The Pillar and the Shield

Brothers,

As you might imagine, this term has proven to be unique and challenging for all Dartmouth students, including the current undergraduate brothers of Tri-Kap living on and off campus. We started our winter term 2 weeks later due to the college’s travel restrictions and are currently in our second week of full lockdown due to the recent outbreak but are hopeful it will be lifted this coming Monday.

Given the college’s revolving system for allocating the opportunity to be on campus, the 21s make up the bulk of the brotherhood on campus aside from a few 22s who also happen to be on as well.

The house has had to abide by the college’s stringent COVID rules and have not been able to host any in person events for guests or the brotherhood. Despite the challenging circumstances, we have tried our best to continue our traditions while modifying them to abide by the college’s policies. We have been able to ensure that meetings continue to take place in some way shape or form every week keeping both on and off campus brothers involved with the house.

When possible under the college’s COVID rules, brothers have organised trips to the Dartmouth ski way multiple times per week.

Despite all of the challenges, I am very proud to say that our house has fared exceptionally well compared to other Greek houses on campus, not having a single positive case of COVID in our brotherhood for the entire term.

Rush was held the first week back on campus and Tri-Kap extended bids to 6 new members. We are happy to welcome to the brotherhood:

Harold Than, Teddy Press, Diego Perez, Jacob Parker, Sudharsan Balsubramani and Jack Nicastro

We also recently elected the next year’s exec board.

President: Max Pumilia

Vice President: David Yin

Treasurer: Dhaivat Mehta

Social Chairs : David Kantor, Cas Cosme and Max Weintraub

Risk Manager: Jacob Parker

House Manager: Daniel Ha and Jack Nicastro

Programming Chairs: Daniel DiPietro and Aditya Choudhari

Academic Chair: Kyle Immel

Jock Chair: Jason McFadden

Philanthropy Chair: Harold Than

I am proud to say, the 23s class has upheld the house tradition of jumping headfirst into getting with involved with house leadership with two 23s being elected to the exec board (Harold Than, Jacob Parker and Jack Nicastro)

Finally, in hope of giving a little more personal context to what being on campus during these unprecedented times, Teddy Press ’23 decided to share what a “week in the life” as a Dartmouth student and new member is like.

My name is Teddy Press, and I am a ‘23 and a new member here at Trikap! I am from North Caldwell, New Jersey, about 30 minutes west of New York City; if you’re familiar with the television series, The Sopranos, they filmed many scenes in my town since David Chase went to my high school. I am a chemistry major. I’m active in many groups on campus in addition to Trikap: I play french horn in the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble, I sing tenor for the Brovertones acappella group, I conduct chemistry research on campus, I write for the Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, and I am on the editorial board for the Stonefence Review literary magazine. Although I am new to Trikap, I was just elected Rush Chair for the upcoming year and I hope to bring in another great group of guys through future rush classes. With these photos, I hope to show what it’s like for me as a new member of Trikap and a member of the Dartmouth community!

One of the reasons I came to Dartmouth was ease of access to great skiing (Ski the East!). Over the term, I have gone skiing a bunch of times and took advantage of skiing as an opportunity to hang out with fellow Trikaps. Pictured here are me (on the right) and David ‘21.

I conduct research with Professor Dean Wilcox, chair of the chemistry department, in the field of Physical Bioinorganic Chemistry. In other words, we study how proteins bind to metals. Here I am pictured with an Isothermal Titration Calorimetry machine (basically a fancy thermometer). My current research involves studying a protein (SOD-1) that binds to zinc and copper; mutations in this protein are linked to familial protein aggregation diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and ALS. We hope to elucidate data about how changes in protein formation affect net protein charge and function and its link to these diseases.

Near the end of the term, we did a house clean; pictured here are me and Casimiro Cosme ‘22 headed out for a lunch break!

COVID has posed challenges for many, but I have been so grateful to be on campus this term. I am an amateur photographer and have been featured on the Dartmouth Instagram a few times for my campus photography. Pictured here is the full moon above Dartmouth Hall!