Greek Profile: Phi Delta Theta

By The Forum Staff

1.When and how did Phi Delt come to campus?
Phi Delta Theta came back to came back to campus in the Fall of 2004 after having our charter revoked in 1997. The original interest group consisted of 17 friends that decided that they wanted to start a fraternity of their own. Luckily Phi Delta Theta was still a vacant fraternity house and father of the first President of newly colonized chapter of Phi Delta Theta was an alum of the chapter himself. In order to convince the college to allow Phi Delt to come back we had to allow the school to renovate it and bring it up to standards of the college ownership life safety initiative.

2. What are some of the qualities you feel Phi Delt exemplifies on campus, and how do you go about doing that?
Phi Delt exemplifies a group of men that are very diverse, but yet very cohesive. We are involved in many varsity sports and student organizations, but yet we are also a very social fraternity that does not discriminate in any way. To continue this culture we try to get our new members involved with as much as possible on campus and we set up a new member education program that allows them to succeed in the things that they already do.

3. What are some of your upcoming events?
Our big upcoming event will take place in the Spring, on April 28th. It will be our Grand 125th Anniversary Founders Day Celebration. Over 400 alumni will be coming back to campus. It should be a great day.

4. What were some of your past successes?
For the past two years we have gone down to BWI Airport to take part in a Down Syndrome Research Benefit Run. So far we have raised $1,200 for this event and over 75 brothers have take part. Our “Shoot for a Cure”, Lou Gehrig’s Disease benefit golf outing is also a large event that has helped us to raise over $4000 in the past to years for the Great Philadelphia Area Chapter of the ALS Association. The 2nd Annual Haunted Mansion has also been a huge success for us and it has allowed us to donate $3,500 in the past two years, while entertaining over 1,500 visitors. Finally we had our first Texas-Holdem Tournament for Lou Gehrig’s Disease in the Spring of last year that helped us raise $200, with over 60 players in attendance, including some faculty.

5. Is there a stereotypical phi delt brother? 
The stereotypical Phi Delt, is a lacrosse player from either Maryland, Delaware, Philadelphia, or Upstate New York, that completely dominates life.

6. What makes you different from other fraternities on campus?
We cover a lot of the bases. We are athletes, campus leaders, academics, and social guys. Most houses are unable to find such a good balance. But we’d like to think that we are also able to mainatain good relationships with those other houses that do care about these same things.

7. Do you consider yourselves a “safe” fraternity and if so, why or why not?
We do consider ourselves a safe fraternity. Even though we are very social we are able to maintain the appearance of the house, with some help from facility services. I would also say that women feel safe when at Phi Delta Thete because are men are taught to show respect towards women during their education process.

8. What is the average gpa for the fraternity?
The average GPA for the fraternity is a 3.0. We currently have the athlete with the highest GPA at Gettysburg and last year the Phi Delt laxers were able to give the school a nation-wide leg up in regards to the number of Academic – All-Americans that it produced. The house had three which ranked us as number 1 ahead of UVA and Middlebury. Our Academic Advisor is Brendan Cushing-Daniels of the Economics Department.

9. Most popular major among the brothers?
The most popular majors are: Management, Economics, Bio-Chemistry and English.

10. Advice to someone thinking of rushing?
Go to every rush event that you can. You will be a God for that first couple of weeks of Sophmore year and the end of Freshman year isn’t that bad either. Choose your house based on the juniors in the fraternity becuse those are the guys that you are going to become really close with and who are going to be able to help you out with the rest of your years at college.