URochester’s Sigma Phi Epsilon (SigEp) chapter hosted their 16th annual Spelling Bee April 11. The event was hosted in Sloan Auditorium, for students from grades three to six, from various schools in the 19th ward, with Dr. Charles T. Lunsford School No.19 sending the most competitors. There was one winner from each grade and each was awarded $500 towards their future college tuition upon admission.
According to their website, on Saturday mornings leading up to the spelling bee, frat brothers helped tutor young students at the 19th ward’s Arnett Library, a branch of the Rochester Public Library system.
Junior and SigEp’s vice president of programming, Owen Masters, was at the library every week. He talked about the mindset he used when tutoring kids in spelling. “It’s like teaching them intuition, to think about how a word is spelled — how can I guess at how a word is spelled? What can I apply from words I [do] know to take a good educated guess on how to spell this word?”
All SigEp brothers were required to go to at least one tutoring session. “It gives them a good opportunity for [brothers] to explore philanthropy, which is really what SigEp is about to us,” Sophomore and President of the fraternity Jaden Kolenski said in the interview.
In a 2022 local study from the Rochester City School District, it was found that only 8% of students from kindergarten to eighth grade read at their grade level. Reading proficiency was considerably lower among historically underserved and low-income students, making tutoring from the brothers especially helpful.
Masters also mentioned how a main drive of hosting the Spelling Bee was encouraging education among younger students. “It’s definitely a good opportunity for them to get outside of school,” he recalled, “and have younger guys like us who … show them that learning isn’t always something that’s boring … but more so something that they want to do and want to pursue.”
During the event at Sloan Auditorium, brothers are assigned to different roles, one of which is being a campus tour guide for competitors before the spelling bee starts. Other brothers, including Masters, were judges for the competition, and were responsible for introducing each word.
Giving back to the community is a goal that SigEp deeply cares about; philanthropy was one of the major reasons why Kolenski joined the fraternity. While the administration of the event was stressful, it was rewarding for the brothers to see everything come together. Kolenski and Masters wanted to commend Doug and Charlotte Giebel, chairs of the 19th Ward Spelling Bee and active members of the 19th Ward Community Association.
“I want to shout out Doug and Charlotte, just for how passionate they are,” Kolenski said. “I think that passion kind of wears off … it wore off on me. They’re just very enthusiastic and caring about what they’re doing, and, you know, that kind of rubs off on you, too.”
The SigEp spelling bee also landed on the 40th Anniversary Celebration for URochester’s SigEp chapter. At the event, alumni and current brothers of the fraternity meet and take part in networking and community-based activities.
President Kolanski recalled that “a lot of the brothers, immediately from the spelling bee, came over and ran around a mile and a half, ate a garbage plate, and then ran another mile and a half.”.
Reflecting on his main takeaway from the Spelling Bee, Masters said, “I think that I am always happy to make an impact through SigEp in the ways that I know how to. And coming out of the event, I’m happy to have helped, and I’m happy to have had the opportunity [to make] sure that the kids, you know, stay ambitious.” In fact, preparing students at Arnett Library for the spelling bee influenced Masters to return to tutoring after taking a break post–high school. “I fell in love with it all over again, and I ended up stepping up to take a role that really allowed me to express that.”
As president this year, Kolanski aimed to help the next president preserve this memorable SigEp tradition, and as a Rochester-native, the community is close to home for him. “I think that our future starts from the ground up, which is the kids in these grade levels that we’re helping out.” Kolanski said. “I think it’s less about, you know, being able to spell words and more about making sure that they care about their education and their future.”
