello Brothers and Friends of Beta, I hope that you and your family are all still well and able to safely celebrate the holiday season. This has not been a normal year and will not be a normal holiday season so I hope that you may still find joy and comfort in these trying times. I also encourage you to spread the holiday and Beta spirit by giving back to those in need where you can. This year has been difficult, and the chapter has encountered many challenges along the way. Despite the ongoing pandemic and a drastic decrease in chapter size, we have still been able to provide the Beta experience to our brothers. By continuing to uphold the fraternity’s commitment to mutual assistance, the brothers have conducted numerous hours of community service, either virtually or in person, despite the trying times. We also continued to educate our brothers on what it means to be a Beta as well as useful knowledge of post-college. And we of course maintained our bonds of brotherhood through fun activities and events. This B-term presented yet another challenge: how to recruit new members during a pandemic. With much effort, planning, and determination our chapter, and in particular the recruitment committee, organized a successful rush period that brought in 9 new members to the chapter. To these new members and their families, I extend a hearty welcome into our Great and Good Fraternity. We are so very happy to have you and cannot wait to help you on your journey through college and life. I very much look forward to getting to know all of you as friends and, eventually, as brothers. Continued next page ...
As some of you may know this is my last time writing this message, as our exec board will change and with it comes a new president. I would like to congratulate all new execs on their elections, and I look forward to working with you to keep improving the Eta Tau Chapter. I would specifically like to highlight Augustus Teran, who will be taking over my role as president. Through his leadership and dedication, I am sure this chapter will prosper. So, for the final time I say: The state of the Eta Tau chapter is enduring and prosperous. Yours in _kai_, President Matthew Karns, #117
Hello once again, As I said in the State of the Chapter, this year had been long and challenging. Everyone has encountered great difficulties in their lives. Our brothers are no exception. Some have experienced the loss of a loved one, some have encountered financial hardship, while others struggled without being able to see all their friends on a regular basis. On top of all of that all the brothers and new members also had to figure out how to be college students during a pandemic. We have all dealt with a lot, whether it be personally, academically, or even with respect to the chapter. So, I would like to take this moment to congratulate you all for what you have been able to accomplish during this time. Take a minute to look back and objectively observe ALL that you have had to overcome to accomplish what you have. Even if you did not get the grades that you wanted or go to the gym as much as you had planned, the fact that you persevered through these trying times and came out the other side is something to be proud of. I know that I am extremely proud of all of you for everything you did this year. This is my final message to you as President of the Eta Tau Chapter and I wanted to take up a bit more space and time to provide some thanks (also I do not want to let go just yet :) ). So first, the Thank You’s. I would like to thank Christine Ziev and Mackenzie Lipman of the Student Activities Office for their guidance and assistance throughout this past year. Their advice and experience have been extremely helpful in many circumstances and it was always greatly appreciated. Next, I would like to thank the eight members of the chapter’s Advisory Board for helping to guide our executives through this challenging time. Whether you have just taken up the role, been in it for years, or even left this year all the time and effort you put into this chapter does not go unnoticed. So, thank you. In particular, I would like to acknowledge my advisor, Andy Iovanna, who has been a terrific help to me throughout this trying year. His sage advice and willingness to listen has helped me solve a lot of tough problems and keep the chapter on track. Furthermore, his efforts to reestablish the advisory board has been a great success and massively helpful. I would also like to thank Martin Lewinson for aiding in these efforts and being a great stand in district chief. Similarly, I would like to thank Cody Golden, Ryan Eilts, and Ethan Farner for their roles in helping the chapter exceed as Leadership consultants and Chapter Operation Specialists. I appreciated all the help that they provided throughout the year. Continued next page ...
My biggest thank you though, must go out to the executive board that has helped make this year so great. I thank you for being fantastic, dependable people to work with that have made my job so much easier. I thank you for putting up with the two-hour meetings that sometimes seemed like four. I thank you for making those meetings a lot of fun. I thank you all for your consistent dedication to the Eta Tau chapter and for all the help you provided me. I would like to highlight Cameron Walsh for his dedication as Vice-President and always being willing to stay up and talk with me about Beta until early in the morning. But I truly thank you all, for everything. I can not think of a group of a people that I would have rather spent the year with. I thank you all for making this a fantastic year and one of the best experiences of my life. I will forever be proud of what we accomplished and honored that I got to be your president. Yours in _kai_,
Matthew Karns.
Augustus Teran
Charles Snow
Cameron Walsh
Matthew Iandoli
John Hoang Do
Ryan Tougas
Matthew Karns
Brian Zawacki
Geoffrey Garsson
Luke Trujillo
Taylor Cox
Jason Davis
x
by Michael Bosik
This statement has never been more important. 2020, the year of isolation, has proven its difficulty but alas we persevere! This year’s recruitment was most necessary as the number of active brothers was a mere 23. This meant we all had to put our best foot forward and put everything we had into rush.
When COVID-19 came to town, the entire dynamic of how we run recruitment had to be changed. Instead of having big in person off campus events, we had to create a calendar that would be COVID safe, socially distant, and still be outstanding to the PNMs. One of the main implementations we immediately thought of was to host a virtual Rush forum by creating a Discord server for all PNMs to join. The server had many informational, social, and helpful channels for all brothers and PNMs to use to share questions about Rush, send memes and overall communicate. We even hosted many virtual Rush events and hangouts in the voice channels on the server. Speaking of events, the calendar this year was perfectly executed for the circumstances we were given. For the kickoff of Rush season, BetaBox, a socially distant Quad takeover, consisted of many brothers and PNMs meeting each other, projecting Jackbox games on a giant screen and playing a big impromptu game of nighttime kickball! We then found an imposter among us! Our first completely virtual Rush event had brothers and PNMs playing the recently popular video game Among Us, all while talking on the Discord server. Other virtual events we hosted playing many other computer games such as Civilization 5, Jackbox games, and Minecraft. We even hosted our very own Minecraft server for everyone to use throughout Rush! We played a lot of games but not all of them were virtual! Beta Brawlers, a Super Smash
Bros Brawl tournament, was a COVID safe game night held in WPI’s Odeum. We had multiple consoles around the room each running different games for everyone to play and socialize. Our last event, a virtual cooking show, had brothers pre-packaging all sorts of ingredients to distribute to PNMs so that they could follow along at home using only a microwave! We followed recipes for dishes such as risotto, frittata and even coffee mug cake. But, not all the food for Rush had to be made from scratch. Our bid dinner, hosted virtually on the Discord server was brought to us by Westside BBQ located in Worcester. They hooked us up with delicious ribs, wings, mac and cheese, coleslaw, and much more! We delivered everyone their food and enjoyed virtually together. Lastly, to maintain that crucial in person interaction that allows brothers and PNMs to connect on a more personal level, we implemented a strategy called Date -A-Beta. This program allowed brothers to plan their own in person hangouts with attendance of less than 10 individuals to be able to meet safely. Each hangout was allocated an amount of budget depending on the size of the group. Our Rush this year brought us 9 terrific new Men of Principle! We are so proud to welcome these New Members and hope to continue to grow as C term rush approaches!
WPI’24 | ME
WPI’24 | ECE
WPI’24 | ME
WPI’24 | CS
WPI’23 | IE
WPI’22 | IMGD/CS
WPI’24 | ECE
WPI’21 | CS
WPI’24 | RBE
Born between 1981 and 1996, with 72 million individuals in the United States, Generation Y, or Millennials, is likely the most studied generation. A myriad of investigations have attempted to describe this generation from multiple perspectives. Tech savvy. Creative. Open-minded. Entrepreneurial. Those are just some of a variety of words that have been used to describe Millennials. Following the Millennial generation is the iGeneration, or Generation Z (Gen Z), consisting of individuals born between 1997 and 2012 (or so). These two generations share many similarities, such as their open-mindedness, creativity, and intelligence. Yet, Gen Zs are quite unique as well. Though Millennials are tech savvy, Gen Zs are tech natives. Born in the era of smart devices, Gen Zs are used to using multiple devices. They are used to using images and videos to communicate, through the introductions of Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok. They are fluent at multitasking. According to Sparks & Honey, a New York ad agency, Gen Zs switch between five screens: a smartphone, TV, laptop, desktop, and iPod. Nearly half of Gen Z are connected online for over 10 hours per day. This generation learned from Millennials and is more concerned about their privacy. Indeed, a study done by Pew Research Center said that 57% of Gen Z have not posted something due to privacy concerns. In line with the concern for online security, Gen Z is concerned about finance security. Witnessing their parents or older siblings going through the Great Recession in 2008, Gen Zs are quite realistic. According to Forbes, “while millennials are often seen as more idealistic, and more motivated by purpose than a paycheck, Generation Z may lean more toward security and money. This is a pragmatic generation — they care about making a difference, but are ultimately motivated by ensuring they have a secure life outside of work.” Besides those qualities, there are many more ways to define Gen Zs. Yet, instead of providing a list of those characteristics, let’s find out more through our conversations with Peter Darrow and Emily Perlow.
To the Eta Tau chapter, many know Peter N. Darrow as a fellow Beta brother from the University of Miami through his role as the Recruitment Specialist and a Director on the Beta Theta Pi Foundation board. Peter is also a native New Yorker, an entrepreneur, and a Millennial who has learned a great deal from his mistakes. After earning an MBA in entrepreneurship from Babson College in 2014, he founded Darrow’s Farm Fresh restaurant in Union Square in NYC. Through his book, Wise Millennial, and his same-titled podcasts, Peter discovers and challenges the millennial culture in the building of modern communities.
Hi Peter! Thank you so much for joining me today. To get straight to the point, from your experience as a Millennial and your exposure to the Millennial culture, and seeing that Gen Z is entering college and the workforce, what do you think are the most significant differences between these two generations? Thank you, John. And to answer your question, I think there are a couple of things. One, the fact that all of Gen Z is online, you know. It’s a given, it’s not an option. And a lot of Gen Z want to be Instafamous, or want to be an influencer, and it’s really important to people. And Millennials kind of started that trend. Although I think the biggest difference is that Millennials all try to one up each other and try to compare to each other. And Gen Z does that too. To Gen Z credit, they’re not that harsh on each other, people are just looking to be entertained, in a more fun and silly way, while Millennials tend to be a little bit more bashful towards each other and themselves. I would also say that Millennials certainly don’t want to be compared to others. They want to be part of a community and a group but without labels, which is often oxymoronic. It’s like “I want to be a part of a group, but I don’t want to be labelled as part of any group.” People are very sensitive to being labelled. But Gen Z, I have to spend more time with that generation. I think that many of them are still forming their identity in many ways. Indeed, many Gen Zs are entering college. And fraternity can be a part of their college experience. So looking at the way that fraternities, Beta included, are operating, do you think the differences between the generations affect one’s decision to join Greek Life? As you know, I have the honor and privilege to serve on the Beta Theta Pi Foundation board. And I certainly hope that we’re attracting quality men. We certainly try to promote our core values. And more broadly to your point, I think the question is “Is fraternity life preparing people for the next stages of life?” or “Are the lessons you learned by being in a fra-
ternity accurately, properly, preparing you for what comes after?” And I think so. We invest so much energy and financial resources into leadership programming. It certainly made an impact on my life. Could we do more? Sure. But the purpose of a fraternity on a high level is not to help you to interview better for applications. It’s not an HR component. It’s to give you the social skills to be socialized in the world, to be a leader in a group, to understand how to take actions. It gives you the social skills which are critical to succeed in life, not just professionally. I do believe that Beta does give you an opportunity to really understand group dynamics. Fraternities in general, not just Beta. I’m a big believer in Greek life. You know, it allows you to understand that often, you’re not going to get your way. But you go with what’s best for the group, whether you agree with it or not. And that kind of compromise, I think, is really important for any relationship, whether it be professional, personal, or romantic. Life is all about compromise. Could we be doing better? Sure, of course we want to help people! A lot of people joined fraternities for connections and networking. They think it’s like an “old boys club”, and by joining a fraternity, they can get to know the alumni and get a job. And there’s nothing wrong with thinking that. By the way, Beta does have a great alumni network and you can utilize it. But that’s not our main focus. We’re not a job platform, respectfully. You do have access to that, and certainly, that’s a nice perk and bonus. But you have to take initiatives on that. The main priority of a fraternity is leadership programming. We believe that the skills necessary in life are about how to be a better human, how to be a leader, how to be a better husband, a better father, a better friend. And that is going to take you a lot farther in life than just some simple job.
college, and was trying to learn the ropes, I would say it felt scary. I didn’t want to make bad first impressions, even though I was already inducted into the organization. I still had to learn about the people and the ways they do things. It was scary at first. But it was a learning curve.
And to shift gears for just a little bit, in your book, Wise Millennial, you mentioned a story when you wrote a letter about the late Reverend Anthony Campbell in high school. One of the challenges that you faced was that you were at a boarding school with more than 150 years of school tradition, and at such a young age, you were, for lack of a better word, not confident or brave enough to stand up for yourself against your advisor. Similarly, Beta is an organization with a rich history. Do you think that New Members will face any challenges adapting to, adjusting to, or speaking up for themselves with such a historic institution? I appreciate you reading the book, certainly that part of it. That was a very touching piece. You know, I hope not. I’ll let you be the judge of that. Were you intimidated when you joined Beta? Did you feel like you weren't able to fully vocalize your thoughts or feelings? I would not say I was intimidated. When I first joined, the feeling was along the line of not knowing anything at all, because there is a way of things that the fraternity and the chapter have been used to. And as someone who just joined the fraternity and
Yeah, totally. We always want our members to speak up. We want people to take ownership of the experience. Respectfully, I can’t control whether someone feels intimidated or not. Of course we don’t want it to be intimidating. That's not our goal. We want it to feel approachable. But it really depends. I was a Founding Father of my chapter at U Miami. There is the history of Beta, but our local chapter was brand new, there was no history. We got to make it what we wanted. It really depends on how old your chapter is. But even with longestablished tradition, there’re always opportunities to contribute your chapter (no pun intended), your verse to impact the chapter legacy. As long as people are being respectful and are proactively making members feel comfortable, this means no hazing, no intimidation tactics, this experience is part of the learning process when joining a large organization. Major institutions come with a lot of history, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity to be entrepreneurial and to make it your own. I think the tradition and history should only support your experience, not take away from it. And the last thing I’ll say is that this is about boundary setting. Just because something has been done for hundreds of years doesn’t mean that’s the right way to do it. If something doesn’t feel right to you, if something doesn't feel comfortable, absolutely speak up, speak your mind! We’re constantly changing history. Just because it’s a tradition doesn’t mean it’s a good tradition. We call these traditions “Sacred Cows”. Basically, they’re things that you don’t touch because they’re considered to be sacred. Well, that’s bullsh*t. “Sacred cows” are worth reevaluating to make sure that they’re still relevant. And we encourage our members to embrace the tradition, but question it.
In your book, you also mentioned about parents wanting the best for their children, but the practice may not be in the best interest of the children. These parents can be viewed as helicopter parents. What advice would you give to someone who may have overprotective parents? I talked about this extensively. It’s really hard. It’s hard because you want to appease your parents, and especially when there’s a financial component. Some undergraduates are paying their own ways, others are receiving financial assistance from their parents, so you have to be considerate of both scenarios. Either way, my whole thesis is that in order to find happiness, we really need to detach from our parents, and detach from the messed up values we downloaded from society, and to develop a strong sense of self to live a more authentic, meaningful life. And in order to develop a strong sense of self, you can’t allow yourself to be held emotionally hostage by others, including your family and your friends. This is much easier said than done. It can take years of therapy and work and meditation. I really think that you have to constantly question why you’re doing something, and to whom you’re doing it for. Who are you trying to prove yourself to? The only person you need to prove yourself to is yourself, nobody else. It’s important to question if something really benefits you, or others. If you’re doing any actions meant to appease others, don’t do it, that would be my advice. It’s not sustainable. You’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Ultimately, your heart and passion aren’t going to be in it. And I’d say the same thing about joining a fraternity. If you’re joining a fraternity because you feel obligated to or pressured to, I mean you should be open to trying new things, but we don’t want people to feel forced into it. We want people who want to be there. Ultimately, you only get out of something what you put into it. And if you’re not motivated intrinsically, you’re not going to put 100% into it and not going to get 100% out of it. But sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know. So if someone suggests something, I wouldn’t be close-minded to this opportunity
either. I think it’s a Catch-22. I think you should listen and if someone is giving you advice, you should question “Who’s giving the advice? Why? What’s their agenda?” I think it goes both ways. It’s important to listen but also to know who you are. And part of knowing who you are and discovering who you are is about trying different things. That’s how you discover yourself, and what you like and what you don’t like. When you’re 18 or 19, respectfully, you don’t know yourself. You have an idea, and some sense of identity, but there’s a lot you haven’t tried in the world. And I can speak from experience, in my 20s, there was so much that I didn’t know, and now I’m 34 and I’m still learning new things. And that’s part of growing up. And a fraternity can expose you to a lot of different scenarios and challenge you in ways that you may not normally get otherwise. That’s the unique value, the value proposition of joining a fraternity. That’s a long answer to your question. If your parents are helicoptering, you can say “Mom, Dad, I love you! Thank you for your concern. I’ll take it under consideration.” But you don’t have to seek their approval. At some point, you’ll have to make decisions for yourself and take ownership for your actions.
Having been a higher education professional at WPI for more than 15 years, Dr. Emily Perlow has been working in different capacities to analyze the student environment on campus and to work to remove barriers to student success. As a member of and a contributor to the fraternal movement, Dr. Perlow has published and received recognitions for her extensive research on the role of fraternity/sorority in student affairs in higher education.
Hello Dr. Perlow, thank you for joining me today. The first question I have is what do you think are some of the defining qualities of Millennials and Gen Zs? That’s a pretty long list of the defining characteristics. At a high level, you’re going to see Millennials tend to be group-focused, they like to collaborate in groups, like to solve problems, and at the same time like to be immersed in dealing with the things they’re most passionate about, but sometimes they don’t
want to deal with the “adulting” responsibilities. And I think some of that is connected to the fact that Millennials could access and use smart technology from an early age. Because of that, they’re always connected which is great, but is draining at some points. And for all the responsibilities like paying bills or having to mail a package, sometimes, Millennials tend not to want to deal with that. Continued next page ...
Gen Zs are similar to Millennials in some of those ways. They’re super connected. The average Gen Z has about five devices that are connected to the world in some way. Certainly you probably have observed the people in the Campus Center who literally have all five devices around them and are doing different things on different devices. At the same time, what we’re seeing with Gen Z is that there’s a little bit of a FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) challenge. With things like Instagram and Facebook, people see others looking like they’re having so much fun in the photos. But they’re not realizing that that person probably took 16 selfies before they have the perfect selfie with the perfect background. There’s a lot of loneliness among Gen Zs because they feel like everybody else is out having all these amazing adventures and they’re alone. But the reality is they’re all feeling like that. I’m making some very broad brushstrokes here, but in general, folks are feeling like everybody else is living their best life and they are not. So there’s this sense of deep desire for connection, but they’re not feeling the connections that they want to feel. For Millennials, mom and dad often designed structured activities for them, things like karate practice or robotics camp. They had structured activities, but a lot of that stuff was done in-person. Gen Zs have the same structured activities, but then they go home and they sort of lay on their bed texting with others instead of calling them and planning an event to hang out. There’s this connectedness all the time but not feeling the emotional connection to people. Gen Z tend to be less likely to drink a lot and are slower to get a drivers license. It’s interesting because when you think of Gen Xers that they couldn’t wait to get their license when they turned 16. Gen Z also tends to be dating less, or less likely to be in a committed relationship. They’re also risk-averse. I think that this has really played a positive role for us in our success at WPI during COVID. Gen Zs also have far more diverse friendships and as a result, are more aware of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues and are very likely to raise those as concerns and ad-
vocate for their peers. I see that as a tremendous positive. The interesting difference that I see, though I don’t know if this is because of parenting styles, is that Millennials would often see a problem, raise it as an issue, and feel committed to solving it. I think about when I first started at WPI, students would come to me and say “Here’s a problem I see. I’ve talked with my friends. We’ve come up with some ideas. We want to work with you to solve this problem.” Whereas I think for Gen Zs, in general, their parents have solved a lot of problems for them. Snow plow parents are parents who got everything out of their child’s way before they could ever experience it. They could see the hardship down the road, and they would make sure that hardship went away, so that the students would never have that hardship. As a result of that, sometimes I’d see students who’ll, instead of saying “I see a problem and I want to solve it with you”, say “I see a problem and you should fix it.” I think our role at WPI is to teach students how to change that language to say “How can we partner together to support this project?” instead of saying “Administration should fix this.” That said, we see less of this behavior at WPI than some of my colleagues at other schools might be seeing.
But like I said, the advocacy for DEI, the lower risktaking, the desire to save money, the maturity on some aspects, these characteristics will help WPI stay open. That’s exactly what we need right now during this pandemic so that we can keep everybody safe. Thank you so much. I definitely see a lot of those points in myself as well as my fellow Gen Zs. So from a perspective of a higher education professional, what do you think Gen Zs and Millennials expect from the college experience?
I think, in general, Gen Zs really want to see a range of cost-effective services. Millennials wanted Starbucks and the high-end gym. Gen Zs are a lot more money-conscious. A lot of them saw their parents lose their jobs during the 2008 recession, and as a result, they’re really price-conscious. I’m seeing more students who’re pressing themselves to finish their degree early or get a BS/MS all at once. Gen Zs want to see the services they think are useful whereas Millennials wanted everything available to them. In contrast, Gen Zs would say “Why waste money on that? I want to pay for the things I see value in.” It’s really interesting, though, because this means for things like counseling services, you sometimes don’t know you need them till you need them. Gen Zs will sometimes say “Why do I have to pay the Health fee? I don’t go to Health Services.” “Well, that also pays for counseling.” “Well, I don’t go to counseling.” “But you might!”, especially because we know that Gen Zs have a higher ratio of accessing mental healthcare. How is WPI adapting to that? Some of that is really trying to be transparent about where your tuition dollars go, really trying to help folks understand the value of the degree, the return on investment (ROI). If you notice, a lot of things we focus on are the outcomes of the education, “If you're a WPI graduate, how much will you make?”, “What’s the likelihood of you getting a job?” Those are really important for Gen Zs. We’re spending a lot more time focusing on the ROI and why we charge what we charge, especially with the new Health fees that cover the testing.
The testing is actually costing us seven or eight times more than what we charge students. WPI is picking up a good chunk of that and that was part of our message to students “We’re not asking you to pay the full amount. We understand this investment will help keep our campus open, which we know you want us to do. Therefore, we need you to contribute, but we’ll cover some of that cost too.” Sometimes, helping the students understand the competing factors, that can be a challenge with Gen Z. Talking about ROI, how do you think Gen Zs react to Greek life? Over the past two years, the number of recruits have been going down for IFC recruitment. Do you think this phenomenon has anything to do with the generation itself, or their expectations, or else? It’s because of a couple of factors in my opinion. Factor one, I think is that this generation is a lot more sensitive to DEI needs and how to have a more equitable society, and in many ways, fraternity life stereotypically represents the opposite of that. I don't know if that’s true at WPI. The last time I did some data analysis, our fraternity community was diverse in the same way that our student population was diverse, although we do have less international students joining, as fraternity is sort of an American concept, and the dues costs play a role there. I think the ROI is part of the challenge. “What am I getting with this dues money? Is there value in me paying for this?” I also think the ways that Gen Zs were parented created some barriers to students learning how to make friends without a structured activity. I’m making, once again, some broad brushstrokes here, but a lot of students never actually learn how to walk up to somebody and say “Do you want to be my friend and play together?” I see a lot of, particularly, young men that I interact with at WPI who really deeply want to feel connected to people but are terrified to go to recruitment events because they don’t actually know what to talk about, or what to say. Continued next page ...
I think in some ways, the way we have been doing recruitment, historically, the type of large group rush process, is a dinosaur. I don't think it will serve well in the future. Gen Zs want to feel special and want to feel like someone cares about them enough to want to connect with them, and a large scale recruitment process sometimes feels a little bit too much of a machine to create that feeling for people. Chapters should really embrace and know how to do individualized recruitment. And since you mentioned that Gen Z are individualistic, that they are their own person. And the competitiveness is high among Gen Zs and with Millennials. How do you think Greek life can appeal to these qualities of Gen Z to encourage them to explore this option? This individuality is a huge piece. Chapters should really highlight the ways they can be their own person, that they’re not expected to “conform”. I think that’s important. I think highlighting and celebrating the diverse nature of many of our chapters at WPI would serve us really well. Creating an environment where people will feel like they’re being respected no matter what walk of life or identity they bring with them is really important. As I said before, we should change the way we recruit people to celebrate their unique qualities. Come up to them and say “You’re great because of these reasons, and we really want to get to know you.” Make folks feel more special. It’s sort of flipping the script. I think about my recruitment process, it was about me letting the group know what I could bring to the group. And now, we need to go to potential new members and say “Here’s what we see in you …” I also would suggest that having events and expecting people showing up isn’t going to work. But if you were to call someone and say “Hey, I got your name. I heard you’re really awesome. I think you might be a great fraternity man. Tell you what. I’m gonna meet you outside the residence hall and we can walk to this event together.”, you’ll get way more ROI.
Do you think the entrepreneurship amongst Gen Zs and Millennials are the same or different? And how would you describe this aspect? I have not read deeply about it. I have definitely seen that Gen Zs tend to be more entrepreneurial in some of the literatures. I think a lot of the entrepreneurship we’re seeing now is focused on making the world better, whether it’s about DEI or environmental or B-corporations. Gen Zs are likely to buy things in recyclable packages or likely to try to reduce their carbon footprints. And you’re seeing this in entrepreneurship companies starting up with statements about “How we make the world better.”
Touching upon social entrepreneurship, do you think that Greek life can work in some way to bring out that spirit and help Gen Z achieve what they set out to do? Yeah. That’s an interesting question. What do you think?
From talking to different people and from my experience in a fraternity, part of the experience is about making connections, networking with the alumni, and having a good time with the brothers. But I think a lot of it is about learning interpersonal skills and communication skills. Sure, you can learn some of those through working on projects and in other clubs, but Greek life is very unique, that there are a lot of situations that you would not face unless you’re part of it, plus the leadership opportunities. I did not expect to join Greek life, but once I joined, I found the momentum from everyone pushing each other to move forward, to pursue what you like. Having that network of people that you were estranged to at first, getting outside of that comfort zone, getting off your phone to meet each other, learning from each other’s mistakes, those are why Greek life is very valuable. I think that would be interesting to look into. Let me give an example. I used to be the chair of the board for the Northeast Greek Leadership Association, and we created an innovation fund where campuses can apply for funds to support innovation. I think there’s an interest in having spaces where you can meet like-minded people who want to work on the same projects you want to work on, or who care about the same things you care about. I can see that entrepreneurship could be fostered within this sort of group like a think tank. Think how many WPI students want to design an app for something but maybe don’t have the programming skills. “Here’s where you can meet people who have skills to help you do the things you want to do, and maybe if you don’t yet have the skills, we can teach you.” That could be an interesting angle to take.
Moving beyond college, Gen Zs have started entering the workforce. What do you think are the challenging obstacles they’d have to face, especially with the pandemic going on? I think there’s a couple of things. I suspect what will happen is that Gen Zs want a great deal of flexibility in their work and want to be able to decide when to work and how to work. The pandemic has let people do more working from home in many cases, so I suspect we’re going to see more of that greater flexibility to let people work remotely from wherever they want to work. I could see Gen Zs wanting to live in Miami and working for a company in New York City. The pandemic has opened the doors for that opportunity whereas some of the older generations would have been resistant to it. Another challenge for Gen Z would be learning to interact with supervisors from different generations who have different expectations of them, and reconciling that their bosses are not necessarily going to text them back at 9pm. At the same time, Gen Zs are not using email at the rate they need to use it, and that’s how work is done. And I think that would be an interesting adjustment for those who managed to get through college without being attached to their emails. You’re going to be expected to do so at work. I think the last thing I’d add is that Gen Zs expect their work to fulfill them. They want to do things that matter in the world. Many of them can find that if they have the right advisement and guidance and a good sense of awareness. That’s what I think is an opportunity for fraternities to help folks understand where their passions and discipline-specific knowledge overlap. The last question I have is about transition. The last of Millennials just graduated college, and Gen Zs are going through college and will be in college soon. So what do you think are some of the lessons that can be learned from this transition period between the generations? Continued next page ...
First, I’ll answer for myself. I started working as a professional in higher ed as Millennials were coming to college in full force and I didn’t see much difference between Gen X and Millennials. I now see much more exaggerated differences between the generations. I think a lesson is that college and administrators need to be flexible and be open to the feedback they’re hearing. Another one is about how college nimbly serve the students. It’s important administrators are continuing to ask “What services do students want? What resources do students want? How do we deliver them in the most cost-effective way? How do we give students the most bang for their four
years?” WPI is insulated a little bit from some of that as we’re a STEM school so the ROI is good, versus other schools or majors that do not have the same ROI. I think this generation is going to challenge us as an institution and our world to really confront some of the systematic structures that have led to some folks being advantaged and some folks not being advantaged, whether that’s race, sexual orientation, or for other various reasons. I look forward to having Gen Zs make us better. I’m looking forward to having students challenge our ways of doing things so that we can make the college-going experience better.
Regardless of which communities you are a part of, Gen Zs will likely be joining them very soon. Understanding the differences between this generation and the previous can make a difference in how you can appeal to and recruit Gen Zs. Current strategies and practices may be effective for the demographic of one’s organization, but one should be ready to adapt and transform to be able to support Gen Z members.
Guidi, M. (2019, April). Addressing A Market Transition: How One Organization is Transforming to Meet the Needs of Gen Z. Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors Essentials [online]. Cogswell, C., Maynen, D., & Lee, D. (2019, April). Trends in the Fraternity and Sorority Experience Survey as Generation Z Joins. Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors Essentials [online]. McCreary, G., Schutts, J., & Cohen, S. (2019, April). Gen Z, Helicopter Parents, & Self-Governance. Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors Essentials [online]. Dement, L. (2019, April). From Extended Learning to One-And-Done Experiences: Developing Experiences for the Next Generation. Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors Essentials [online]. Patel, D. (2017, September 21). 8 Ways Generation Z Will Differ From Millennials In The Workplace. Forbes. Retrieved December 12, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/deeppatel/2017/09/21/8-ways-generation-z-will -differ-from-millennials-in-the-workplace/?sh=496e047776e5 sparks & honey. (2015, October 21). Generation Z 2025: The Final Generation. Retrieved December 12, 2020, from https://www.sparksandhoney.com/reports-list/2018/10/5/generation-z-2025-the-final-generation
Brothers John Do, Jesus Barron, and Matt Karns enjoyed the empanadas after their volunteering shift at BGCA.
A big send-off to the Class of 2020 on Minecraft. Once a Beta, Always a Beta.
After the long wait, the Eta Tau chapter has found a new home at 52 Fruit St.
As WPI reopened, we held a chapter meeting outside of Higgins House in beautiful fall weather.
What’s better than snow day? Snow day sports! Check out brother Luke Trujillo and others playing snow wiffle ball on the quad.
by Jason Davis and Ryan Tougas In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, our first semester with the Beta house was a blast. Respecting safety guidelines, only residents and their individual guests were allowed inside the house. Other Brothers were only allowed on the porch of the house, but we were still able to make memories together. The porch served as a location for some rush events, Date-a-Betas, and general hangouts (space allowing). In B-term, further restrictions in Massachusetts and the WPI community lead to the decision to close off the house to all non-residents. The house will continue to be closed to non-residents over the winter break. It is uncertain when or if the house will open its doors to non-residents again in C-term. We will have to wait to see how the pandemic evolves in February and March before making a well-informed decision. Discussions for re-opening will occur as we get closer to the beginning of the term. Our hope is that the Beta house will serve as a social hub for brothers, much like the Pi’s Land has been in years past. If you are interested in reading more about the restrictions currently in effect, visit wpi.beta.org/covid19. The lease signing for the 2021 - 2022 school year will be held virtually in early January. Due to the requirement that the Risk Manager is supposed to live in the house, an interim election was held for the Fall 2021 semester. Current Risk Manager, Jason Davis, plans to be away for an off-campus MQP in A term, and will afterwards graduate, thus necessitating an interim Risk Manager to live in the house. The chapter elected new member Joshua Barney to the position. Ryan Tougas, former House Manager, was elected as the 2021 - 2022 “Home� Manager.
by Brandon Fox Every year during the holidays, I always like to try some new recipes. During the busy terms, the usual dinners are made due to convenience and low stress. But once finals are taken and projects are turned in, it’s time to start exploring. Each year, I will test 3 to 5 recipes and mostly stick to baked goods because of the holiday season. This year, the true tests started a bit later than expected. I started off with a few familiar ones with friends including some peanut butter blossoms, Christmas “Crack� bark, and some quick breads to share. However, I received an early birthday gift from John Do which was a spiral bundt pan. After his most recent success, I wanted to jump in too as I had never even made a cake before. To my surprise, he gave me the bundt pan I used for the recipe today.
Like I said, I have never made cake before, let alone jumping to a bundt cake. But I was ready for the challenge especially with little to no stressors from the university. The bundt cake I decided to make was a Ginger-Glazed Lemon Bundt Cake. The lemon cake is topped with a smooth ginger icing and sugared cranberries, perfect for any Christmas morning dessert choice. Before attempting the recipe, I did my diligence and try to cover a couple tips especially since this would be my first. Some I picked up along the way such as converting to all metric weight instead of using US customary. One new tip that came up without fail is to let the cake cool COMPLETELY. Fortunately, I followed this step but ignored the remaining along the way. Continued next page ...
The cake came out beautifully, filling our house with hints of lemon and vanilla. The cake sat overnight to cool before the final touches were put on the next morning. The morning began with making the sugared cranberries, something that took me longer than expected. Not because it was difficult, but merely because everything stuck together. But I continued moving with the icing by melting the butter and mixing the confectioner’s sugar. The icing was perfect, but here lied my second mistake, which was letting the icing sit in the cool kitchen while the cranberries crystalized. The butter hardened a bit and made the icing into a thick paste. I didn’t realize this until I already started to pour the icing and knew this didn’t seem right. A quick fix of tossing it in the microwave helped to thin out the past bit, but it resulted in some clumps in the final product. The cranberries were placed on top last to finish the final decorations. The final product looked quite nice, and the taste was magnificent (my family’s words, not just my own). Even with
the mistakes along the way, it came into a good final product.
However, the mistakes are what actually excite me the most. I will always write notes in my recipe sheets and make changes every time I make it, attempting to address these issues. There is always something new or a small tweak to make that helps improve it a little bit more. I don’t want my recipes to be perfect, as the recipe itself is only a guide. Like anything, it is important to follow it to a tee the first time, this is to develop a baseline only for future improvements. The number of marks I’ve made for some recipes are the ones that make me the happiest. Those are the ones I enjoyed the most because I continued to experiment until I even found a couple different versions I liked. It is often focused to have perfection in baking and sometimes maybe impressed in life. But even in my baking, the real excitement comes from making it my own and continuing to learn and grow along the way.
•
1 teaspoon lemon extract
•
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•
2 teaspoons baking powder
•
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
•
1/2 teaspoon salt
•
1 cup fresh or frozen, thawed cranberries
•
1 cup fat-free vanilla Greek yogurt
•
1/3 cup sugar •
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
•
1 cup butter, softened
•
2 tablespoons butter, melted
•
2 cups sugar
•
1 to 3 teaspoons lemon juice
•
4 large eggs, room temperature
•
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
•
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
1) For sugared cranberries, heat corn syrup in a microwave until warm; gently toss cranberries in syrup, allowing excess to drip off. Toss in sugar to coat. Place on waxed paper; let stand until set, about 1 hour. 2) Preheat oven to 325°. Grease and flour a 10-in. fluted tube pan. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 5-7 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in lemon zest and extract. 3) In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with yogurt, beating well after each addition. 4) Transfer to prepared pan. Bake 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 5) Mix confectioners' sugar, butter, lemon juice and ginger until smooth. Drizzle over cake. Top with sugared cranberries. Recipe from https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/ ginger-glazed-lemon-bundt/
Hi everyone, Recently a project was started in the wiki involving recording the WPI projects and research every brother in chapter history has completed! Formatting has been established in the pages linked below. If you're interested in contributing by recording your own work and/or the work of others, help would be appreciated! If you don't have an account for the wiki, DM John Hoang Do to get set up with one, or email communications@betawpi.org. Work on the IQP section is mostly done, so the most attention is needed for the other two https://wiki.betawpi.org/wiki/index.php/IQP https://wiki.betawpi.org/wiki/index.php/MQP https://wiki.betawpi.org/wiki/index.php/Theses_and_Dissertations Yours in _kai_, Eric Solorzano.
•
Contact Matthew Hagan (matt@doublediamond.io) to learn more about Alumni Board involvement.
•
Contact John Hoang Do (hsdo@wpi.edu) about general alumni matters.
•
Contact Andy Iovanna (and.iovanna@gmail.com), the Chapter Counselor, about becoming an advisor.
•
Contact Gus Teran (president@betawpi.org) about chapter operations.
•
Contact communications@betawpi.org for access to the Beta Wiki and Sharepoint.
• • •
How many New Members are also an Eagle Scout? How many Xbox are there in the Beta house? How many songs are there in The Singing Fraternity album?
Newsletter Editor: JOHN HOANG DO