Delta Tau Delta’s Rho Chapter Celebrates 2023 Wall of Achievement Inductees

Reaching across a century, the fraternity will recognize Richard “Rick” Roscitt ’73, who has been a member of the university’s Board of Trustees since 1998 and who most recently served as the Board’s vice chair, and Samuel Prescott “S.P.” Bush, class of 1884, patriarch of the Bush political family and a delegate to the convention that created the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

After completing his B.E. in mechanical engineering (heat and power) at Stevens, Roscitt went on to earn an MBA in corporate governance from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. When his first employer, Bell System, was broken up in 1983, Roscitt joined AT&T. By 1994, Roscitt became president and CEO of AT&T Solutions. Under his leadership, AT&T Solutions achieved worldwide recognition as the global leader in providing network consulting, integration, and outsourcing services.

Roscitt was named chairman and chief executive officer of ADC Telecommunications in 2001. He spearheaded the company’s transformation, developing new strategies surrounding key product and service offerings, which played an integral role in the worldwide expansion of broadband services. A few years later, he successfully led MCI Corporation out of bankruptcy and corporate governance crisis. Roscitt has also served as a board director of Force 10 Networks, chairman and chief executive officer of SMobile Systems, and director and board member of ICT Group. He is currently a partner at Sapien Software, LLC, a director and board member with Leap Wireless, and chairman and chief executive officer for Delphi Consulting Group, LLC.

Richard R. Roscitt

Roscitt’s industry involvement also includes serving on the board of directors of the Telecommunications Industry Association, as a member of the Associates Committee of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, and as a CEO member of The Technology Network.

Roscitt has been as dedicated to Stevens as he has to his career in telecommunications. Since 1998, he has been a member of the Stevens Board of Trustees. He was an active member of the Washington, D.C. Regional Alumni Club and serves on the Stevens Alumni Association (SAA) Nominations Committee. In 2018-20 Roscitt was a member of the SAA Constitution Rewrite Committee. He believes that his volunteer service is part of giving back to an institution that helped make his life most successful. In addition, Roscitt has contributed to every Stevens fundraising campaign over the last 25 years. Roscitt is passionate about supporting the School of Business, for which he endowed the Richard R. Roscitt Chair in Leadership in 2017. He has also provided financial support for the Stevens Accessing Careers in Engineering and Science (ACES) initiative and is a primary sponsor of the induction of Hudson Catholic High School in Jersey City as an ACES partner school, in an effort to provide opportunities for inner city students to acquire a STEM education.

Nearly 100 years before Roscitt set foot onto campus, Samuel Prescott “S.P.” Bush became a proud Stevens alumnus. Born into a minister’s family in Orange, New Jersey, Bush was a very active student, pledging to the Rho chapter of Delta Tau Delta and playing football and tennis.

Bush found great success in business and industry. As CEO of Buckeye Steel and Castings Company in Columbus, Ohio, Bush was an early practitioner of classmate Frederick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management principles. In addition to his involvement in forming U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bush was the first president of the Ohio Manufacturers Association and served on the Board of Governors of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank. In 1947, Stevens presented him with an honorary degree.

Samuel Prescott “S.P.” Bush

Bush began a branch of his family tree that includes his son, Senator Prescott Bush, his grandson President George Herbert Walker Bush, and great-grandson President George W. Bush. His great-great-grandson, Pierce Bush, will represent the family at the induction ceremony. Pierce Bush is continuing the family’s legacy of leadership and service as CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star, the charitable organization’s biggest chapter.

The Rho Delt Wall of Achievement is a new tradition at Stevens, sparked by a research project to better understand the fraternity’s past. In 2015, Rho chapter alumni John Dalton ’60, Bruce Boylan ’63, and Gerry Crispin ’69 MMS ’72 set out to investigate an urban legend: that the original Rho chapter Delt house at Stevens was the first structure in the country to be built solely and exclusively for use as a fraternity.

They pored over the 1905 Morton memorial, an early history of the university, and old issues of The Stevens Indicator and The Stute. They also reviewed rosters obtained by the fraternity’s national office. And while they determined that the Delt house at Stevens was not the first structure in the country built solely for use as a fraternity, they confirmed that it was the first such structure at Castle Point. During the process, however, they were struck – and inspired – by the many distinguished accomplishments of Rho chapter members.

With a team that included Dawn da Silva, associate vice president for development, Linda Beninghove, director of the Samuel C. Williams Library, and Leah Loscutoff, head of archives and special collections, they launched the Rho Delt Wall of Achievement in 2019. Among the criteria for selection: an achievement that has had a major sustained impact on society; advances in technologies that led to new innovations; breakthroughs in a particular field of study; thought leadership; and meaningful involvement with Stevens.

The initial honoree was artist Alexander “Sandy” Calder, class of 1919. The ceremony was held in the Great Hall of the Samuel C. Williams Library, built on the site of the original Delt house, with Calder’s mobile overhead. The 2020 and 2021 inductees, recognized at a post-pandemic ceremony in 2022, were John C. Lieb, class of 1880, and Alexander Crombie Humphreys, class of 1881.

Dalton sees the Wall of Achievement as a logical addition to the fraternity’s many other initiatives, such as raising scholarship funds for chapter members. “It is exciting to recognize what our brothers have achieved, but we are also doing this with incoming students and prospective fraternity pledges in mind,” he says. “We want to show them how Stevens is such a good choice. We are honoring the past by letting current students know of their predecessors’ achievements.”

In a 1947 letter to Stevens President Jess H. Davis, S.P. Bush pays tribute to the Stevens community and to his fellow engineers:

“The general objective of the engineer and scientist is not the selfish acquisition of wealth or personal advantage, although in all cases he is entitled to a fair reward for his services. The status of the engineer in earlier years, somewhat less than that of other professions, has grown up to the front rank of all professions as a result of its contributions to the material welfare of mankind.”

With each new Rho Delt Wall of Achievement induction, Stevens alumni will continue to be recognized for their deep and lasting connections to their alma mater, for their commitment to their disciplines, and for their generous contributions to the community.