After I began pledging Pi Kappa Alpha on the College of Maryland in fall 1988, one of many issues we had to purchase was a small binder and paper to interview brothers.
The e-book was referred to as a Harvey T. Newell e-book, or Harvey T. for brief. The identify was in recognition of the Nationwide President of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, Harvey Thornton Newell Jr., who held the workplace when the College of Maryland chapter was based in 1952.
The brother interviews throughout our pledging semester helped us study names and private particulars of brothers in the home.
Every interview included a sequence of questions, and we needed to have the interviewed brother signal the again of the web page afterward. Some guys would simply signal it straight away, however others would make us do a process or say we must do one thing later to get their signature.
A standard process was to discover a brother’s girlfriend and get her to put in writing a love letter to the brother. I additionally needed to memorize the Budweiser preamble, go to the native Chinese language restaurant and get an worker to put in writing some goofy sentence in a Chinese language dialect, and to seek out out numerous trivia about the home.
One man stated I’d have to inform him the identify of any girl he needed to fulfill at a celebration. I did this every time he requested. He by no means signed my e-book.
We had weekly pledge class conferences the place we have been examined on fraternity historical past, and we additionally needed to present that we had secured 5 new interviews every week. I overlook what occurred to pledges that didn’t get their required signatures.
In every interview, we needed to ask the next:
- identify
- nickname
- dwelling tackle
- dwelling cellphone
- native tackle
- native cellphone
- yr at school
- main
- favourite drink
- girlfriend’s identify, if any
- hobbies and/or pursuits
After which there was a query that modified over time…
- What does brotherhood imply to you?
- What was your most memorable second as a PiKA?
- The place was the strangest place you ever received laid?
- Now that you simply’re a brother, what recommendation are you able to give to me as a pledge in order that I don’t get blackballed?
I typed the unique questions on my non-electric typewriter, which I used for varsity assignments for a few years, till I found the pc lab.
This e-book was only one extra stressor throughout my pledge semester, but it surely ended up being a useful gizmo for attending to know lots of the brothers on the time, and it’s enjoyable to look by means of it now and see what guys needed to say again then.