Shawn Collins pledged a fraternity in fall 1988 and kept a diary of his experiences.
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…
It was early 1989 when my PiKA brother, Rich Dickson, mentioned at one of our chapter meetings that the fraternity would be running a large-scale, multi-day sale of ACA JOE clothing to benefit Family Stress Services in Washington, D.C. Dickson’s mother ran the retailer, ACA JOE, at the time, and Rich organized ACAmania with some…
I was at the University of Maryland for five years and one summer session, but I only went to four away weekends while I was there. During my final semester, in 1993, the fraternity’s finances were a bit unstable, and we didn’t have one. We went to Williamsburg, VA, for two or maybe three of…
The first time I can remember waiting out for tickets was probably early 1987 for the Genesis “Invisible Touch” tour that came through Maryland in May 1987. I was jammed in my friend Matt’s VW bus with a handful of Pi Kappa Alpha brothers. Matt and I were still in high school. It was freezing…
I graduated from the University of Maryland on May 20, 1993, and for the last two years of college, I lived in the Pi Kappa Alpha house at 4340 Knox Road. The house was far from perfect, but it was home, and I was sad to move out and on to the real world. And…
Springtime in college meant fraternities pairing up with sororities for Greek Week, an annual, week-long tradition filled with parties, philanthropy, and various competitions. In spring 1991, at the University of Maryland, Pi Kappa Alpha (ΠKA) asked Kappa Alpha Theta (KAΘ) to partner, and then my pledge brother Joe Incaprera and I ran as co-Greek Week…
I don’t think I had a camera in college. If I did, it was rarely used, because I didn’t have the money to get film processed. So, most of the pictures I have from those five years are the fraternity and sorority event photos. I have a whole photo album of these types of pictures,…