Business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi is not allowed to recruit this semester

Business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi will not be recruiting a pledge class this semester.

The Wharton Undergraduate Division’s director of student life Lee Kramer announced that the fraternity will not be permitted to recruit this spring in an email to Wharton freshman and sophomore classes last Friday. The reason behind the recruitment ban was not disclosed in the email.

Alpha Kappa Psi will be allowed to hold rush again in the fall 2017 semester.

In an email statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Kramer stated that the ban, a joint decision of Alpha Kappa Psi National Chapter and the Wharton Undergraduate Division, was prompted by Alpha Kappa Psi’s violation of probationary terms during the fall 2016 semester. Kramer did not specify which probationary terms were violated.

“Both nationals and the Division are requiring the chapter to use the spring 2017 semester for a rebuilding process to focus its energy on improving the internal operations before it accepts any new members,” added Kramer.

President of Alpha Kappa Psi and Wharton junior Joseph Robillard said that the national chapter, the Undergraduate Division and the fraternity jointly agreed that it was time for the fraternity to focus in on themselves and their pledge process.

“We all felt like this was the most opportune time to restructure our pledge process,” Robillard said. “The business environment is changing and so we’d like to continuously update and improve that process.”

Robillard said that not being able to recruit this semester will be a challenge for Alpha Kappa Psi. However, he remained optimistic about the fraternity’s ability to maintain its presence on campus.

“It’s definitely a challenge but that doesn’t mean we won’t have a presence on campus,” Robillard said. “We just want to showcase ourselves in different ways throughout the semester. We’ll still be holding our professional and resume building workshops. We’ll continue our Aspire to Excellence speaker series.”

President of Phi Gamma Nu and Wharton and Engineering junior Arvind Raju said he felt the recruitment ban this semester might prove to be an obstacle to Alpha Kappa Psi in the future.

“It can be a little difficult for them, especially with losing a freshman pledge class, because the freshman pledge class tends to become leaders of the fraternities in the future,” Raju said.

The recruitment ban has not deterred freshmen from choosing to rush business fraternities.

College and Wharton freshman Agnes Pei said she was surprised that Alpha Kappa Psi was not recruiting this semester, but that it did not impact her decision to rush a business fraternity.

“I wasn’t thinking of AKPsi at first, and I also heard that the interview process was very finance oriented and personally I’m not into finance. I’m more of a marketing person,” Pei said.

This reputation as being focused on finance as opposed to other areas of business is something Robillard is planning on changing by renewing the fraternity’s rush and pledge process this semester.

“Our students are really becoming more diverse with their academic and professional interests and I think we need to accommodate that more,” Robillard said. “My goal and the fraternity’s goal here is to ensure that you are 100 percent ready to tackle any OCR challenge.”

Robillard said he was looking forward to begin recruiting again in the fall 2017 semester.

“Reinvigorated. Redesigned,” Robillard said. “You can expect to join a brotherhood that’s more passionate and more committed than ever.”