Pike fraternity hopes to restart MIT chapter
Yet another fraternity may be returning to MIT. Representatives of the Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) fraternity, which has not had a chapter at MIT since 1980, are on campus this week to talk to unaffiliated men in the MIT community as the fraternity attempts to reestablish an MIT chapter.
Expansion consultants Patrick J. Coleman and Joseph C. Warstler said they have already met with coaches, administrators, DormCon, and other student organizations. They are looking to find ways to differentiate Pike from other MIT fraternities.
They said they are looking for male students who will represent the MIT and Greek community as “SLAG” — students, leaders, athletes and gentlemen. These are students who “value academics” and will “develop as leaders” while treating people “with respect and dignity,” they said. They believe that varsity, club, and IM athletes will be able to contribute to Pike’s “competitive drive.”
Interfraternity Council president T. Ryan Schoen ’11 said that Pike representatives talked to the IFC at the end of last semester. “We welcome anyone interested in colonizing here,” Schoen said. Pike will be the second fraternity in recent years to return to MIT, joining Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which started rushing men in this fall. SAE last had a chapter on campus in 2005.
It does not seem that Pike will immediately have a house. Pike will “allow students to stay in their dorm community and enjoy a fraternity experience,” the consultants wrote in an e-mail sent to Next House on Monday.
The national website says the fraternity has “maintained the largest average chapter and pledge class size for most of the past 20 years,” and that the group focuses on developing “integrity, intellect, and high moral character” in its members.
In 1970, the Eta Delta chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha, then known as PiKa, entered the Inter-Fraternity Council as an all-male fraternity, but became co-ed in 1975 at the request of its members. Five years later, MIT’s PiKa left the national organization and became an independent living group, known today as pika.