University Status Letter
This past month, I received a letter from ERAU President, Dr. Ebbs, regarding their recent meetings on the topic of Greek housing following our 30th Birthday weekend. There was both good news and bad news in the letter and as we know well, it is too early to tell what will be done about the situation.
I’ll start with the bad news. Dr. Ebbs included a copy of a letter sent by Dr Ledewitz in 1999 referring to a study that the university had done with University Housing Services, Inc. (UHS) to evaluate the feasibility and usability of a Greek housing on campus. The outcome of this study was, for the most part, no surprise.
The letter stated, “This study was intended as a guide to continue upgrading the ERAU housing system to achieve a stated goal of housing 60% of the students on campus. A secondary goal of this study was to provide the University with the financial and market analysis to expedite the financing process for any proposed new construction.”
UHS recommended that:
1. the University’s goal of housing 60% of students on campus should take precedence over housing single ‘affinity’ type organizations.
2. the 77 acres on Clyde Morris cannot be considered viable without extensive pedestrian and utility infrastructure investment.
3. the university consider designing and constructing 350-400 new beds in a new community to accommodate both affinity groups and the general student population on the “Genesis Property” (11 acres behind the Airway Science Simulation Labs if the university gets control of the land from the state of FL.
I’ve asked for an update from Ossie Palla on this matter as she was tasked with providing an updated report to Dr Ebbs by the end of the summer regarding how to best proceed with this topic. John Delafosse will also be heading our initiatives moving forward with a housing committee to determine our needs and communicate them with the university. I think it is clear that UHS did not take into account the full impact new housing would bring about in terms of alumni support that is so critical to a university such as Embry-Riddle. I will keep you posted on developments.
Cell Phone Field Added to Sig File
Etaiota.org now supports cell phone fields in the online database. Until now, nobody has been able to store this information in their profile so nobody else has ever been able to access it. If you have a cell phone and would like brothers to know the number so that they can reach you there, please send your name and cell number to the database administrator, Dave Spaller, at dave_spaller@yahoo.ca or you can fill out the online form at etaiota.org. Better yet, check the rest of the information we have for you to be sure everything else is accurate and up to date.
Central AC in the Wings
One of the take-aways from our annual House Corp meeting in April was to investigate installing centralized HVAC (heating ventilation & air conditioning) in each of the wings to address one of our biggest maintenance costs, the AC window units. Preliminary estimates have been provided from local contractors and it appears doing these upgrades will cost approximately $6-7,000 per wing. While this appears like an extraordinary amount of money, it may actually pay off in the short-term as we are continually purchasing $500 window units and paying to repair wall damage caused when one of these units fail. Brian Lojko is working on a cost/benefit analysis to compare each alternative. Again, we’ll keep you posted as we get more info.
Insurance Costs Increasing 25%
I briefly mentioned in the last printed newsletter that RMF is raising all chapter’s premiums due to current financial situations and recent losses that had a pretty significant impact to the pool of cash they pay from. I just got the invoice this week and it’s a whopping $7,800 due in September. This increased cost was not predicted earlier in the year as we prepared budgets for 2001-2002 and will have to be closely reviewed for possible impact on other spending. I have slacked in the last couple months in getting our new Treasurer, mike Gehman involved like I should have so this will be a good starting point…expect the bill in the mail, Mike!
Room Renovations
To continue this newsletter’s theme of spending a lot of money, we have been looking into possible room renovations for several of the more craptacular rooms to update things like bathroom vanities and showers, damaged drywall or ceilings and carpeting in the downstairs bedrooms. We may have some options for how to better utilize space in some bathrooms while also getting rid of the tiled showers with dual fixtures in favor of the fiberglass units with 1 water control valve. Our goal here is two-fold in that we need to make wise improvements now that will help our maintenance costs in the long run and also make the rooms more aesthetically pleasing when possible. Obviously any proposed changes will be put before the Trustees for this and any other project involving significant expenditures before moving forward.
Guard Well,
John Banta
Eta Iota House Corporation President
Eta Iota Birthdays
Once again, as always, Happy Birthday to those brothers celebrating in August:
Day Name/Class
1 Patrick L. Caylor 1984
2 Edward Goerges 1973
3 Chris Cox 1990
3 Ryan Schubert 1999
4 Dave Bonifield 1973
5 Quincy Evans 2004
5 Rick Spicer 1972
6 Kevin Stocker 1983
7 Bill Foulk 1985
8 Ron Toy 1992
9 Brian Valimont 2000
10 Larry Kolar 1973
11 Christopher Nevins 1996
11 Thomas A. Robbins 1984
11 Thomas Turfitt 2004
13 Dave Evans 1977
13 Jason Googe 1994
13 Roger Moody 1973
13 Scott Reiter 1980
13 Mike Rossbach 1977
13 Brett Watrous 1988
14 Leo Shamblen 1986
15 Matt Hanson 1991
15 Michael McKenzie 1973
15 Hugh Reynolds 1974
16 Archie Roberts 1974
17 John Ehrenreich 1983
17 Stuart Fraenkel 1989
17 Steven Todd Weeber 1993
18 Bradley D. Bower 1991
18 Alec Shovlain 2002
20 George Yurcic 1996
21 Jack Barsin 1971
21 John Belleau 1991
21 Mike Kline 2004
21 Robert C. Lambert 1977
21 James Thompson 1974
22 Brian Kilday 1994
22 Kevin Lower 1985
23 James Dianto 1990
23 Andy Fischer 1999
23 Doug Sherwood 1995
24 William Frey 1977
24 Craig Jenkins 1992
24 Tom Waterman 1986
28 John deLafosse 1972
28 Juan Gonzalez 1977
28 Blair Shiplett 2002
29 Larry Ammirata 1980
29 William Craig 1973
29 Timothy J. Rooney 1990
30 Buddy Evans 1973