Honouring the Past, Engineering the Future
Since October 2, 1964- when 32 young visionaries from the UP College of Engineering came together, burning with idealism and nationalism- the Fraternity has reached for excellence and molded leaders, in pursuit of their vision to be builders of nations, initially called the Engineering Circle, the Epsilon Chi Fraternity was officially recognized in 1969. In 1973, the Fraternity expanded to the UP Los Baños campus, with the formation of fraternity chapter and a sister sorority. Foremost among the Fraternity’s programs and projects on the campus is to facilitate freshmen engineering students’ integration into the UP way of life, develop campus leaders, promote academic excellence, and socio-political-cultural advancement. Today, the Fraternity prices itself on having alumni who have excelled in their chosen fields of endeavor.
Fifty years is testament to the Epsilon Chi Fraternity’s commitment to the brotherhood, and its ability not only to honour the past, but also to harness and use that to overcome and rise above the many challenges of today- to shape and engineer the future. One of the Fraternity’s key projects in Epsilon Chi Fraternity’s Scholarship Program, which gives financial support to the poor but academically gifted students of the UP College of Engineering. To date, 15 of the Fraternity’s scholars have graduated (one as cum laude) and are now licensed Engineers. This year, as part of the celebration of its 50th founding year, the Fraternity organized the very successful Epsilon Chi Fraternity 50th Anniversary Invitational Golf Tournament at the Eagle Ridge Golf & Country club, Cavite. Close to 150 golfers and alumni from the different fraternities in UP played in this very prestigious event for the benefit of the Epsilon Chi Fraternity’s Scholarship Program. Last year’s golf tournament was instrumental in supporting the full scholarships of five deserving UP students.
In addition, a cash incentive of Php 10,000 each was awarded to two University scholars and Php 8,000 each to the three College scholars. Three years ago, the tournament has helped fund the building of the UP College of Engineering Centennial Dorm with a generous Php 500,000.00 donation. October 2, 2014 also saw the Pledge of Commitment Ceremony for the Fraternity’s Legacy Project: the Epsilon Chi Health and Fitness Center at the Molave Residence Hall.
This project also kicked off BalikDorm, the modernization program of the UP Diliman dorms. This sport facility will have concessionary spaces and will be rented out to generate the much-needed funds for the repair and maintenance of the different dorms in Diliman. This project will help the students, not only physically but also financially for many years to come. Targeted for completion by 2 October 2015, we hope that our legacy project will be a model to encourage other UP fraternities and the many UP alumni organizations from all over the world to start similar projects and donations.