The COVID-19 pandemic presented a situation none of us in modern times had experienced before, including everyone connected to the college fraternity experience. Our Zeta Pi Chapter of Sigma Pi at Oakland University was no exception.
While quarantines and health mandates presented unforeseen challenges and changed the very nature of the fraternity experience for over a year, the pandemic period also gave Sigma Pi chapter an opportunity to shine, strengthen brotherly bonds and find new ways to navigate these pandemic speed bumps.
One notable moment in history for our Chapter is that, despite the pandemic woes, we moved into a new fraternity house in June 2021. That new location is on Franklin Boulevard in Pontiac.
“A big takeaway for me is that even in the worst of circumstances, there is always better coming your way,” said Brother Tyler Reynolds, who served as Sage from April 2021 to April 2022. “The biggest lesson I personally learned during the pandemic was that no matter what, we’ve always got that connection as brothers.”
Although Brotherhood and relationships declined during the beginning of COVID-19 with restrictions, they were able to shift to reopening and growing stronger in late 2020 and 2021 as everything began returning to some type of normalcy.
“Brotherhood and the relationships had declined in the beginning,” Brother Reynolds said. “However, as things opened up more the thing we all wanted to focus on as a chapter was bringing the brotherhood back strong as ever. It really showed in our commitments to the weekly brotherhoods we hosted as soon as we could and moving towards planning a ‘normal’ academic year.”
Since the Summer months are typically off-times for those attending OU, our Chapter doesn’t really have a summer rush; instead, any potential brothers who are met and recruited during that time are funneled into the upcoming Fall rush cycle. Due to COVID-19’s beginnings in March 2020, that late spring initiation was pospoted until everything began opening up that summer.
That led to losing half of the pledge class because of the wait, some due to pledges transferring to other schools prior to being initiated, according to Brother Reynolds.
“This was disheartening but was certainly the least of our worries given the pandemic,” he said.
When the Fall 2020 academic year began, it was a surreal moment as most colleges were still in a virtual learning mode due to the pandemic. Some schools eventually started later with hybrid models and pandemic restrictions in place.
As a result, the Zeta Pi Chapter found it more difficult to recruit a typically larger Fall pledge class. While our Chapter always strives toward “quality over quantity,” that was even more true during that semester.
“It proved challenging as we moved back to truly in-person rushing, which led to the chapter having a recruitment workshop,” Brother Reynolds said, noting that Brother Christian Younger led that workshop and has served as the chapter’s Recruitment Director for the past 2.5 years leading into and during COVID-19.
Virtual chapter meetings made it much harder to get things done, Reynolds said: from lack of cameras being turned on, to people just flat out not paying attention. He also said when everything closed and Michigan’s stay-at-home order was in place, the Brother’s phones were the only way to stay in contact with each other safely.
“It was difficult to keep the brothers informed and planning things,” he said. “I was able to personally overcome this through the Discord channel we created and just repeating information over and over again there.”
When in-person events became more possible, our Chapter held meetups and events at parks, beaches, and outdoor areas where it was in line with CDC guidelines at the time. Most of the time during the pandemic, OU had strict policies regarding chapter meetings and meetups, so hosting those events inside is what Brother Reynolds says proved the hardest for the brothers to plan for everyone.
Even looking at our Zeta Pi Chapter’s signature Pig Roast event in the first week of the Fall semester each year, you can see the work and grit that the Active members put into putting on a successful event. The Sept. 2020 event took place at the fraternity house at the time in Rochester, with a smaller intimate setting outside; while the Sept. 2021 event was held in its traditional location on campus, in between the Oakland Center and Bear (aka Beer) Lake. Even with pandemic restrictions and limitations in play, the Chapter welcomed people to the event — a small slice of “normalcy” in uncertain and surreal times.
Throughout it all, Brother Reynolds said enduring these pandemic challenges made our local Chapter stronger.
When the pandemic began, our Chapter had a floating number of nearly three dozen members. They feared it might drop if Brothers left OU and they hadn’t recruited and initiated new Brothers because of the pandemic. But that didn’t happen. As it turned out, the Chapter’s membership in Spring 2022 sat at 35 Active plus 4 pledges soon to be initiated as part of the Beta Omega pledge class — nearly unchanged from the start of COVID-19.
“I took over and had campus reopening, in person events coming and only half of a chapter that had been to an on campus event, so leading them into this year was a challenge but we had a very successful year,” Brother Reynolds said. “We survived a pandemic. Our numbers hardly dropped. That is something not a lot of fraternities, Greek organizations, businesses and even universities can say. We stayed together and persevered through the tough times and are finally seeing it pay off with improved relations with other Greek organizations, a new house, and growth in the Chapter, and that is something we all can be proud of.”
With a half dozen men graduating in Spring 2022 and many of them having E-board and leadership roles, Brother Reynolds noted that our Chapter remains strong in numbers and quality.
“Our chapter will be very young, with roughly half the chapter being first or second-year members, something I have not seen in my time in the chapter,” he said. “Today, we are as tight as ever but still focusing on bringing involvement back up to our high standard. That is something that should be the focus of the chapter going into the next school year and beyond.”
