Minnesota Greek Alumni Partnership

MGAP House Corporation Meeting Notes

MGAP’s House Corporation Meeting on March 16th was a great event!  3 strong and insightful presentations followed by a Q & A panel had the entire group riveted to their seats for 2 hours.  Representatives from 6 sororities and 11 fraternities attended.  We received great ideas for future meetings. People lingered to chat and ask questions even after the 2-hour time limit to the point of having to get “kicked out” of the meeting space at the YMCA.

Mary Mulier’s, a 20+ year professional fundraiser, has agreed to have her presentation posted on the MGAP website at http://umngreekalumni.com/greeks/Documents/Default.aspx for those who could not attend.  Although it is not quite the same without Mary’s in person gripping stories, comic flair and detailed insights, it may still provide a helpful project template and raise great questions for your groups, if fundraising is among your future plans.

Rick Beeson, President of Park Midway Bank, who presented credit process with their bank specifically for fraternities and sororities can be reached at (651) 523-7830 ([email protected]).

Ellen Sletten, Alpha Chi HC member and Alpha Chi National HC member, presented in her finely polished way on the nuances of FREE GRANT money from the Marcy Holmes neighborhood.  Contact Elissa Cottle in Marcy Holmes at 612-623-7923 ([email protected]) to find out how to get your FREE money, today.

At the request of several house corporations we have also posted the Education Foundation Presentation to House Corporations 501(c)3 Case Study on the MGAP website as well.

University Neighborhoods Second Fridays

MGAP has been invited to attend the monthly meetings of a group made up of neighborhood groups surrounding the U (Marcy-Holmes, SE Como, Prospect Park, Seward and West Bank) and reps from University of MN, Second Precinct Police, city attorney, U Police, and council members.

This is a great opportunity for us to be more involved in the community and to further develop personal and professional relationships with area leaders.

Third Ward Summit

Lorna Fox and Erika Loen attended the Third Ward Summit on Saturday, 3/3.  New Minneapolis Council Member Diane Hofstede coordinated this meeting of the 8 neighborhood groups that make up the Third Ward. 

Each neighborhood gave a brief presentation about their neighborhood activities.  Small group brain storming sessions were also held to discuss the following topics:  Youth, Housing, Public Safety/Problem Properties, Economic Development, Art/Environment/Green Spaces, and Transportation/Traffic/Bikes.

Marcy-Holmes Update

Lorna Fox and Paul DeBettignies met with Melissa Bean and Ted Tucker of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association in February. This was the first “official” meeting between the groups although MGAP board members have been attending the Marcy-Holmes monthly meetings informally.

Topics covered included what MGAP is and who we are, three redevelopment zones in the neighborhood including the corner of 35W and 10^th Avenue (across from Alpha Chi Omega and Gamma Phi Beta) and the current faculty housing on 4^th street between 10^th and 11^th (across from Kappa Alpha Theta and Delta Gamma), MGAP’s wish to be more involved in neighborhood activities, the changes to city ordinances regarding “unruly disturbances”, street lighting and better overall communication between the groups. Lorna and Paul were added to the Marcy-Holmes email list.

Free Trees

The City of Minneapolis is making a thousand trees available to its
residents, to help repair some of the damage done by storms and Dutch elm
disease in 2005.  Residents can order one tree per address, and folks can
choose from four varieties: Autumn Spire Maple, Autumn Brilliance
Serviceberry, Bicolor Oak, and Black Hills Spruce.

Ordering a tree:

The trees cost $15 each, and are each about 6 feet high with a 1 ¼-inch
trunk.  The thousand trees will be made available on a first come, first
served basis, and trees should be ordered by April 15.  To order a tree,
visit Mayor Rybak's website at http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/mayor/ or go
to the Tree Trust site at www.treetrust.org.

Picking up your tree:

After submitting an order form, residents will need to pick up their tree on
one of two pick-up dates:
May 13, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. - Xcel Energy Riverside Plant, 3100 Marshall
Street NE
May 20, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. - Jenny Lind School, 900 50th Avenue N

Learn to care for your trees:

Tree Trust is providing free workshops, which are available for residents to
learn more about how to plant a tree the right way, how to care for it, and
how to be your tree's first responder!  Learn how to identify insect and
disease problems, hazardous trees, and other tree health issues.  The
workshop dates are:
April 4, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. - Northeast Bank, 77 NE Broadway
April 8, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. - Nokomis Community Center, 2401 East Minnehaha
Parkway

Research has proven that trees are a valuable investment. They increase
property values, improve air quality, lower heating and cooling costs,
control storm water, and make our cities better places to live.

For more information, contact Lorrie Stromme with the City of Minneapolis at
612-673-2003, or call Mimi Hottinger with Tree Trust at 651-644-5800.

Congressional Lobbying Effort

Carol Warren, MGAP VP Collegiate Relations, is Pi Beta Phi’s NPC Delegate and has been heavily involved in lobbying members of Congress to support “The Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act (H.R. 1548/S.713) Preserving the Future of Not-for-Profit Student Housing.”

Material will be sent to house corporation presidents in the next week, which will include sample letters to send to Senators and Congressmen in support of these bills. What follows is some of the material that will be sent.

The current tax code hinders modernization and safety of some student housing. The federal income tax code allows colleges and universities to use tax deductible contributions for infrastructure improvements to classrooms, laboratories, dormitories, meeting areas and dining facilities, but forbids contributions to fraternity and sorority foundations to be used to make similar infrastructure improvements to student housing, meeting areas and dining facilities.   

Fraternities and sororities are the nation’s largest not-for-profit student landlord. We own and manage $3 billion in student housing at no cost to the American taxpayers. We house 250,000 students a year in 8,000 facilities with a replacement cost and capacity that universities cannot afford to bear.  Our houses operate almost exclusively on student rents and we do not have the ability to raise tax-deductible funding for important life-safety capital improvements. 

In the 108^th Congress, the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act was included in the Charitable Giving Act of 2003 that passed the House by a 408-13 margin. The 2005 version of the Collegiate Housing and Infrastructure Act is the same as the language within the Charitable Giving Act of 2003 that passed the House in the last Congress.   

Passing the Collegiate House and Infrastructure Act would encourage new charitable contributions to improve current collegiate housing, thereby preserving and upgrading existing housing capacity and helping construct the new housing capacity needed to accommodate rapidly growing student populations.

The result would be safer student housing by enabling fraternities and sororities to fund the installation of modern life safety equipment such as fire sprinklers, smoke detectors and alarm systems.

15th Ave Lighting

The lighting project along 15^th Ave from 4^th Street to Como has been completed. Many thanks to the Panhellenic Council for taking the lead on this project. Kat Baugher and others from the council and chapters attended meetings, posted flyers, knocked door to door with petitions and created the U Light Up the Night Block Party.

Here is a link to a story on the UMNnews web site, http://www1.umn.edu/umnnews/Feature_Stories/Let_there_be_light.html.

New City Council Members

Congratulations to Diane Hofstede and Cam Gordon as the newly elected Council Members representing areas around the University Of Minnesota.

Council Member Paul Zerby did not seek re-election. After legislative redistricting the ward held by Zerby was split in two.

Those west of 15^th Ave SE are in the Third Ward represented by Diane Hofstede, http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/ward3/.

Those east of 15^th Ave SE are in the Second Ward represented by Cam Gordon, http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/ward2/.

We look forward to working with Diane and Cam.

Kappa Alpha Psi Now Resides On University Ave.

Kappa Alpha Psi returned to campus in 2004. One year later they are renting a house on the 1000 block of University Ave. We are excited to have their presence in the community and will be working with them to share programs and other ideas.

Click here for a Sept 7 article in the Minnesota Daily.

Block Party in the Minnesota Daily

Click this link for an article in the Sept 6 Minnesota Daily on the “U Light Up the Night Block Party”.