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History

Getting the Omicron chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon to the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus was a long four-year process of many planning meetings, fundraising, and social activities including BBQs and games nights. Here is the story of those three years.

During the fall semester 2001 Melissa Wiese was approached by a high school friend from the North Carolina State University chapter about bringing a chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon to the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus. During the course of the semester Melissa contacted different people involved in student organizations for the engineering campus and the university as a whole. By the end of the semester three other girls were interested in bringing the Sorority to campus.

Spring semester 2002 a group of four girls started having meetings to brainstorm marketing ideas to get more girls interested and start filling out the petition. They worked with Sharon Homolka from the international Alpha Omega Epsilon office in the application process. The university recognized them as a student organization Omega Xi that semester. The girls were unsuccessful in recruiting more than four girls and at the end of that semester a group of the girls went down to the Delta chapter to keep and build upon the motivation to see a chapter on the UW campus.

Much of the motivation was lost over the 3 months of summer vacation. Melissa was on co-op during the fall semester, and the organization was left with three girls on campus. Plans were made to market at SOAR and get more interest the fall semester. Motivation was lost over the summer, and the original four girls never regrouped during the 2002-2003 school year. That year good communication was not established between the three remaining interested girls and the organization was all but dropped during that spring semester. The student organization forms were not renewed and the group took a year off.

Fall Semester 2003 came around and Sharon contacted both Melissa and Becca, the two remaining from the original four, to inquire if they were still interested in bringing a chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon to the UW-Madison campus. They were still interested and early September met with Sharon and Sarah from the national A.O.E. office to get the process started and brainstormed marketing techniques and fundraising ideas. A couple deadlines were set, one was to apply for colony status by the end of the fall 2003 semester and be well on the way to chapter status by spring 2004 semester as Becca graduated in May 2004. Melissa and Becca contacted the one other girl from two years prior that to their knowledge was still interested in the organization but learned she had left the university. This left them with the task of finding new girls interested in an engineering sorority.

The first couple months of the semester, Melissa and Becca advertised their intent to bring an Engineering Sorority to the campus by talking to the freshmen EPD classes. This generated interest from 10 girls. They also obtain the list of freshmen and sent out e-mails asking if any of those girls would be interested. There were two larger event planned, an ice cream meet and greet and a pool night. The ice cream event generated interest from three girls and the pool night was not as successful with only one girl showing up. Through out this time an e-mail account had been set-up for the organization that showed interest from about 10 girls. A third meeting was held which was just an informational meeting with Sarah from nationals present to answer general questions. Eight girls were in attendance at that meeting and at this point it was collectively decided that the application was to be started and a meeting was planned for the next week to start the application process.

Our Official Founding Members: Kristen Blom, Annie Lewandoski, Kelly Giese, Anita Gilgenbach, Nicole Hilgendorf, Kari Jordan, Rebecca Vanderpool, Melissa Wiese, Nicole Zabel

Contact Info:
Alpha Omega Epsilon
1550 Engineering Drive
Madison, WI 53706

Email: uw.alpha.omega.epsilon@hotmail.com