Shawn Collins pledged a fraternity in fall 1988 and kept a diary of his experiences.
It was summer 1991, and the lease on my Knox Box apartment was up. I hadn’t renewed it because I was moving into the fraternity house for the next year. So, I crashed at the frat with a few other guys until Hell Week was set to start and we would settle into our rooms….
You never know when some random moment is going to turn into a thing you talk about for the rest of your life. For Pat and me, it was when we watched the 1981 slasher flick, My Bloody Valentine. We were new brothers in Pi Kappa Alpha at the University of Maryland, and there was…
I was a freshman in fall 1988 at the University of Maryland at College Park, and I pledged Pi Kappa Alpha that semester. My pledge class had to dedicate a lot of time from Monday, October 10, through Saturday, October 15, 1988, setting up and cleaning after parties, participating in Homecoming activities, and holding seats…
I was overwhelmed when I became a Pi Kappa Alpha pledge at the University of Maryland in September 1988. Just a few months removed from high school, I was suddenly operating in an adult world. One of the many decisions I had to make early on was choosing a Big Brother in the fraternity. I…
It was the fall 1988 Christmas/Graduation party at the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter at the University of Maryland, where I first saw a fraternity rag sheet. As brothers and their dates mingled and downed drinks, a pile of photocopied, stapled pages appeared. The front page read, “The Four Pi’s,” and everyone raced over to read the…
My experience at the University of Maryland was akin to one of Winston Churchill’s speeches. Specifically a radio address he gave in October 1939 about World War II when he said, “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…” You see, I spent a lot of my five years as an undergrad drinking…
Hank was my big brother in Pi Kappa Alpha, and we hung out a lot in college and sometimes got into mischief. This one night in August 1990 was one of those times. It was the day that two new roommates were moving in with my friend John and me to our Knox Box. There…
On a sunny fall morning in 1991, sirens jolted me awake. I nearly fell out of my loft bed in room 7 of the University of Maryland’s Pi Kappa Alpha house, scrambling wildly to see what the chaos was about. The scene outside didn’t look good. Someone was on the ground in front of a…
It was the night of Friday, October 30, 1992, and we didn’t have a party going on at the fraternity that night. So, I got a handful of brothers and the pledge class and headed to the Cellar, a beer bar at the University of Maryland that was the easiest to get into for underage…
One of the things that attracted me to Greek life was the opportunity to take on leadership roles. From the start, I was excited to be more than just a brother. I wanted to help, give back, build, learn, and support the brotherhood’s success. While I was initiated in early 1989, my drive to be…