Living Out the American Dream

Epsilon Theta, American University

I was excited to visit American University, after visiting them last October too. The women I stayed with were wonderful hostesses and I had so much fun with them!

We focused a lot on recruitment planning throughout my visit. It's crazy that it's already time for recruitment prep in chapters with deferred recruitment! It also gave me quite a few opportunities to be greeky, like attending a Panhellenic recruitment meeting and discussing no-frills recruitment with the fraternity and sorority life advisor.

Spiced apple cider at Le Pain Quotidien

As usual, I got in a few good meals during my visit! I made a trip to Le Pain Quotidien, or LPQ, one morning for breakfast. LPQ is a DC area upscale, French-inspired cafe. There is a bakery as well as a sit-down menu for anytime of day. I had a very nice french toast and spiced apple cider.

During my visit I also got coffee with Monisha, a friend from UConn, who now attends law school at American! It was so nice to see someone from school and to have a little time to enjoy catching up with her.

My last meal at American was one of my favorites! A few of the Phis brought me to a place called Wagshal's, which is right near campus and their apartments. They told me it was a salad place (which I ended up getting) but it had so much more than that. It was basically a deli and market wrapped into one. There were soups, salads, a hot bar, cold sides, pastries, breads, and fresh cut flowers. It was quite the place and I would love to go back and try more things because it all looked so good!

American Life by Madonna

Middle of the Lake Ontario

Phi Nu, Oswego State

Even though my visit to Oswego was very short, it was quite exciting! I had lots of meetings packed into such a short time, so I was very busy. But I also got the unique opportunity to see Al Roker film the Today Show on campus!

Al Roker is an alumni of SUNY Oswego and he comes back every year to film the show on campus. And it just so happened that he was there during my visit! Oswego has a large broadcasting program so they were hosting a few other famous alumnus of the program for a media summit that week as well. Thursday morning we got up super early to go see Al Roker do the weather report and then segments of the 7Am show. It was very exciting to attend with the Phis!

Hasn't Hit Me Yet by Blue Rodeo

Dear Old Syracuse

Iota, Syracuse University

I was very excited to visit Syracuse, even though they are basketball rivals with UConn. Funny enough, if I hadn't gone to UConn, I would have ended up at Syracuse since it was my second choice. I hadn't visited campus since I was in high school so I was really looking forward to returning.

I got there on Sunday, at the end of homecoming weekend. The women warned me that tons of AEPhi alumnae had been knocking on the door all weekend asking to tour the house. But it wasn't until around 9 o'clock that night that I saw if for myself. I was hanging out in the front room with a group of sisters that were watching the Giants game, when a woman and her family came to the door wanting to see the house. The woman was an AEPhi alumna that graduated from Syracuse in 1989. With her was her ZBT husband (who she met while they were undergrads at Syracuse) and two sons, one of which was looking at colleges. They were in town for the high school visiting day happening on Monday and they came in to meet us and see the house. They told us all sorts of stories from when they were at Syracuse, including about their ex's and how they started dating. The family must have spent at least an hour at the house and we all thoroughly enjoyed hearing their old stories.

This week Syracuse AEPhi was holding their Pink Week for Sharsheret and breast cancer awareness. On Monday they held a jewelry sale at the Schine Student Center. Jewelerry is company started by an AEPhi Syracuse 2014 grad. She has a website (jewelerry.com) where she sells lots of items and she has partnered with quite a few AEPhi chapters to do fundraisers and online flash sales. She runs the business from her home and the event and her company are so successful! It was a great fundraiser and she makes such fun jewelry!

Iota Chapter is also holding an Instagram fundraiser all week. Hashtag #SUAEPhiGoesPink and they will donate $1 to Sharsheret per photo!

During my visit, Syracuse had extremely unseasonably beautiful weather. Students are sitting out in the quad in the picture below, taken when it was 65 degrees out. And it was the weirdest thing when it got up to 82 the next day. It was so bizarre for upstate New York in October and I found myself wishing I had packed shorts in my suitcase.

I had heard that the Syracuse chapter house had a great chef and I was not disappointed at all! Mary has been the chef at Iota Chapter for over 10 years and she definitely runs the house. There were so many options for each meal, and always lots of leftovers in the fridge. Mary even made her famous dirt cups during my visit and they were so great!

After a great visit with Syracuse, this evening I'm heading up to Oswego for my last stop on my upstate NY trip!


Dear Old Syracuse from the 1938 musical The Boys From Syracuse

Keep Warm from the Binghamton Cold

Phi Mu, Binghamton University

I had a quick trip to Binghamton over the weekend, but luckily, I had already met most of the chapter during recruitment last February, so it was nice to catch up with each of the officers and see lots of familiar faces!

Friday I spent the day at the (still pretty new) student union. I had meetings all day and really enjoyed being on campus. My favorite part about spending the day at a student union is always the people watching. I can learn so much about the campus culture and student body just by observing for a little while.

Something I already knew about Binghamton is that there is a substantial Jewish population. So it did not surprise me when the Chabad rabbi began walking around the union asking Jewish students to do a mitzvah by waving the lulav and etrog for the holiday of Sukkot. This is the Jewish holiday that both commemorates the 40 years the Jews wandered the desert and celebrates the harvest season.

Saturday I went apple picking with the chapter at a local orchard. The orchard was set up on a hill so we had a gorgeous view of the surrounding area and all the tress in the distance were changing colors. It was such a beautiful fall day and everyone took advantage of the great photo ops!

After apple picking, we headed to the country store/cafe on the orchard property. They make their our donuts, which we could see being made right in front of us. The apple cider donuts were amazing! I am not the biggest donut fan but I always try to get one when I go apple picking. The flavor is just perfect for fall but this was honestly the best cider donut I have ever had!

Making fresh donuts before our eyes!

Unfortunately I had to leave before bagels in the sukkah on Sunday, but I had such a great visit with the Binghamton ladies! Now I'm off to Syracuse for my next Upstate NY visit!

The Hat by Ingrid Michaelson

Everybody Knows Ithaca is Gorgeous

Kappa, Cornell University

Cornell University is a campus so rich in history that I was very excited to explore the area! Though it is the youngest of the Ivy League schools, Cornell has been a prestigious institution of higher education for many years and is celebrating it's 150th birthday this year. AEPhi at Cornell is the chapter of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is the second female Supreme Court Justice, and the first Jewish female justice. I am proud to call her a sister and was excited to see that the Kappa Chapter received mail from her office!

I also have a little family history at Cornell. My mother's older cousin attended Cornell in the early 50s and he used to always talk about it when I was little. As an undergraduate, he joined Phi Kappa Psi and the Cornell Men's Glee Club. I was excited to finally visit Ithaca after hearing about it for so long. Below is his fraternity's chapter house!

Alpha Chapter house of Sigma Delta Tau (left) and Delta Chi (right)

Fraternities at Cornell are nearly as old as the university itself. In 1868, three years after the university was founded, three fraternities established chapters on campus. For about the next 50 years, many fraternities and sororities came to Cornell. A majority of the fraternities on campus originally founded their Cornell chapters in the late 1800s and by 1920, most of the current Panhellenic sororities had chartered at Cornell as well. Many of the organizations on campus are single-letter chapters of their National organization because of how old Greek life is on campus. Another great piece of the fraternity and sorority history there is that three National organizations were founded at Cornell University. Campus is home to the Alpha chapter of Delta Chi (1890), Alpha Phi Alpha (1906), and Sigma Delta Tau (1917). Today there are over 50 fraternity and sororities at Cornell, over 40 of which are housed on or around campus, and a third of undergraduates are affiliated.

Because the ladies were so busy being studious and taking lots of exams, I had plenty of free time to explore the campus area. Being greeky, I started off with a tour through the fraternity and sorority neighborhoods on North Campus and West Campus. So many chapters have great, big, beautiful houses.

On my way around I had to cross a number of different bridges, which led over the various gorges that cut through the area. To the left is a picture I took of Ithaca Falls from one of the bridges I walked. Below is the view from the other side of that same bridge. "Ithaca is gorges" is probably the most cliche thing ever said about the city but it is so true. Every view was amazing and prettier than the last.

It was quite the workout to walk around campus so much because of how hilly it was. But I made it to the far, opposite end to check out Cornell Orchards.

Early October weather is the perfect fall weather. Despite the little bit of rain, it was so beautiful all week. It was chilly enough to wear my favorite sweaters, but bright and sunny with beautiful leaves everywhere. It is my favorite part of fall and wish it would last forever!

I also made it over to the Cornell Dairy Bar, which is located in one of the food science buildings way over on the east side of campus. The set up was a little different than what I was expecting (based on the UConn Dairy Bar) but they had great espresso chip ice cream! And because it was 65 degrees, which is practically shorts weather in October, I decided to eat my ice cream outside. That's how you know I'm really from the Northeast. 

By far, my favorite spot and the place I spent most of my time was Collegetown Bagel. Collegetown is a neighborhood that borders the southern edge of Cornell, where lots of students rent houses and apartments. There are also lots of restaurants and little places to shop. Collegetown Bagel, or CTB, is right on the very edge of campus, as you can see from my picture below. I loved looking out at the cute seating area and being able to see the Cornell Law buildings in the distance. The combination of great food, good people watching and a nice spot to get work done made CTB so amazing.

View from Collegetown Bagel

Every morning I made my way to CTB for breakfast or brunch. I'm embarrassed to say that means I went four day in a row, but the menu is just so large and everything looked amazing. Talia had given me suggestions for what to order but when I stood in front of the menu I was so overwhelmed by the choices. Even on the fourth day, I had to take a few minutes to look at everything on the wall and decide what to try.

Each morning I grabbed a bagel and coffee and I'd find a spot to sit doing work for hours. I loved the iced coffee but I made sure to try a different bagel each day. Of the things I tried, all four were amazing, but my two favorites are shown below. The top one is the Nutella and bananas, which I chose to put on an apple cinnamon bagel. The one below is tuna salad with lettuce and tomato on their famous rosemary and salt bagel. Both were incredible, as were the lox and the pumpkin bagel I also tried.

I am so happy I finally got to experience Cornell University! I had such a great time eating and exploring! Now I'm off on the rest of my Upstate tour!


Our Town by Dynamic Inkline

It's the Street I Live On, Massachusetts Avenue

Beta Epsilon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

My visit to MIT was my first to any of the Boston area chapters so I was pretty excited to see it from the student perspective. I live about a twenty minute drive from MIT and I never really knew anything about that part of Cambridge so I definitely had a good time exploring my backyard!

It was pretty gray and rainy all week, so I ended up not doing too much walking around. MIT is not the prettiest campus either, in terms of old gray buildings, but the school was founded in 1861 and is full of engineers, so maybe it doesn't bother them. Campus is definitely in a cool party of town, though. Kendal Square is right on east end of campus, which is filled with cool restaurants, has a branch of the Coop, and is right on the T (Boston's subway system) red line. The Charles River, which splits Cambridge from Boston, lines the south side of campus. Many of the dorms face the river and have a great view of Boston. And Massachusetts Avenue, or Mass Ave, runs right though the middle of campus. The building shown above is on Mass Ave and the picture below is from the bridge over the Charles that Mass Ave runs on. I found it interesting that this is called the Harvard Bridge, since it is literally right next to MIT. But if you were to follow Mass Ave through MIT and deeper into Cambridge, it would only take about ten minutes to get into Harvard Square.

View of Boston over the Charles River from Cambridge at Harvard Bridge

I tried a couple good places in the area, the first being the Miracle of Science Bar & Grill. Courtney, one of Beta Epsilon's advisors, and I went for dinner on my first night. It is right on Mass Ave only a couple blocks up from campus. It was definitely sciencey because the menu was posted on the wall in a periodic table. No joke, each square had the initials of the element and then listed a food item under it. They didn't even have a menu for the table and when we asked, the waitress seemed to think we were crazy for wanting to read it in front of us. In any case, the food was good and it was an interesting experience.

The other place I went was the Flour Bakery & Cafe. Alison had been when she visited MIT earlier in the semester so I decided to go try out the breakfast sandwich too. The cafe was really cool, and also right on Mass Ave close to campus. They had so many sandwiches and baked goods that looked great. The breakfast sandwich had a big chunk of scrambled egg with bacon, tomato, arugula and dejonaise (dijon mayonnaise), which was delicious! Definitely a must-try if you are ever in the area.

Now I'm looking forward to my couple days off for Yom Kippur, then I'll be headed to upstate New York for two weeks!

Massachusetts Avenue by Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra