Dear Brother,

When I was elected Grand President at the 50th Grand Chapter Conclave in Atlanta, I outlined in my acceptance speech a series of steps that would be required of us in order to “excel in re-establishing honor and integrity in fraternity life.” Two of those major steps were “to assess and extend the Strategic Plan to become a more dynamic document for the future” and “to enhance Headquarters’ ability to be an even better facilitator of our chapters’ efforts.”

It is with great pride and excitement that I share with you Excelsior, a new tool created to:

• Help you, the chapter officers, be more effective leaders
• Improve your chapter’s performance and reputation with the university, alumni, headquarters, community and Greek community.
• Help your alumni to serve as better mentors, and
• Enhance and improve the services afforded to you by the National Headquarters staff

Currently in the pilot stage, the tool is an online survey which assesses chapter performance in key areas. It is completed by chapter officers and key volunteers, and then certified by your chapter counselor. Given the preliminary stage of the tool and the objective of making it as relevant and useful as possible, you can send all feedback to excelsior@sigep.net. This tool will be incorporated into the Buchanan Cup award and become the first step in the new application.

Excelsior provides every chapter the opportunity to establish a benchmark from which to improve the SigEp experience for the brothers in your chapter. While Excelsior was designed primarily to support the undergraduate chapter experience, it also equips chapter volunteers and HQ staff members with a more efficient means of providing relevant and accurate mentorship and direction.

In SigEp, the Greek word Excelsior means “ever onward, ever upward”. It is the root component of the English word Excellence, an attribute to which all Sigma Phi Epsilon chapters should aspire. Fittingly, the basic premise of Excelsior is to provide a path to fraternal excellence. Properly embraced and consistently used, it should be an invaluable component of every SigEp chapter’s short-term and long-term goal setting.

On behalf of your National Board of Directors, I encourage all chapters to complete the basic Excelsior components by the deadline of April 1.  To complete Excelsior please go to www.sigep.org/excelsior and use the following private and chapter specific log-in information:

Name: [chapter log-in] Password: [chapter password].

Through the use of Excelsior, chapter officers will be able to clearly gauge their achievements and measure key performance metrics. The information will assist chapter leaders, alumni, and volunteers to be more effective at accomplishing their goals and the headquarters staff to provide more relevant and customized support.

Thank you for your diligent help in this endeavor.

Fraternally,

Steve Shanklin
Grand President