PKT25: National
As alluded to in several prior posts, there were two levels of nominal supervision over our local chapter of Phi Kappa Theta. These were the National Fraternity of Phi Kappa Theta (aka, National), and the Office of Greek Life at Case Western Reserve University. We'll talk about National this week and Greek Life next week.
The National Office of every fraternity, including that of Phi Kappa Theta, is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ours, as with most Nationals, has a small staff of paid employees supplemented by a group of active alumni. National had comparatively little day-to-day impact on chapter operations. There were a few top level rules that we had to align with, and once a school year a member of the National staff with the title of "Chapter Consultant" (or something like that) would swing by for a multiple day inspection tour. For most of my time as an undergrad the Chapter Consultant was a guy named Josh Gisi, who later served a tour in Iraq (Afghanistan?) and then was an Indianapolis police officer. In future years both Hsia and Hank from our chapter would serve as Chapter Consultants. It paid incredibly poorly and gave you the chance to sleep in some pretty filthy fraternity houses (Gisi said ours was actually pretty clean by comparison), but you did get to travel to the different chapters around the country. Phi Kappa Theta is not actually a very large fraternity, with a chapter count in the mid-30s, but this was still more than enough to keep the Chapter Consultant on the road more or less continuously during the school year.
Beyond that, National was available to help if there was a crisis. Thankfully we never had a crisis while I was there that would require them to do more than give some advice over the phone. Our fees to National helped pay for some insurance to protect us in case of said crisis. They provided some materials, like a pledge manual title the Journey that we used in our pledge program. National spent a lot of time trying to maintain chapters that were in trouble, or trying to grow the organization by adding new colonies.
On the whole, though, for all that we bitched about National they were actually pretty supportive, or at least stayed out of our way. It could be that we simply weren't one of the problem chapters and thus didn't have to deal with National because they were busy dealing with real crises that cause chapters to close outright, which happened a lot in the 1990s. This viewpoint was supported by our winning the Founders Cup at the 2001 Convention in New Orleans. This award was given for being the best chapter of Phi Kappa Theta over the prior year, and it was a highlight of my team in college to be in New Orleans to accept it.
The yearly national event was the main chance to meet with members of other chapters at an official event. We would have a convention in odd-numbered years and a leadership conference (basically, fancy leadership training) in even-numbered years. As an active, I went to the 1999 Convention in Chicago, the 2000 Leadership Conference in Cincinnati, and the 2001 Convention in New Orleans. As an alumnus I went to another Leadership Conference in D.C. in 2002, the 2003 Convention in Seattle, and lastly the 2007 Convention in Indianapolis, which was the last time I wore a tie in my life. After that I was basically burned out on fraternity activities and haven't been back since.
The 1999 Convention was notable because at that event National tried to pass rules to make all the chapters ban alcohol in their houses (e.g., go dry). The individual chapters successfully teamed up to beat back that rule. This was done first by using every trick of rules lawyering to slow and impede the proposed rules and remove alumni voters, and more importantly by offering up an education-based alternative which proved more attractive to the attendees than an outright ban. There was even a Footloose-esque appeal to the Bible from the floor of the convention (a brother from MIT quoted verses about drinking wine). The whole weekend was a lot of fun.
Beyond the National events, our main interactions with other Phi Kaps were via chapter visits. Since there are actually a fair number of chapters within an easy drive of Cleveland, we actually standardized "Pledge Trip" as part of the curriculum, and other chapters visited us occasionally. I missed the one for my pledge class, and then I missed it every subsequent semester. I seem to recall going on the one for the Spring 2001 semester when I was the Associate Member Educator, but if so I can't remember which chapter we actually visited. Other pledge trips that occurred without me during my tenure as an active included visits to the Phi Kaps at OSU, SUNY-Buffalo and Detroit-Mercy. The Detroit-Mercy and Carnegie Mellon brothers definitely visited us along the way.
I did go on the Spring 2000 Spring Break trip to play at the Phi Kappa Theta softball tournament hosted by the New Orleans chapter, but we never went to their house. Unless I did go on the Spring 2001 Pledge Trip, I've never actually been in another chapter's house in my life.
All the Phi Kaps at all the chapters past and present are our brothers. Pragmatically, just as in any sufficiently large family, there were people I really liked and people I couldn't stand. As a general rule, I found that the alumni who had been volunteering and attending conventions for years were easy to get along with, even though I was usually much younger than them. I also found that I got along really well with the brothers from other engineering schools like MIT, RPI, Carnegie Mellon, UM-Rolla and Georgia Tech, probably because they were all much the same kind of geek that we were at CWRU. Most of those brothers would have fit in at our chapter just fine. On the other hand, I generally did not get along with the Phi Kaps from the big state schools like OSU and Georgia. In my experience those guys were much more likely to be the kind of stereotypical drunken "frat boy" type that gives fraternities such a dismal reputation in the media.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling
Semesters Fall 1996
Events Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo
Other Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National
Additional Commentary Black Books
The National Office of every fraternity, including that of Phi Kappa Theta, is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ours, as with most Nationals, has a small staff of paid employees supplemented by a group of active alumni. National had comparatively little day-to-day impact on chapter operations. There were a few top level rules that we had to align with, and once a school year a member of the National staff with the title of "Chapter Consultant" (or something like that) would swing by for a multiple day inspection tour. For most of my time as an undergrad the Chapter Consultant was a guy named Josh Gisi, who later served a tour in Iraq (Afghanistan?) and then was an Indianapolis police officer. In future years both Hsia and Hank from our chapter would serve as Chapter Consultants. It paid incredibly poorly and gave you the chance to sleep in some pretty filthy fraternity houses (Gisi said ours was actually pretty clean by comparison), but you did get to travel to the different chapters around the country. Phi Kappa Theta is not actually a very large fraternity, with a chapter count in the mid-30s, but this was still more than enough to keep the Chapter Consultant on the road more or less continuously during the school year.
Beyond that, National was available to help if there was a crisis. Thankfully we never had a crisis while I was there that would require them to do more than give some advice over the phone. Our fees to National helped pay for some insurance to protect us in case of said crisis. They provided some materials, like a pledge manual title the Journey that we used in our pledge program. National spent a lot of time trying to maintain chapters that were in trouble, or trying to grow the organization by adding new colonies.
On the whole, though, for all that we bitched about National they were actually pretty supportive, or at least stayed out of our way. It could be that we simply weren't one of the problem chapters and thus didn't have to deal with National because they were busy dealing with real crises that cause chapters to close outright, which happened a lot in the 1990s. This viewpoint was supported by our winning the Founders Cup at the 2001 Convention in New Orleans. This award was given for being the best chapter of Phi Kappa Theta over the prior year, and it was a highlight of my team in college to be in New Orleans to accept it.
The yearly national event was the main chance to meet with members of other chapters at an official event. We would have a convention in odd-numbered years and a leadership conference (basically, fancy leadership training) in even-numbered years. As an active, I went to the 1999 Convention in Chicago, the 2000 Leadership Conference in Cincinnati, and the 2001 Convention in New Orleans. As an alumnus I went to another Leadership Conference in D.C. in 2002, the 2003 Convention in Seattle, and lastly the 2007 Convention in Indianapolis, which was the last time I wore a tie in my life. After that I was basically burned out on fraternity activities and haven't been back since.
The 1999 Convention was notable because at that event National tried to pass rules to make all the chapters ban alcohol in their houses (e.g., go dry). The individual chapters successfully teamed up to beat back that rule. This was done first by using every trick of rules lawyering to slow and impede the proposed rules and remove alumni voters, and more importantly by offering up an education-based alternative which proved more attractive to the attendees than an outright ban. There was even a Footloose-esque appeal to the Bible from the floor of the convention (a brother from MIT quoted verses about drinking wine). The whole weekend was a lot of fun.
Beyond the National events, our main interactions with other Phi Kaps were via chapter visits. Since there are actually a fair number of chapters within an easy drive of Cleveland, we actually standardized "Pledge Trip" as part of the curriculum, and other chapters visited us occasionally. I missed the one for my pledge class, and then I missed it every subsequent semester. I seem to recall going on the one for the Spring 2001 semester when I was the Associate Member Educator, but if so I can't remember which chapter we actually visited. Other pledge trips that occurred without me during my tenure as an active included visits to the Phi Kaps at OSU, SUNY-Buffalo and Detroit-Mercy. The Detroit-Mercy and Carnegie Mellon brothers definitely visited us along the way.
I did go on the Spring 2000 Spring Break trip to play at the Phi Kappa Theta softball tournament hosted by the New Orleans chapter, but we never went to their house. Unless I did go on the Spring 2001 Pledge Trip, I've never actually been in another chapter's house in my life.
All the Phi Kaps at all the chapters past and present are our brothers. Pragmatically, just as in any sufficiently large family, there were people I really liked and people I couldn't stand. As a general rule, I found that the alumni who had been volunteering and attending conventions for years were easy to get along with, even though I was usually much younger than them. I also found that I got along really well with the brothers from other engineering schools like MIT, RPI, Carnegie Mellon, UM-Rolla and Georgia Tech, probably because they were all much the same kind of geek that we were at CWRU. Most of those brothers would have fit in at our chapter just fine. On the other hand, I generally did not get along with the Phi Kaps from the big state schools like OSU and Georgia. In my experience those guys were much more likely to be the kind of stereotypical drunken "frat boy" type that gives fraternities such a dismal reputation in the media.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling
Semesters Fall 1996
Events Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo
Other Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National
Additional Commentary Black Books