The Nu Omicron chapter of Phi Mu Delta at Keene State College recently elected their executive board for 2015.
John Oliver is the current president of Phi Mu Delta [PMD] at KSC.
Oliver said the new executive board [eboard] members are shadowing, or interning, with those currently holding the position and will take over the positions at the end of the month.
Eight eboard positions were replaced during this election according to Oliver, including president, vice president [VP] of Membership, VP of Membership Development, VP of Finance, VP of Administration, a house position, VP of Housing and Sergeant at Arms.
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Oliver was elected to be president last year, his duty ends at the end of the month.
Oliver said he originally wanted to be president because, “Our organization was about to enter a hectic point. We received concerns from the national organization and I knew I was someone who could step up and spearhead getting done what was needed.”
Oliver said he helped meet a list of sanctions to the fraternity and petitioned at a national conclave so PMD could remain an active member and retain their charter.
Oliver also said he brought ambition to help get people to represent PMD’s ideals and helped make a lot of necessary organizational changes.
Now, Oliver’s “little bro” in the fraternity, Rob Tocci, is taking over his position next month. “I’m excited and optimistic that he’s going to take a lot of these changes I’ve helped make and go even further with them,” Oliver said, “It takes a lot of time to change an organization but I know there will be consistency and level-headedness in what needs to get done, so I know he can do it.”
Oliver said Tocci is young in the fraternity but is intelligent, decisive, passionate and will bring in fresh ideas.
“He’s the type of person — when he has his mind set on something, he’s going to do whatever it takes to get there,” Oliver said.
This month Oliver said he is training Tocci on the necessary paperwork and mentoring him on solutions on organizational as well as personal problems in the fraternity.
“Being president is a big part of keeping everyone together and not letting problems eat away at brotherhood,” Oliver said. Tocci is a sophomore, double major and in his first full semester as a brother to PMD.
Tocci said, “It’s nice to have [Oliver] guide me through this. As my big bro he’s always been guiding me so it feels like nothing has changed.”
Tocci said he thinks he is a good fit to be the PMD president. Tocci said he likes to lead by example, has a good work ethic and is organized. He said as new president he plans to strengthen the collective work ethic of PMD to help make everything run more smoothly, which would have organizational benefits.
“I also just want to strengthen what already exists. It’s a great organization and I want to be able to be one of the ones that keeps that alive,” Tocci said.
The current VP of Administration, Ryan Deluca, has been a brother of PMD since fall 2012.
Deluca said there have been positive changes this year for to the image of the fraternity, their status with nationals, revisions to their constitution and internal organization. Deluca said he thinks it is good the new eboard is younger and new to the fraternity because they will bring energy to the fraternity and are really eager to contribute to the organization.
Deluca said he doesn’t know the eboard’s future plans because they got elected so recently, but a collective goal of the fraternity is to get “Chapter of the Year” for the national PMD fraternity
Zac Lit is in his first full semester as a brother of PMD and is the newly-elected VP of Membership. He said his job will be to keep up the morale of the brothers and plan events.
To keep the brothers enthusiastic and interested, Lit said, “It’s just all about being together, watching football games on Sunday, watching movies, being together, having great conversations, studying and being able to just talk to each other.”
Lit said he is extremely confident in the eboard next semester. He also said, “The current eboard has done a great job and deserve a lot of recognition, they brought us to a good place.”
Taylor Thomas can be contacted at tthomas@keene-equinox.com.
