The brotherhood welcomed 24 new Initiates from the Fall pledge class, under the stewardship of new Sage Alex Serrano.
The past year was an especially fruitful one for the Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity. Brothers have been busy working to better themselves academically and personally, and of course to improve the brotherhood we all love so much. Members of all ages are heavily involved both on- and off-campus, and the results have been astounding. The past six months have served as a reminder of just what Sigma Pi is capable of and why the brotherhood we share is so special.
The previous Social Chairs, Time Ennen and Michael Petuya, laid an excellent foundation for new chairs Antony Protonatarios and Laz Coss to improve upon in regards to sorority relations. Antony and Laz have worked very hard to set the house up for future success just as their predecessors did and they have been successful thus far. Our social calendar is now chalked full of Sorority raids, dinners, and date parties and 2015 promises to be a fun year.
The active brothers of Sigma Pi have most certainly enjoyed themselves these past six months, but the house is still working as hard as ever to improve and give back to the community. Previous Philanthropy Chair, Teddy Ulin and current Chair Peirce Thue have made sure that community service remains at the forefront of this brotherhood’s thoughts. We have participated in events such as Chi Omega’s Wing Eating Contest and Kappa Delta’s t-shirt design event and even organized our very own Sorority Super Bowl with proceeds donated towards the Ewing’s Sarcoma Research Foundation.
On the UCLA campus brothers of Sigma Pi have ensured that the lavender and white are well represented. We have brothers involved in everything from club sports to cultural and scholastic clubs to dance clubs to student government and everything in between. Ishan Rampuria continues to excel as a Daily Bruin A&E Columnist. George Kobakhidze is involved in a number of on-campus clubs but he devotes the majority of his time to Eurobruins, a club of which he is a founder and the current Vice President. David Melara is the President of Funktion, a freestyle dance club while Blake Nawrocki serves as the fundraising chair of UCLA’s Habitat for Humanity to help oversee the construction of homes for the disadvantaged and for veterans. Ryan Hendler has continued to serve as President of the Golf Club. Current House Treasurer Max Sakson keeps his skills sharp as a Senior Consultant in the distinguished Bruin Consulting Club. Chris Scogna and Brendan Sio spend much of their free time and summers as camp counselors for underprivileged children in UNICAMP. Antonio Javiniar, however, continues to set the bar high in terms of on-campus involvement as an avid and accomplished member of UCLA’s Undergraduate Students’ Association Council (USAC), working as the External Affairs Director of the High School Outreach Committee, the Community Engagement Director of the Office of the President, a delegate at the National Grassroots Legislative Conference and general delegate in Washington D.C. among other things. This is merely a small glimpse of the activities the current brothers are occupying themselves with at UCLA.
We also have many brothers working diligently in various research labs and contributing to what makes UCLA such a top-notch research university. Psychology has been one field the brothers of the Upsilon Chapter have been very involved with. For example, Jason Carpenter has shown much promise in the Psychology Honors Research Project in the Visual and Multi-Sensory Perception Lab while Tony Knox has worked in the Abramson Lab through the University’s Psychology Department and Andy Ton has made active contributions in the Wassum Lab. Nate Christian and Jake Smith work together in the Hoffman Lab in the Vestibular Neuroscience Department and speak highly of their work. Aajan Shahid is working under renowned Professor James Dunn in the UCLA Bioengineering and Pediatric Surgery Departments as Gerardo Lopez works under Professor Clark Barrett on Human Cognitive Function with a focus on Semantic Memory Categorization. Malcolm Galligan is currently working as a Research Assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research and finally, former First Counselor Jonathan Rodriguez studies the long-term effects of pharmaceutical drugs on mice in hopes of finding correlation results with humans under Doctor Izquierdo in Department of Behavioral Neuroscience.
Brothers have also continued their work to pay the bills and strengthen their resumes through internships and have done impressive things in the workplace. A number of brothers have on-campus jobs such as Community Service Officers. Roy Arguello works as a Payroll Clerks at UCLA Corporate Financial Services. Robert Wayne is an intern at the ever-expanding SBE Entertainment Group and Antony Protonatarios keeps himself busy as an intern for the NOW Startup App, the Carpe Noctis Festival, and the UCLA Blackstone Launch Pad. Robert Smith is doing big things as an engineer at DIRECTV and Jonathan Dolgin has made large strides as a part-time preschool teacher and as the Assistant Director of Beth Jacob Youth Programs of Beverly Hills. These brothers and many more are the embodiment of the work-hard, play-hard mentality.