Quick Facts:
- Established at Yale University in 1895.
- Nationally recognized with 44 active chapters.
- The Stony Brook NY Alpha Pi Chapter was founded in 2014
- Motto: “Not Four Years But a Lifetime”
- One of the largest social fraternity as recognized by SBU with 45 members
- Highest cumulative GPA of 3.4 at SBU
We sat down with Michael Tang, Joseph Giambalvo, Benjamin Rosenkranz, Alexander Hartmann, Killian Black, and John Pfail to talk about what makes their organization stand out at Stony Brook University.
HCSB: Your creed stresses on equality, diversity, and inclusivity but there has to be certain qualities you look for in members during recruitment that set them apart from everyone else. What are they and how is PiLam different from other fraternities on campus?
Alexander: So the main point you were referring to is our whole elimination of prejudice. The idea is that bias or prejudice shouldn’t affect anybody’s character—especially being a part of the brotherhood. On an individual basis we really value academics a lot. We’re at Stony Brook University to get a good education and do well in our classes so we do emphasize being involved on campus. One of our prerequisites in addition to GPA is having a leadership position in some sort of different organization on campus. This is so we have a diverse skill set and so you’re not devoting all your time to just class and PiLam. You would also have to show that you have other interests on campus and you’re prepared for the real world after you graduate.
Michael: We also emphasize the importance of being a gentleman. Being a gentleman to us means that you not only treat others well but you also look forward to your own personal growth. We don’t want stagnation in the guys we meet. We are looking for guys that are trying to develop into men or that are trying to better themselves. Being a gentleman not only means treating women correctly, you have to just live your life based on the values that we preach.
Benjamin: In addition to that we also look for individuals that could benefit from the organization and also benefit the organization. Here in PiLam, we want you to grow as an individual but also contribute to Pi Lambda Phi’s growth every single year. So it has to be mutual.
Killian: When I first came to Stony Brook, I didn’t plan on joining a fraternity actually. I was completely against it. Then my roommate who is also in my pledge line convinced me to go to the involvement fair and I was like fine, I’ll go. I just talked to some of the fraternities, and most were like, “Hey we have these amazing parties, you should come out to them.” That was their pitch line. I wasn’t really into that, but then I talked to Ben and Elliot who came up to me and said, “Listen we want you because of you. We have the highest GPA, we are the biggest organization, we’re a great group of guys who like to get together.” They really pitched it and they seemed like really cool guys. So I tried them out because they were able to strike a balance between social and academic life. I’m here at Stony Brook to learn and not to get drunk and wasted everyday. So I got to know these guys and it was the best thing ever. Also, there was another fraternity who showed interest in me. I went out and they told me the same stuff as PiLam but it was absolutely false. I told myself I’m not doing this and I almost quit both organizations at the same time. Then PiLam gave me a bid, and they told me that they really want me to join. I got to know them better, and part of the process is we have to interview them. So I got to interview every single brother and I loved every single one of them and that’s why I joined. Everyone is there for you and there’s not there just to be there. They are looking out for you and always got your back.
Alexander: I think a big point Killian was emphasizing was that phrase that we throw around and it’s “people join people.” It’s the idea that, yes there are a lot of attractive things about particular fraternities but at the end of the day you’re not going to want to commit your time, your money, and your resources to something unless you really like that fraternity. So we really pride ourselves on that, because in a lot of cases and stereotypes which say you’re buying a group of friends, you don’t know half of them, you just go to these giant chapter meetings, but its safe to say that every single one of our brothers has a close personal relationship with every other brother. That’s hard to do so we work hard to maintain that. We do a really good job organizing brotherhood events which oftentimes is just everyone going out to dinner. It means that you can be in an elevator with any other brother and you can still have a deep, meaningful conversation regardless of if you met them yesterday or they’re three years older than you, or completely different major. So I think that’s’ something to be proud of.
HCSB: How has PiLam affected you personally?
Michael: Entering college, I honestly never would have thought I would be president of a fraternity. I’m super geeky, don’t like to party, introverted, and honestly I’m still the same way. The only difference is that I am now in charge of an organization. The biggest thing that’s changed about me is that I’ve found people that help me understand who I want to become and help me in that path. So, we share similar values, I am very happy with why I joined this organization and the reason was mainly because of the people that I met and recruited. So PiLam has been a foundation for me to grow as a leader and as a person in general. I feel that without PiLam I would have never been able to take hold of my life and see where I actually wanted to go or gained the courage, I guess, to lead at all.
Killian: Even though I’ve only been here for a semester, they’ve still helped me become more of who I am today. I’m a very extroverted person and I can talk all day long to just about anybody. But it has always been hard for me to really have an actual connection to people. They brought me in and they looked after me and they took care of me and you know we’re a family. We’re an actual family and I think that’s really cool. I have a great time hanging out with these guys.
Benjamin: In addition to basically everything my brothers have said, I also noticed that it’s been a great benefit in my classes. It’s given me the authority or the courage to take leadership roles in classes. If there’s something along the lines of a presentation, I’m the first person to speak for it and just make sure that we accomplish our objectives. Being surrounded by such successful friends, students, brothers—it also makes it so that I don’t want to be left behind. It makes me strive forward to actually be the best that I can in school and outside of school on a social level.HCSB: What philanthropy and community service events do you focus on?
Michael: Our advisor is Kathleen Valerio and we have recently paired with the Student Health Advisory Committee and the Blood Bank. This semester we are going to be promoting the Stony Brook Blood Bank more, while doing work for that. We are doing campus beautification projects and adopt-a-highway. One of the things is we are doing is Pedals for Progress, where we take old bikes, raise money to renovate them, and send them to less fortunate countries because we understand that a bike can not only help a family, but a community. It can mean the difference between fresh versus unclean water.
Benjamin: So, we did this last semester and look forward to doing it next spring as well. It’s an event called The Wall of Prejudice. Basically, we set up a sheet rock wall and invite people to write words that have been used as a form of oppression—just something everyone has essentially had to show that we’ve all gone through similar experiences of having people who are making these completely negative and derogatory terms to all people of all kinds. Then at the end of the day, we take turns breaking it down. We also invite other lecturers, professors, organizations to have constructive conversations about prejudice and what we go through on a more or less day to day basis. It is just important for the school. It’s important because we have a very diverse campus but at the same time it’s very segregated. Many groups are X group, Y group, Z group and we’re trying to make it so we can integrate more people across groups and make them less afraid to go out of their comfort zone. (The speakers present were African Studies professors Georges Fouron and Dawn Harris, Chris Tanaka from the LGBTQ* Services, the Muslim Student Association, Kathleen Valerio from Active Minds, and members from Graduate Queer Alliance and Erase Racism.)
Alexander: Another point of the physical wall is that rather than acting like racism and prejudice don’t exist and ignoring the problem, we are physically constructing a wall to show that it is a problem. The only way to really defeat this is to address this and see what we can do about it. So the fun fundraiser part is physically knocking it down, but it also provides a cool, cathartic way to recognize that it is a problem and here are all of us taking a pledge to sort of destroy the symbol of how people have felt prejudiced against. To come together to literally take down a wall and I think that’s a really cool image.
Benjamin: There’s also a very good chance that the school is going to be taking a bigger role this time and actually wanting to bring more attention to it as well. Last semester, they had a lot of interest in it, but it was more on a smaller scale to make sure it didn’t blow out the student base.
Alexander: They were a bit skeptical at first.
Benjamin: This was to make sure that the student body would not be upset by seeing such a blatant display of bigotry. The wall was physically in the Student Activities Center atrium. The speakers were in Ballroom B.
Killian: Also, last semester we did a beautification project for Stony Brook itself. We were working on getting the vines that are crawling up Harriman Hall off. We also planted plants and occasionally do beach cleanups.
HCSB: Greek life tends to have a bad rapport, whether it’s the pledge process or interactions with the rest of the student body, so how do you combat that stigma?
Alexander: Right of the bat, we don’t haze any of our brothers. While they’re going through their process we make sure they know every brother because that’s important. You have to interview them and get to know them. Then there’s an online component called Pi Lambda Phi University, which is more the history of the organization overall. It more closely resembles homework and watching echoes rather than doing push-ups in a basement or whatever you see in movies. Everybody’s gone through it and its not super fun but obviously its not emotional battery and physical damage or anything like that. So that’s a huge counter to that. As far as the stigmas you mentioned, its something we want to combat and part of what we found ourselves on is differentiating ourselves from the “frat image.” We emphasize on calling ourselves a fraternity and we never really say “frat” just because it has such a bad connotation to it and we want to move away from that. A lot of what people think is what they see in movies and TV shows. We want to show we’re not that. We’re the positive side, we’re doing community service, we’re doing really well in our classes, and just really differentiating ourselves form the stigma saying we’re not what everyone reads about on the Internet.
Benjamin: In addition, we’ve been doing a lot of events on campus essentially just showing everybody that we do exist more as just a place to have a good time come Friday night.
Michael: Speaking of the hazing that everyone always sees in the movies, our stance on that is why would you want to be a brother or make a brother eat something or I don’t understand why are you trying to kill someone.
Joseph: Why bring someone down when you’re focused on bringing somebody up given that’s what our organization is all about. We never ever want to put you down or degrade you in any sort of way. We’re all about building ourselves up and building the organization up and just that idea does not fit with our education process.
Benjamin: Why would you call me a brother if I’m the one who’s causing you so much pain?
Michael: Another stigma that fraternities have is that—the ideal fraternity guy is that we’re all loud, he’s white, his dad buys him everything. PiLam is not about any of those stigmas. If you’re looking for a fraternity that can break every single stereotype, come speak to me or come talk to any of the brothers. Spend five minutes with us and we will break every single stereotype that you have about fraternities because not all of us are white, rich, have a great a great background that you’ve seen in movies. It’s not picturesque and it’s not the movies. It’s real life. Everyone has a different background but we’re all together for a reason.
Alexander: And if you are rich and white that doesn’t mean we don’t accept that either. As long as you’re a nice guy and you do well in school.
How do you balance the responsibilities of being a PiLam brother while maintaining academic excellence?
Alexander: I think that time management is a really important skill. We have a lot of really intelligent, hard working guys. I’ll say that, coming out of high school, I was definitely a chronic procrastinator and I wasn’t super great and doing my work on time. Now, before PiLam, Stony Brook kind of forces that out of you. You learn to work with the deadlines, and do your homework on time or else risk failing your classes. I think it’s a good skill to have, like being able to budget your time and do work before, after, or during the meeting sometimes. It’s okay, we’re all students and we know what happens. It’s also a good skill to have for the future and especially getting through college even if you’re not part of a fraternity. If you spread yourself too thin you’re destined for failure and everything you commit your time to. So it’s really important to be able to balance things. Our particular organization is really understanding. We all know how hard some of the tests here at Stony Brook are. So if you have to miss a meeting to study, it’s totally okay. We’re very reasonable with that. At the same time, people don’t abuse it, they understand that by getting that privilege and having that opportunity, that they’ll bring something to the table next meeting or work just that much harder when they can. We also keep emphasizing brotherhood so when you have an academic obligation that needs attention in place of a community service event for example, the other brothers can come together and pull your weight. That means that when someone else can’t next week, you come in and help out then. I think there’s a network that we can all rely on each other for. We’re all going through it. It doesn’t matter your major, all the classes can get really hard sometimes, and some weeks are much worse than others so that’s life. College kind of prepares you for that. Not to sound pessimistic, but it does get harder after you graduate. Time management is always going to be something you need to have control over or else time escapes from you and things can get stressful. So, I think it’s good to give yourself those skills when you have some learning time to do so.
Joseph: So like Alex was saying with time management, it is definitely something that being in PiLam teaches you to do. As Vice President of Recruitment, the first month or so can be very difficult. Being that I have to constantly advertise PiLam whether it’s hitting up 70+ numbers to inform individuals about a recruitment event or printing out business cards or just attending the events. So, although it may seem difficult at times, it teaches you to manage time accordingly and work hard play hard. In life there’s going to be a lot more responsibilities. You’re not just going to go to work and come home. You’re going to have to tend to your kids, your wife, whatever it may be. So being in PiLam has definitely taught me that. If I just weren’t in this organization I would probably just go to class and come back without too many commitments. Overall, it teaches you how to deal with that much better. It’s also definitely rewarding. It’s not something that you end up regretting.
John: Speaking from my personal experience, last year I was VP and was taking 23 credits, double majoring, doing research, so definitely being in PiLam and being on top of everything academic is definitely tough. Again, with time management skills and the support from your brothers I could definitely delegate tasks down and have them do things if I really can’t be there or do something. Another big thing is that we have so many different members in different majors. We have several people that are TA’s that have taken the course and they can help you brothers out if you need help in a class. I was a TA in Orgo last year and we had a few members taking that class, and I helped them through it. So we’re all there for each other in the brotherhood.
Michael: As a reference, 23 credits and that much work is pretty normal in PiLam honestly. We take lots of credits, a lot of us do research, volunteer at the hospital, do tons of other stuff. It’s not like PiLam is the sole thing, it’s more like it’s at the center of it. We do tons of other work, get everything done, and aim to succeed.
Alexander: It’s impossible to slack off and not do your best if your friends all have 4.0’s. It makes you feel really stupid, so it kind of encourages you to keep up the hard work, which is a good thing.
Benjamin: It also breaks up the work, which makes it a lot easier to get through 100 pages of reading before the next class tomorrow. So, a little bit of a benefit with that
Joseph: We encourage you to do work. We’ll all go to the lounge and then sit down do work and grind it out. We all build off of each other. So even though we have tasks to accomplish, we still help each other do so in tasks that are not necessarily PiLam related.HCSB: What is your favorite memory or event from your fraternity?
Benjamin: Definitely the Wall of Prejudice simply because there’s a video of me literally punching through the wall (Wall of Prejudice Spring 2016). Although it did kind of scratch up my hand, it was really a good way to demonstrate it rather than hitting it with a hammer. Plus, it was really fun for me. Being able to work on that project and literally break it with my fist was just fun. It’s very rare to have an experience like that with people watching on a college campus.
Joseph: For me too, I definitely had to say the Wall of Prejudice. Maybe not so much due to the physical part, but more the meaning it held behind it. It was definitely something the campus never experienced before. A whole wall just filled with profanity, things you don’t see on a regular basis and the idea of physically tearing it down. It really meant a lot. Like Ben said, it was definitely fun but also really strong. It kind of says we’re above these words, they don’t hold any meaning to us.
Alexander: It’s not a specific memory, but just how far we’ve come is a really cool thing to think about. So myself, Ben, Joey, and a couple other brothers all went to the same high school. So we had the benefit of coming here as freshman and already knowing each other and having a good group of friends. Then we all met each other’s roommates and before you knew it we were 20+ guys getting dinner at the same time. I remember freshman year people would make jokes saying “Oh what are you? A fraternity?” It’s funny because over time we thought that’s not a bad idea, what if we do something legitimate? So now, it’s cool to look back. When we look at the delta class, or Killian’s class, that just crossed, it’s so cool to see these guys who are younger than us hold the same values as we do, who are hardworking like us, and it’s good to know that we’re going to graduate and there’s something that we created in the hands of capable young men who are only going to do better things with it. I think that’s really cool to see that we actually made a positive impact that’s not going to disappear when we graduate. We did something that’s not only awesome during our time here, but is going to continue to be awesome well into the future or as long as Stony Brook is here I hope.
Killian: My favorite is not really one event it’s a reoccurring event. It’s that any time I can go on a little Facebook messenger app and be like, “Hey, who wants to hang out, watch a movie, or play WWE or whatever?” Just getting to hang out and chill and I get at least five people who enthusiastically respond. We all just hang out all the time.
Benjamin: It keeps us from getting bored.
Joseph: It’s impossible not to be hanging out with someone from our campus.
Benjamin: You get out from a bad test, and you’re like, “Oh hey, here’s everybody all at once.” It cheers you up, or puts you down depending on the circumstances.
Michael: My favorite memory was the moment I got elected as president. I wouldn’t say it was satisfying or relieving but rather daunting. I had never thought that anything like this would ever happen and to be honored to have everyone’s vote and have everyone see me as a possible leader is amazing. A moment where you get recognition for all the hard work you’ve put in or the fact that everyone respects you and likes you is unparalleled. There’s no other moment like that.
John: I think my favorite memory was that last semester when we had that campus beautification project. It stood out to me because we started off with at 8:30 in the morning and I was thinking, “Oh my god, we have 40 members who’s actually going to wake up and start cleaning the campus doing mulch?” I got up and texted the group chat and showed up. We had 6-7 guys there and two locations to cover. I was thinking it would be a disaster and no one would show up and that we’re uncoordinated. Somehow everyone showed up and leaders popped up, like Ben became a leader in one group, Billy was a leader of another one. It was really amazing how we all came together in that time to help clean up the campus. Whenever I walk by SBS, I see the nice mulch and feel satisfied that we helped with that. It was nice to see everyone pull their weight and jump up and take leadership roles while helping the campus become beautified.
HCSB: What are the benefits of being a part of PiLam after graduation as alumni?
Joseph: Our motto is “Not Four Years but a Lifetime.” The idea that even after joining, even after the four years of undergraduate college you can still rely on us, can still talk to us, can still be our brother. The relationship I have with these guys is family and it’s all words when you say it like that but to us…I can talk to some of the guys that have already graduated and ask them for advice, ask them to get me into a position I didn’t have, or refer me to someone else. Life in itself, in my opinion, is a lot about connections and if you want to talk about the strongest connections you have it’s family and this is one of the first places you can establish the familial connection besides blood. If you join PiLam you’re not just joining for your undergraduate career to have a fun time you’re joining to be a part of something bigger and to hopefully we have an impact on society as a whole in the future and for other people to have an impact on you.
Benjamin: If we actually talk from the experiences of two of our alumni, one is in medical school and the other is trying to be a teacher in Brooklyn, I believe. They basically have a safety net, knowing that as soon as they are out of college and into the real world where things are not as forgivable, they know they have people backing them every step of the way. So, if there’s a bad day, they know they have many, many, many brothers who are more than willing to hear them out, give them advice, and make sure that they stay successful and just not fall.
Alexander: So to kind of substantiate what Michael Tang was saying earlier—everyone knows the phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I would argue that it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. Having these alumni Pilam brothers means that it’s not just a friend of your parent who you send an e-mail to, it’s someone who really cares about you and values you and will go the extra mile to make sure that you get in touch with the right person. We’re still in our infancy a little bit here, but my goal is that as we graduate, as we recruit other guys we’ll start our own vast network of guys in all different industries and professions who can help each other out. We make jokes amongst our friends about this. One of my friends keep saying “Oh he owes my kid free braces and I’m sure that I’m gonna get all the medical care I need from my brothers.” It’s good to know that, but I’m sure we’re all destined for greatness because we’re all hardworking guys. It really says a lot that we’re going to have so many friends and great opportunities that are going to increasingly present themselves over time. I think that’s something to really look forward to.
Superlatives in Pi Lambda Phi!
Most Diligent: John Pfail
Biggest Goofball: Alex Hartmann
Best Dressed: Neil Gambhir
Most Charismatic: Tejen Shah
Biggest Foodie: Joseph Chan
Total Gym Fanatic: Jonathan Nunes
Best Dancer: Shyam Bhatt
Upcoming events to look forward to!
09/12/16 – Partnering with SBU Blood Bank
09/14/16 – Informational for Fall ‘16 Rush
09/17/16 – Beach Cleanup at Cedar Beach
09/19/16-10/12/16 – Halal Fundraiser for Pedal for Progress
09/21/16 – Campus Beautification Project with Campus Maintenance
10/08/16 – LIRR Station Cleanup
Learn more about Pi Lambda Phi: