Eileen and Scott Howell Pledge $1 Million to Support Principled Business Leadership

Alpha Kappa Psi is excited to announce Eileen and Scott Howell have pledged a $1,000,000 gift to the Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation. The donation will go toward fulfilling strategic goals for principled business leadership educational programs and will honor lifelong Alpha Kappa Psi volunteers, Dave and Wendy Wendroff, with the naming of the new Alpha Kappa Psi headquarters as the Howell + Wendroff Professional Center.

Four students walking down a hallway talking

5 Myths About Hazing Every Student Should Know

Whether you’ve personally experienced hazing or not, the reality is, it’s a very real problem that still happens today in all different types of groups and organizations.

Hazing is especially prevalent on college campuses, most specifically, in student organizations like fraternities and sororities. A 2008 study at the University of Maine found that over half (55%) of college students involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experience hazing at some point.

To address the realities and dangers of hazing, we decided to bust a few common myths. We hope this helps educate you and your peers on what hazing looks like, so you can recognize it, help prevent it, and stop it in its tracks.

Q&A with Amanda Belcher, Fraternity Manager of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for Alpha Kappa Psi

During the fall of 2020, we launched an anonymous survey regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to better understand how well our fraternity fosters a culture in which all members can be their true authentic selves.

In this survey, we found that over 80% of our student members and 65% of our alumni members believe that Alpha Kappa Psi has a responsibility to provide DEI training.

Some of that foundational work has already begun, so to learn more, we sat down with Amanda Belcher, AKPsi’s Fraternity Manager of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to learn more.

Multi-Cultural Office Staff Sitting Having Meeting Together

4 Steps to Starting an Employee Resource Group

An Employee Resource Group (ERG) is a voluntary, employee-led group that aligns with a company’s mission and helps foster a safe and supportive working environment and professional development opportunities for specific groups of employees. ERGs are important to the creation of more inclusive workplace cultures. 

As Aiko Bethea writes in the Harvard Business Review: “Typically organized around a shared identity, such as race, gender, age, or mental health, they serve as a haven of belonging, offering a space for underrepresented employees to find one another, stave off a sense of isolation, and experience a reprieve from the daily aggressions they’ve endured at work.” 

Many companies today have active ERGs, but since they’re employee-led groups, it’s not a given that your company has any, or, that they cater to your specific demographic or interest. If you’d like to be part of a group that doesn’t currently exist in your organization, why not start one! 

Here are four steps along with some handy tips from the experts for getting your ERG off the ground.