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District 7 convened for an annual spring District Conference in Cleveland, OH, at the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) campus on March 28th. Conference planning began much earlier in mid September of 2025, following the selection of Ohio Alpha (OH-A) as the host chapter at the 2025 District 7 Conference in Kalamazoo, MI, earlier that year. Chapter delegates arrived the night before for an exciting evening of golf, games, and networking at Top Golf in Cleveland, an event sponsored by the Ohio’s North Coast Alumni Chapter (ONCAC).
Figure 2 (right) – Southern Ohio Tau Bates (DAYAC & OH-X delegates plus District Director Brock Stephan (SC-A ‘19)) enjoy not golfing in the golf bay at the Friday night social.
On Saturday, delegates arrived at the George S. Dively building, where Conference activities took place. They received a warm welcome from Dr. Christian Zorman, Dean of the School of Engineering at CWRU. They were also greeted by Caeden Couch (OH-A ’26), President of the Ohio Alpha chapter, as well as Dr. Shelton Caruthers (LA-G ’89), President of the Ohio’s North Coast Alumni Chapter, both of whom assisted the District 7 Directors in planning the Conference.
Figure 4 (right) – Association Vice President Colleen Hill-Stramsak (MI-E ‘00) presents a key EC priority, strategic goals, to the delegates.
Throughout the course of the day, student delegates learned about national programs like MindSET, Chapter Development, and NEST. They also created skits both educational and amusing to highlight typical events in the life of a chapter, such as initiation, officer elections, ratification ballot, candidate process, and several more. Delegates from both student and alumni chapters also got a chance to team up and compete against each other in a game of trivia that required teamwork, knowledge, and ingenuity. The best performing teams received awards from the District Directors. Association Vice President, Colleen Hill-Stramsak (MI-E ’00), was in attendance to share updates from HQ, and three of the District 7 Directors were in attendance leading various activities. In particular, the Directors ran breakout sessions focusing on several key areas of concern for successful chapter operations: officer transitions, semester planning, and chapter reporting, with the delegates divided across sessions based on the needs of the chapter that sent them. The Conference was also well represented by alumni, with delegates from Ohio’s North Coast, Ann Arbor Area, Central Michigan, and South East Michigan Alumni Chapters in attendance. Several chapter advisors also showed up, and together with the alumni delegates they graciously volunteered to chair panels on different career paths available to students after graduation.
This Conference marks the second time that District 7 ran a model initiation, which serves to instruct delegates in proper execution of the ceremony and adds to the significance of the occasion for the electees who become full members. Ohio Alpha initiated 25 of 26 new members of Tau Beta Pi that morning, with their final electee initiating a month later at Ohio Kappa.
The District 7 Directors extend their gratitude to all who made the event possible, especially the many volunteers from OH-A and ONCAC who lent a helping hand during the Conference. We also extend congratulations to the winner of the 2027 District Conference bid: Michigan Theta (MI-Q), with the Southeastern Michigan Alumni Chapter (SEMIAC) supporting. We’ll see you all next year in Rochester, MI!
Copyright 2026 by Michael Ustes & Sergei Akhmatdinov
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