Hopkins welcomes new fraternity
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Sophomore Justin Eric Shen began working toward "colonizing" this fraternity when he was a freshman, after seeing an advertisement for a fraternity looking to expand to Hopkins. The introduction of a new fraternity or sorority must be student-initiated, and so Shen took charge of the initiative.
"Justin researched and started talking to others about the idea. Student Activities will support that. We won't invite an organization on campus to recruit," Coordinator of Greek Life Rob Turning said.
Phi Delta Theta (PDT) is currently a recognized student organization and began recruitment in early December of last year. There are currently 31 founding fathers, but the group hopes that they can reach their recruitment goal of 40 to 50 members by the end of the spring semester. There are several prospective members that may be offered bids, and after formal recruitment, the number of members should increase.
A meeting on Monday enabled the fraternity, now with the support of the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC), to move toward becoming a chapter.
It will become a colony once it receives its charter from the headquarters. PDT does not plan to take a pledge class until they charter.
Seven PDT alumni, including Rob Turning, the director of Greek Life at Hopkins, and Dustin Struble, the national director of Expansion, were present at Monday night's meeting.
PDT, founded in 1848 at Miami University, is one of the oldest fraternities in the nation. This will be the first time a chapter has ever been established at Hopkins.
"PDT seeks not just to be a service and networking frat or a business frat. It wants to excel in all areas," Ming Wen, a sophomore member in charge of PDT's public relations, said.
"We want to increase the focus on community service and networking. We want to complement the other fraternities and work with them," Shen said.
Shen explained that he hopes that PDT will be unlike other fraternities on campus.
"We want to attract other students who might not otherwise join Greek life. Some people think it will ruin their GPA or that they will be forced to do things they don't want to do. There are great guys in every frat. We want to break the stereotype of frats. The only way to understand Greek life is to be a part of it," Shen said.
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Jack Stone
posted 1/30/09 @ 10:15 PM EST
I don't understand why another fraternity is needed on campus, don't the already existing fraternities have a hard enough time recruiting and sustaining themselves? What says that adding another fraternity to Greek Life here at Hopkins would help that problem, it would compound it. (Continued…)
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