Part One
Overview
This process will take you through both standardized Pi Kappa Alpha volunteer education as well as education that is specific to the role you are advising.
It starts with this page including disclaimers, goals, a resource note, and the principles of accreditation. Following pages will cover:
- Values, Mission, and Creed
- Pi Kappa Alpha Standards and position statements
- AAB Expectations
- General Resources available
- Fraternity Structure
- Greek Life in the 21st Century
Goals of Accreditation
Pi Kappa Alpha is fortunate to have benefited from outstanding member service and leadership throughout its history. Today, with the increased pressures and competitions facing our chapters, qualified volunteer support is more valuable than ever.
Whether your service takes the form of helping as a chapter advisor or as a part-time advisory board member, the Fraternity is grateful for your service. Advising a chapter is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of Fraternity membership.
This program will help you to understand 1) what it means to be an advisor for Pi Kappa Alpha, 2) share information about chapter programming, and 3) communicate the Fraternities policies, explanations and resources.
The expectation for advisors is that over the course of their advising tenure, they utilized this accreditation program, the online education available at www.mypike.pikes.org (sign up required, contact membership@pikes.org for any assistance needed in registering), and PIKE University events to further educate themselves on appropriate advising tactics.
Resources Note
Throughout the course of this process, you will be presented with a host of resources, handbooks, and online tutorials to support you in your role as a volunteer. Upon completion of this program, there will be times where you will want to reference back to many of these specific resources. Please know that all resources provided to you are on the Fraternity’s user portal, myPIKE. This accreditation program serves as an orientation to help you understand your role and the resources available to you.
Understanding the Principles of Accreditation
Prior to proceeding, it is paramount that you understand some basic principles.
First, chapters are independent entities that are solely responsible for their own behavior. Advisors provide feedback, information and advice. Neither they, nor the International Fraternity, instruct, control, or manage chapters. Likewise, the International Fraternity does not instruct, control or manage chapter advisors.
Second, while it is the chapter’s decision as to who it elects or who it retains as a chapter advisor, it is now a Standard of Pi Kappa Alpha that the chapter maintain an accredited chapter advisor. Moreover, it is also the alumnus’s decision as to whether or not he or she donates his time and talents to the chapter. Therefore, the most successful advisor-chapter relationships are built on mutual respect.
Finally, this accreditation process is not an instruction manual, and it cannot provide solutions for every possible situation. It is instead a framework that can be helpful as advisors and chapters develop their own relationships. This entire process should take less than thirty minutes.
Disclaimer
The contents of this accreditation program and the pages that follow are the result of a compilation of information from various chapters and various brothers affiliated with the Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity for the use by any member, advisor or chapter that is interested in establishing or improving its programs. It should be understood that each chapter is self-governing and solely responsible for its day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month operation and nothing herein is intended as or should be deemed as supervision, direction, monitoring, oversight or as an effort to control the local chapter by the Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity, which is a fraternal affiliation of over 200 chapters, over 15,000 active undergraduate members and over 245,000 alumni and several nonprofit corporations, including, but not limited to The Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity, a Tennessee nonprofit corporation which serves as a clearinghouse and an administrator for purposes of organizing meetings and conventions, publishing fraternal publications and performing other functions for the entire International Fraternity.
This program is an educational guideline only which contains suggestions and recommendations developed by various chapters and alumni that were able to develop successful advisor-chapter relationships. It is published and available to any chapter and alumnus through the clearinghouse in Memphis as a form of brotherly advice for whatever use one wants to make of it.
All ideas herein are optional and nothing is mandatory. Participation is by the voluntary choice of each chapter and each member with the understanding that one generally gets out of something what one is willing to put into it. Thus, any language contained herein which could possibly be construed as “mandatory” such as “do this” or “do that” is only in the form of a recommendation that if one wishes to get the most benefit out of using the suggestions in the program, then the suggestions can be utilized with the understanding that any educational resource is, at most, a guide and that the users should substitute their own experience and judgment to use, adapt or modify the suggestions and recommendations contained herein. In other words, the program is a guide from which the users can use to establish, improve or build their own programs, using their own knowledge, common sense, ideas and experience and to assist the users from time to time as a reference for ideas and suggestions. In turn, each chapter and member is encouraged to share good ideas with others by advising the administrative clearinghouse for possible inclusion in future publications.