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 graduated from the University of Maryland in May 1993 with a BA in Communications. My job prospects were pretty limited, since I didn’t have a car and was living at my Dad’s house in the suburbs. I needed a job I could walk or bike to, and the first one that said yes 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 in college for 10 semesters and a summer session, but I only managed to go on a Spring Break trip for my very last year (I spent my first Spring Break doing community service). As soon as classes ended, six or seven of us piled into “Big Joe’s” station wagon to head on…
When I was a teenager, I would watch the Woodstock documentary whenever it was on PBS. Those days seemed so passionate and politically charged, and I wished I were around for it. As Country Joe and the Fish came on stage to sing the “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag,” the lyrics would take me back to those protests…
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…
I published four issues of a Greek life newspaper at the University of Maryland called The Greek Times, and I got a nastygram from a lawyer about content in the third issue. It was an advice column that caused the trouble. One of the staff members, Kendra, would answer questions submitted to the newspaper. They…
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…