A Letter From Our Chapter Advisor
Ernie Avellana
Dear Parents,
The Spring semester has started, and the brothers have recruited 9 new pledges.
As I reflect on the fall semester, I asked the actives to embrace excellence in academics first and foremost.
We finished the previous semester with a GPA of 2.90. All agreed that this was not acceptable for us to achieve our goals of being the best, high achieving, well-rounded, mentally, and physically healthy house on campus. I am glad to say that they all came through and we averaged almost a 3.2 GPA in the fall. I asked a few alumni to help me incentivize the brothers who attainted the highest GPA in the house. As a result, I collected $500 to share with the brothers who achieved this goal. There were four with perfect 4.0s; however, an additional three achieved a 3.95-4.0. The house improved its performance from 38/41 in academics amongst fraternities on campus to 8/41 in ONE semester. This semester I have collected the same amount of scholarship money to incentivize the greatest improvement in GPA for the semester. I am also trying to reach out to more alumni to sponsor both scholarships each semester in perpetuity.
I hope you share with me how proud I am of your sons and how they “showed up” to go from good to almost great. The goal is to achieve the top GPA amongst all fraternities on campus. That is my challenge to your sons.
To quote Vince Lombardi, “If you strive for perfection, you will catch excellence.”.
Excellence is what I wish for your sons.
If they have not shared with you, we are fully engaged with alumni reaching back to the 1950s for them to help us with regaining preeminence on campus. Our intent is to engage with over 1,000 of our alumni to help mentor, share their stories, and help fund their house so the future brothers can carry on the torch of their success and legacy.
All hands were on deck beginning in January with a strategy meeting led by Mason Merkel, our Venerable Dean, along with the local board and several very prominent, high-achieving alumni from around the Country. Our goal is to update the house with a very aggressive ($3-5M) renovation and a strong push for funding more scholarships in the future. Our architects should have a rendition of what the house will look like and when I receive these renderings, I will share them with you so that you can see the vision for the future of Acacia.
I would be remiss if I didn’t share that our intermural soccer team achieved “greatness” this fall by almost winning their league playoffs. I am very proud of all our athletes and look forward to more successes in the future.
I try my best to attend as many chapter meetings as possible and advise your sons in the right direction as it relates to respect for others/elders, respect for the house, respect of women, and respect for the sacrifices that you have made to allow them to be a part of this amazing brotherhood and attend this great University.
We are working on many engagement projects with alumni to provide mentorship through our Cornerstones program to help your sons prepare to be successful in acquiring internships and full employment upon their graduation.
That’s all for now. I look forward to meeting many of you in the Spring and in the Fall.
Most sincerely,
Ernie Avellana
Chapter Advisor
