One of the most frequent requests from undergraduates when they speak to alumni is for assistance with career planning, internships, mentorships, and job placement. They also want advice from alumni regarding graduate school and/or post graduate degrees. Mu Chapter’s Educational Foundation has established a series of programs for our undergraduates and alumni to take advantage of.
Annual New York City Career Event
The brothers of Mu Chapter are proud to report on the success of the 19th annual Sigma Pi Career Weekend. Beginning on November 6, the weekend kicked off with a welcome dinner at the Cornell Club, courtesy of Wayne Forman ’80 and the Educational Foundation. The dinner hosted 40 combined undergraduate brothers and alumni, as well as Sigma Pi alumni speaker Nick Ornitz ‘16. Nick spoke about how his experience at Sigma Pi impacted his time at Cornell and his career journey: starting as a Chemical Engineering major, working at McKinsey, dropping out of Harvard Business School, and eventually starting his own company, Topline Pro.
Throughout the night, the undergraduate brothers were fortunate to learn more about various industries, form meaningful connections, and garner meaningful professional advice in Cornell Club’s A.D. White Room.
After a tremendous night of networking, storytelling, and introductions, the undergraduate brothers spent Friday visiting the firms of our generous alumni. Some of this year’s visits included JP Morgan, First New York , Taconic Real Estate Partners, Take2 Interactive, Lazard, Topline Pro, and EY Parthenon. Undergraduates were able to get tours of the offices, talk with alumni about how they got to their roles and what their job entails, attend panels, participate in networking sessions, and learn valuable information to help them advance their careers.
We would like to thank our loyal alumni for their unparalleled generosity and commitment to the professional development of the undergraduate brothers, and we look forward to the continued success of Sigma Pi Career Weekends.
Sigma Pi Educational Foundation Internship
As part of the Educational Foundation’s mission to provide Sigma Pi brothers with opportunities that enhance their undergraduate experience, the board approved the creation of a paid internship. The Educational Foundation intern is a liaison between alumni, undergraduate brothers, and the Ithaca Community, overseeing communications, promotions, and coordination of Educational Foundation programs, such as alumni mentorship, the speaker series, and career weekend. The intern works closely with the Foundation Board members.
This year’s Education Foundation Intern, Teddy Ginstling ’28 is a sophomore in the School of Hotel Administration and is pursuing a minor in Real Estate. In addition to his role with the Foundation, Teddy is one of the current Social Chairs. Outside of the house, Teddy is interested in hospitality and revenue management.
Sponsoring Students for Select Industry and Business Conferences
From time to time, the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation has also provided funding for students to attend industry and business conferences, such as the DealBook Conference.
The Richard Cahoon Tech Center – Alumni Distinguished Speaker Series
The Tech Center, funded by a generous gift from Richard “Dick” Cahoon ’77 to the Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Educational Foundation, is a built-in video-conferencing system that enhances and facilitates interactions between undergraduates and alumni. The center plays a pivotal role in Sigma Pi’s focus on career and mentoring. The Tech Center provides a space for video calls between alumni and groups of undergraduates, promoting dialogue and assistance for students with career planning, internships, mentorships, and job placement. The undergraduates also want advice from alumni regarding graduate school and/or post graduate degrees. Many of our alumni are scattered across the country and around the world. The Tech Center bridges those distances for our students and alumni.
The Alumni Distinguished Speaker series has included over 20 alumni, speaking over the last couple of years about their career experiences. The speakers provide deep and personal insights from a wide range of classes and functional experiences, ranging from finance and music and concert promotion to business start-up. Select speakers include Andrew Ross Sorkin ’98 (New York Times), John Zimmer ’06 (Lyft), Zach Crane, ’10 (Moore Capital Management), Grant LaFontaine ’10 (YouTube), Quin Garcia ’06 (AutoTech Ventures), Ben Dreier ’15 (Boosted Boards), and most recently, Cornell’s Director of Athletics, Nicki Moore.
Entrepreneurship Conferences Sponsored by Sigma Pi Educational Foundation
The Mu Chapter of Sigma Pi Educational Foundation has sponsored three conferences on entrepreneurship for undergraduate brothers. The most recent conference, the Mu Chapter Technology, Social Media, and Career Conference, was held in 2018, in Ithaca. In conjunction with the Entrepreneurship at Cornell Celebration, the Sigma Pi conference focused on social media and entrepreneurship. The last conference, held in 2016, featured six speakers and was extremely well received by the undergraduate brotherhood. The event was attended by over 50 undergraduate brothers and alumni. The keynote speaker was Felix Litvinsky, managing director of Blackstone LaunchPad at Cornell University. Blackstone LaunchPad is an experiential campus-based program designed to introduce entrepreneurship as a viable career path and to develop entrepreneurial skills and mindset through individualized coaching, ideation, and venture creation support.
In addition, Zachary Schulman ’87, the director of Entrepreneurship at Cornell (E@C), spoke about the Cornell entrepreneurship program that was created in 1992 to promote entrepreneurship education, experiential learning opportunities, programmatic activities, and events for the Cornell community. Sigma Pi alumni speakers included Quin Garcia ’05, managing director of AutoTech Ventures, a venture fund investing in ground transport startups focused on connected, autonomous, energy efficient cars, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, and services; Randy Ottinger ’80, founder of Leader-2-Leader, a firm that helps founders, CEOs, and senior leaders build great companies with the strategies, cultures, and networks to accelerate growth, innovation, and financial value; Ali Hamed ’14, co-founder, CoVenture; and Dan Smalls ’92, founder of Dan Smalls Presents, a talent-buyer, concert-promotion, and event-production company based in Ithaca, New York. Tom Silver ’81, past president of the Mu Chapter Educational Foundation, discussed the ways undergraduates could partner with the foundation on entrepreneurship endeavors. Brody Ehrlich ’10 and Brian Lederman ’10 spoke about a new initiative to help secure funding for undergraduates’ entrepreneurial and business projects. If you’re an entrepreneur and would like to be involved in further promoting entrepreneurship with the undergraduates as a speaker or as a mentor to an undergraduate, please reach out to Rob Novo at robn1979@gmail.com