Fall 2011 Newsletter
Sigma Alpha Mu
Gamma Lambda Chapter
Fall 2011 Newsletter
Remembering Neal Goldberg
As you may or may not have heard, our first Prior, Neal Goldberg passed away earl in the morning Saturday, September Eighteenth. Neal will always be remembered and his work celebrated by the chapter. I had the privilege of talking to Neal heavily the week before his untimely death and it is very safe to say that he is very proud of where our chapter is at now and for the future of Gamma Lambda. The day before Neal sent me an article that he wrote and it is my honor to have it in this newsletter. Rest In Peace Neal. The bridge that you built has had many a youth pass on and continue building, thank you.
Neal Goldberg's memorial will be at 10:00 am on Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at Lockwood Park in Skokie Illinois (5251 Carol, Skokie IL). Neal's brother wants this to be a celebration of Neal and would like to make this a day of celebrating Neal. Neal always lived life to it's fullest and would appreciate a festive event in his honor. There are picnic tables, a playground, a baseball field and basketball courts for your enjoyment. Neal's brother is getting food for the event and needs to know how much to buy so if you plan on attending please let me know ASAP.
Sammies, a Lesson in Tolerance
By Neal Goldberg
I was asked by Ian to write an article reflecting some of what we, as the founding members of Sammies, went through while we started this chapter. Of course, I am not the only one who was a founding member, and it would be great to hear from some of the others as to their experiences. I am just sharing mine.
I don’t remember exactly how I was recruited along with Marty, Tony, and Erwin because I was majoring in my B.A. You know, Bachelors of Alcohol. Not that you should follow in my footsteps, but sometimes. it was difficult to remember a lot of things. In any case, we were introduced to each other at an informal meeting along with an older gentleman from the Sammies headquarters in Indiana who asked us if we wanted to start a Fraternity on campus. Of course I am sure that he invited a number of guys to show up at this meeting, but we were the truly mindless ones who actually showed up! To show you the power of brotherhood, none of us knew each other, but we are all good friends to this day. We were a rag tag group of young men who at the end of the meeting, were bent on re-shaping the face of the greek community because we, as un-greek as we were, would never join any of the fraternities as they stood and I believe, they never would have accepted us either. If you have ever seen John Belushi’s Animal house, that is about us in a nutshell. And I truly believe we did instill a change in the Greek system just by the looks of the Sigma Alpha Mu group as it stands today.
The environment at NIU was nothing as it is today. There was a lot of discrimination then. In the Black fraternities, there was a lot of militarism. In fact, it was not unlike the black fraternities to march around campus late at night in military style. I remember watching from my dorm room at Douglas hall as the black fraternity marched outside our window seemingly as a show of force rather than brotherhood. And to have a black member in a white fraternity was not only unheard of, if a black member was elected into a white fraternity, the black fraternity would retaliate by force. That was just one of the many issues we were dealing with in changing the landscape of the Greek system at NIU.
Our thinking at our meetings which we held at the conference center was that we needed warm bodies in order to get our feet firmly planted on NIU soil. And if this meant taking in gentlemen that were shunned by other fraternities, all the better because that is the type of men we were. We did not want to discriminate, be it gay, black or physically disabled, or...just not quite the men of stature that the greek system was used to. If you were to look back at front page news of the NIU newspaper back in 1980 and 1981, you would find some pretty outrageous comments from myself to the other fraternities to tear down the wall of standard greek thinking.
There is however the humorous side to any situation in which we faced and the question came up as to; is there a limit in which even we would not accept? The question came up with a gentleman named....well, I would like to change the name to protect the innocent, but in this case....you just can’t write this stuff, so I am just going to relate the facts as we knew them. The Gentleman’s name was Phil Hole. Phil, of course, was not your average man about campus. In fact, he was way out there as far as normal was concerned in the mid 80s. The fact that Phil was gay was not an issue for us. What was an issue was that he wore makeup, wore a black cape, walked with a walking cane (not disabled) and honest to goodness actually lived in someone’s closet! (The reason being was that he was trying to save money) So, if you can imagine, we had a lot of comical discourse about a gay vampire coming out of the closet every day, trying to get a hole filled and so forth! Honestly, sometimes life is better than fiction huh? I am positive that there are some things you will always remember from your days on campus.
At the time of this concerning question, we had about 12 voting members and interestingly enough, the vote was rather close. But our chapter decided not to take Phil on as a member which was more of a reflection on our principles to not discriminate than anything else. If our resolve was not so high, the vote would have been a resounding no. The lesson we learned is that as humans, there is always a limit to tolerance. At some point, it can override our best intentions.
We also invited a black gentleman who the membership decided without any objection to add to our ranks. He found his way to us because he did not want to join a military style fraternity and wanted to band with our fraternity in hopes of bridging a gap where a large gap stood. In other words, he wanted to be the first black to be accepted in a white fraternity and create a new milestone; not only for our fraternity, but for himself and for a better world all together. Unfortunately, two weeks later he was beaten to a pulp for joining a white fraternity. We had no idea on how to resolve this matter, and he said the best thing to do was just to leave things be. So, we did. That was another lesson we learned. Some humans scream discrimination, while applying its principles on an absurd level. You may notice that this is still a problem we face today.
As I communicate with men who are members of our Fraternity today, I am very pleased as to the quality of men we have in the Fraternity. There are gay men, black men, men of different races and ethnicities. It represents our deepest principle of anti-discrimination that all of us alumni are proud of. We saw color. We saw gay or straight or wonderful athletic abilities. This is totally opposite of what they teach today, which is everyone is equal. But that is not the case. We are all different and it is these differences that creates bonds, friendships and harmony. Mostly, we saw achievers and allowed that ability to flourish in anyone that wanted to excel. And while those principles were upheld, the fraternity excelled and still excels today on so many different levels. All of you should be very proud about the fraternity you have pledged, its heritage, and the subsequent relationships you will form that will last the rest of your life. I am very pleased to call each and every one you my brothers. I have no idea about the principles instilled in the other fraternities, and it would be interesting to find out if in fact they have changed their ways, but I know deep in my heart, that for Sammies at NIU, we have broken the mold.
Results From Convention
Gamma Lambda did very well at convention this year. On the first night we accepted an award for our support to The Foundation and the Golden Bronze Society, the only chapter to receive such an award. Congratulations should be given to David Jacobson. As convention moved on Gamma Lambda’s own David Jacobson was elected to the Octagon. This is a momentous occasion for our chapter by having Gamma Lambda represented as a National Official. With Dave on the Octagon he can no longer be the Chapter Advisor and thus there is an opening. The next advisor should have no problem leading our chapter to success thanks in part to the leadership of Dave over the past couple years. The highlight of convention was, without a doubt, Gamma Lambda being recognized as one of the top chapters. For the second year in a row, we reached Founder’s Level. This year we were tied for third in the nation with Rho and won the Jimmy Hamerstien Best in Province award. For the first time in Gamma Lambda history, the Founder’s Cup is within our grasp as we missed the Cup by mere tenths of a point. With this goal in mind Gamma Lambda will roll out in force at next year’s convention in Indianapolis and as we have just seen, anything is possible in Sigma Alpha Mu.
Homecoming
It was great to see everyone that came out for homecoming. The undergrads enjoyed a
week of festivities with the ladies of Alpha Phi and got to spend some time with the
alumni. Our historian was hard at work and we almost have full family trees for the three
active families so a big thanks goes out to all of those who helped with that. Again, it was great seeing all the alumni that made it out and we hope to see you again in the near future and let’s make next homecoming’s turnout even bigger.
Remodeling
This summer has been a time of major remodeling at the Chapter House. The bathrooms on the floors have been gutted and now in place of the one room, three toilet bathrooms, we have two separate rooms with porcelain tile on the floor and walls and sinks inside each bathroom. The basement is finally getting a much needed new paintjob. The basement will finally truly be a Sammy basement as we are painting the bottom half black and the top half white with a purple stripe in the middle. New carpeting has been put in on the stairs and the stairways repainted. The fence will also be getting a much needed new coat of paint. With the growth of the chapter, we will soon need to move chapter out of the Chapter Room and into the basement. With the new setup of holding Chapter in the basement, the room currently known as the Green Room will become a library and the room currently known as the Chapter Room will become a common area just as the Green Room was. The big screen TV will be moved into the Chapter Room and the trophy cases will move into the library. There will also be monthly house improvement projects that will be recapped as they happen.
Chairman Goals
Scholarship:
To accumulate a chapter grade point average of above a 3.0 for the Fall and Spring semesters.
To not let anyone fall below a GPA of 2.5.
Reduce the number of those on Academic Probation.
Turn the “filing cabinet” into an easier electronic form.
Utilize tutor hours for those under a GPA of 2.5.
Rush:
The Goal this year is to rush as many guys as we can so that we can select the best possible and hopefully largest pledge class.
Candidate Educator:
The goals for the candidate educator position is that I would like all the candidates to have a cumulative GPA higher than all men’s average. I will have them shoot for a 3.0. I want the Sammy candidates to be introduced to the life of the Greek community. I want every member of the Greek community to know who the Sammy candidates are. I also want our candidates to fully understand the history of Gamma Lambda, they are coming in at a great time for our chapter, but I want them to know where we came from so they can fully appreciate what it is that they have.
Historian:
The goal of historian is to provide the chapter with memorabilia that will help remind us of the brotherhood we have. I have a couple of goals that will do this but also plan to help others to see of the brotherhood we have by providing pictures to the webmaster chair that can be displayed on the website.
I also want to change how the fraternity families are connected, by providing family pictures at the beginning of each semester. This will connect us on something that, in my opinion, should be a crucial way that people are connected in the house. Providing pictures to the fraternity should not be the only duty of the historian. I plan on recording things as serious as academic successes or as trivial as bragging rights about competitions around the house, such as video game competitions. Anything that can be looked back upon to remember what the fraternity was like before lies on the historian’s hands. I plan on creating more things that people can later look back and appreciate.
Social:
Have a mixer with every sorority
- How I plan to make this happen is to just push to every sorority that we’d like to have a mixer with them. I will text/call/annoy basically that we’d like to have an event with them.
Get a homecoming date
- I plan to make this happen by impressing a sorority with a very well planned out and fun mixer. Having them hangout with us during the day for non-alcoholic events. Have them almost become a sister sorority for us.
Make women want us
- Via awesome and fun mixers with impressive and interesting themes. TREAT WOMEN WITH RESPECT.
Create a yearly event
- I’d like to create some kind of event that we’d do every year and have something that we are known for. I plan to work on this a lot with sean and make it happen asap.
Alumni:
Build up the alumni contact list and keep it current.
Write a newsletter that the alumni will enjoy reading to stay current with that the chapter is doing.
Hold events that the alumni will enjoy coming to.
Get the chapter's alumni more involved.
Create ties with alumni that have been out of the picture for years.
(Other Chairman goals not available at time of publication.)
Closing Words
If you are on facebook and are not yet a part of the group and would like to join please let me know so I can send you an invite. The alumni section of the website (www.niusam.org) has been updated to include an alumni registration form that I would like you all to fill out so we can rebuild our contact list also. Also, I want your feedback on what you would like as alumni events, please write on the wall of the Facebook group, email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or call me at (708)601-2676. Erwin Pearlman has also asked me to invite anyone on LinkedIn to join the Sigma Alpha Mu - Gamma Lambda Chapter group. Fast and Firm.