The Hype

Acacia recognized in Greek community and UT campus

by Jacob Sloan, Venerable Dean
and Andrew Chew, Alumni Relations

The officers and active colony—or should I say chapter—could not be happier with our progress this past semester. I hope you are all aware by now of our approval to take back the original Acacia house at 2614 Rio Grande. It fills the re-founding fathers with pride to be able to live there since, for many of us, our first visions of restarting Acacia at the University of Texas at Austin were hatched there.

In addition, on Saturday, May 6, we will receive both the original charter of the Texas Chapter as well as our new charter to solidify us as a permanent fixture at UT once again. Trust us, we aren’t going anywhere.

This spring semester, the colony truly brought itself up to chapter status. Throughout the Greek community and the UT campus, every brother has worked hard to promote the values of Acacia and increase our standing among the community. In addition, Acacia has been striving to achieve greater accomplishments in human service.

Recently, upon unanimous vote by the active colony, the colony took the initiative to celebrate each sorority’s founding date by delivering to their flower and a card to them to congratulate their organization. Thus far we have received a warm reception from the gesture, and we hope to increase or involvement and interaction in the Greek community.

The colony also recently received several awards from Greek Life and Education. On April 12, 2006, Acacia was invited to attend the annual Order of Omega Awards where we were presented with two awards: the Vision Award, given to the organization that best represents the principles of their founders; and Andrew Chew received the Emerging Leader Award. It was a great honor to not only represent Acacia but the Interfraternity Council at the event. We were the only IFC fraternity to win an award. In addition to these two awards, Evan Sylvester and Andrew Chew were recognized with Hyperion Awards for their contributions to the Greek community through IFC and Greek ThinkTank.

Acacia was also featured in several articles in the special Greek insert of The Daily Texan in March. In edition to informing the campus of our fraternity, the issue also included information about our Not Another Frat Party and Dodgeball Tournament. We hope to continue to bring good things to the UT campus, and we are proud that the UT campus has recognized our accomplishments.

With our ever-growing numbers, we will only be a greater part of the Greek community and campus life at UT as we strive to achieve leadership and distinctiveness among mankind.