Rocco DeLorenzo

About Rocco DeLorenzo

Rocco DeLorenzo is a recent graduate of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. During his time as an undergraduate, he successfully completed a dual major: Food Science with a concentration in business and Applied Economics and Management with a concentration in strategy and food industry management.

Rocco’s interests within the food industry lie between a “business first” ideology fit within a specific concentration: the science behind foods and the industry that supports it.

Involved in Student Activities at Cornell University

While at Cornell, Rocco engaged in a variety of student organizations and experiences to enrich his undergraduate experience. However, after participating in the fraternity’s formal recruitment process in the Spring 2021 semester, Rocco became a member of Chi Psi Fraternity at Cornell. Shortly after joining, Rocco knew he found his “home away from home” in Chi Psi, and immediately felt a calling to give back to the organization by embracing leadership roles within it. 

Correspondingly, Rocco was elected to the position of Risk Manager and Academic Chair in Chi Psi, where he would serve in both roles throughout his sophomore and junior years. Although small in scope, Rocco felt these leadership experiences were particularly impactful since they provided him with a sense of purpose and laid the foundation for the more prominent leadership roles he would pursue in the Cornell community.

Midway through his sophomore year, Rocco was elected to serve as the VP of Membership and Alumni Development on the Cornell Interfraternity Council (IFC) Executive Board. Since the Cornell IFC is the established governing body of 28 different fraternity organizations at Cornell, amounting to around 1,500 individual members, the expanded scope of the role allowed Rocco to positively impact his community at a wide-reaching scale. Over the next year in his role, Rocco developed a new, more comprehensive Hazing Prevention Training program, which he would present to over 50 designated new member educators from the fraternity chapters in the IFC community. Succeeding this, with the intent of promoting camaraderie between fraternity chapters, Rocco organized and hosted a Spikeball Tournament for the entire IFC community to participate in. 

After learning about an accidental drug overdose of an IFC community member while attending a social event, Rocco immediately took action to address the issue by leveraging his platform to enact preventative measures across the community. Within one week of the incident, Rocco identified and established a community partner to provide Narcan Training, including the free distribution of Naloxone, to all Cornell IFC chapters. At the time, since Cornell University did not offer Narcan Training or Naloxone distribution to students, this initiative directly led to a safer IFC community, as well as left a lasting impact on Cornell University, which began offering training and Naloxone distribution in the following year due to the success of the IFC initiative.

In his junior year, Rocco continued making a positive impact while in his VP position on the IFC Executive Board by coordinating and operating the first annual Cornell IFC Charity Flag Football Tournament, resulting in over 200 individuals participating and raising over $2,000 for a local charity in Ithaca. The positive contributions Rocco made to the Cornell IFC community while serving on the IFC executive board were becoming evermore visible, and he remained optimistic regarding the long-term outlook of fraternities at Cornell. 

However, in early November 2022, following multiple reports of sexual assault and related misconduct, which were alleged to have originated from two different Cornell IFC fraternity chapters, it became apparent to Rocco that the IFC community had serious issues that needed to be addressed, and that a cultural shift was necessary to make the IFC community safer for all.

Within hours of the report notification, Rocco, along with the rest of the IFC executive board, chose to hold an emergency meeting, resulting in their voluntary decision to place a temporary pause on all IFC community social events for at least the rest of the semester. Additionally, Rocco and the IFC executive board agreed that the pause on social events would only be lifted after a formalized plan of increasing safety measures could be created and implemented across the community.

From that day forward, and until the last day of the semester, Rocco and other IFC executive board oftentimes met multiple times a day as they ceaselessly worked to develop a series of effective initiatives to be included in their Sexual Violence Prevention plan. During the development of the initiatives, Rocco worked collaboratively with various community stakeholders, such as staff members at Cornell Health and the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County, to receive feedback on initiatives, work to refine the specific attributes of the plan, and generate increased support before implementation.

Although his term on the IFC executive board was set to end at the conclusion of the Fall semester, Rocco remained dedicated to continuing the development of the Sexual Violence Prevention plan and was determined to see its implementation in the IFC community. As an outspoken advocate of previous Sexual Violence Prevention efforts and a desire to positively impact the Cornell community with these tangible measures, Rocco decided to re-run for a position on the IFC executive board in the upcoming term. In early December, at the annual IFC Executive Board elections, Rocco was unanimously elected to serve as President of the Cornell IFC for the upcoming year. As the only returning IFC executive board member in the upcoming term and with new responsibilities of representing the IFC community, Rocco took a sense of ownership over the plan and was determined to ensure it was implemented successfully and in a timely manner.

After completing the semester and returning home, Rocco promptly resumed work on refining the series of initiatives included in the Sexual Violence Prevention plan by continuing to meet frequently with community stakeholders. 

As the lineup of planned initiatives neared its completion, and despite the hundreds of hours Rocco had dedicated to the plan, he was still concerned about garnering support from the IFC community to fully integrate the initiatives, as well as the border perception from the Cornell community. To mitigate these possibilities, Rocco believed that framing the overall plan would be essential to generating support. After rearranging the list of planned initiatives and noting the methods used within each, the framing became clear to him. Rocco, who was partially inspired by the research findings and theories of Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan discussed in the book Sexual Citizens: a Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, decided that the planned interventions of the Sexual Violence Prevention plan logically fit into three distinct pillars: Environmental, Empowerment, and Educational. 

Rocco, who returned to campus early in preparation for IFC Spring Formal Recruitment, was also concurrently monitoring the final stages of approval for the Sexual Violence Prevention plan, where he learned of its approval soon after and a planned launch date of February 1st, with social events returning as early as February 3rd. Throughout recruitment week, Rocco continued working to cultivate support for the upcoming changes with IFC community members, as well as meeting individually with nearly all the 28 chapter presidents so he could alleviate their concerns.

When the date of the public announcement arrived and the specific details of the Environmental, Empowerment, and Educational Interventions were provided, Rocco was relieved by the broadly positive reaction from both the IFC community and the wider Cornell community at large. Over the next few weeks, Rocco visited various social events to observe the initiatives in action and was pleased to see chapters continued to adhere to the new changes. 

The genuine care and dedication shown by Rocco as he spearheaded the Sexual Violence Prevention plan in the IFC community represents yet another instance of his positive influence in the Cornell community. The tenacity demonstrated by Rocco and the fraternity chapter’s commitment to accountability served as the foundation for enacting a culture shift among fraternities at Cornell. The efforts of Rocco and the rest of the IFC community to create a safer environment did not go unnoticed, and in January 2024, the Cornell University Interfraternity Council was recognized with the National 2023 Outstanding Peer Governance Award from the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC).