Leading the Decade

Leading the Decade

Over the last ten years, Pi Kappa Phi has called for its most promising young leaders to experience one of the fraternity’s most impactful programs, Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders. Nearly 700 undergraduate members have challenged themselves and their chapters through the fraternity's signature transformative leadership experience, and have gone on to serve their chapters, their campuses and their local communities to the fullest extent of Pi Kappa Phi’s values.

As the program prepares for a new decade, Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders’ impact continues to be felt by the men who have participated in the program, and by those who have made the decision to serve their fraternity as a volunteer.

“It changed my trajectory in terms of being a man of Pi Kappa Phi,” said Allen Rogers, a past program participant in 2017 who later served as an Emerging Leaders intern in 2018. “I went as a sophomore when I was the secretary for my chapter, and my assumption when I went was that they would teach me how to be a leader.”

While leadership development is a critical component to Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders, Rogers realized at the end of his experience his view was only half complete before participating. The program is designed to help participants experience brotherhood beyond the bounds of their chapter, realize their full potential as leaders, and continue to help their chapter become more like an ideal chapter

“There have been people with specific goals that have gone through the program,” said Abbie Schneider Rueter, one of Pi Kapp College’s creators. “Plenty more didn’t know what they were looking for and came out with a deeper purpose. The program meets students where it is needed.”

“They’re not going to tell you what to do,” Rogers said. “They’re going to teach you the qualities of a good leader and how to live the values of Pi Kappa Phi.”

Students, facilitators and headquarters staff members have seen how Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders connects Pi Kappa Phi’s past and present to create a quintessential learning experience, and it will only continue to transcend that expectation in the future.

I love Emerging Leaders,” Rogers said. “I would do it every year if I could.

Pi Kapp College, founded by Past Executive Director Greg Elam, would become the foundation for the fraternity’s two current educational leadership conferences: Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders in the summer, and Pi Kapp College for Chapter Officers in the winter.

In the summer of 1959, at the beginning of Fourth Honorary Founder Durward W. Owen’s 35 year tenure as the fraternity’s Executive Director, 102 students arrived at Burnt Gin, a wilderness camp that laid host to the fraternity’s first-ever national leadership school. Owen reminisces about the camp in his memoirs featured in “A History of Pi Kappa Phi.”

Each year, students travel to South Carolina to attend Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders.

This was indeed a venture into the unknown, and a step of significant magnitude for Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity,” writes Owen. “Elam and the National Council at that time are to be commended and recognized for such an act of faith.

As one would expect from an event so far in the past that Founder Lawrence Harry Mixson was in attendance, the 1959 Pi Kapp College had a very different programming schedule from modern conferences; in addition to leadership development there were barbecues, traditional summer camp activities and even a dance at the local Shrine Club.

Two years later, Pi Kapp College returned to Burnt Gin before relocating to several new locations, including Davidson College in 1965 and Roanoke in 1967.

When attendance broke 400 in 1991, Owen made the decision to relocate Pi Kapp College to the College of Charleston to tie in the fraternity’s founding. Today, participants still make travel to Charleston for a day to walk where the Founders formed Pi Kappa Phi and experience the significance of the city’s influence on the fraternity first-hand.

Today, Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders draws on the past to fulfill its mission of providing uncommon opportunities to new generations of exceptional leaders, and has become an unparalleled transformative experience in the fraternal world.

CREATING THE PROGRAM

The 2010 rebranding of Pi Kapp College split officer training from Pi Kappa Phi’s summer programming and shifted to focus on non-positional leadership development skills and values-oriented conversations for participants to apply in all areas of their life, not just their fraternity.

Together, Pi Kappa Phi’s then Director of Leadership Development, Abbie Schneider Rueter, and then Senior Coordinator of Leadership Programs at the University of Memphis John Campbell, Gamma Delta (Memphis), in addition to headquarters staff members from every discipline, redeveloped Pi Kapp College into the Emerging Leaders Institute.

Executive Director Emeritus Durward W. Owen speaks with a student at graduation for Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders in 2019.

Incorporating the values of Pi Kappa Phi and the principles of effective leadership, Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders evolved into a one of a kind program that rewarded members who took the initiative to experience it.

“We wanted to include some challenge to it,” Campbell said. “This wasn’t something that you could show up to, be there for a week and finish, you were going to be challenged to reflect, dig in and make personal meaning of whatever was being covered.”

The new program brought 41 “leaders by choice” together in huddles facilitated by a team of seasoned professionals and dedicated volunteers to explore Pi Kappa Phi’s brotherhood, values and esoteric meanings at the College of Charleston.

“Our goal was to provide a transformative experience that would allow brothers to learn what it truly means to be a leader by choice and a man of Pi Kappa Phi,” Schneider Rueter said in 2010 following the program’s first run. “The new Pi Kapp College format allows our men to discover their personal strengths and identify ways to build upon those strengths to better themselves and their fraternity.”

Students sit in the Cistern Yard in front of Pi Kappa Phi's second gift to the College of Charleston, the clock that adorns Randolph Hall.

EMPHASIZING CONNECTIONS

One of the reasons that Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders continues to effectively shape young leaders has been the sustained relationships forged between facilitators and participants.

Each session of Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders brings nearly a dozen experienced alumni and higher education professionals together to build meaningful bonds that transcend the expectations of a leadership development program.

In addition to participating in facilitated discussions regarding leadership, students participate in a challenge course comprised of activities designed highlight the important qualities of leaders.

Likewise, students have the opportunity to connect with each other over a week in small groups and as a collective as facilitators find ways for each member to feel connected to the Emerging Leaders Experience.

Bradley Ingram, an alumnus of the Eta Phi Chapter at UMBC, first attended Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders as a participant in 2016, and has since served as a program faculty member in 2019. In

both of these roles, he’s been able to forge connections as a student to his peers and to his facilitators, and vice-versa as a facilitator himself.

“I was able to connect with other brothers from across the country and what they were doing and what personal experiences they were bringing with them,” Having that exposure with other brothers made me feel less alone with the issues I wanted to work on in my chapter, and I got to have that brain trust and work with other brothers.”

Above: Each year, members participate in a friendship visit at a local bowling alley through The Ability Experience. Below: Men communicate with one another to solve the Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders Challenge Course.

Although the program emphasizes the values espoused in Pi Kappa Phi’s Ritual of Initiation, many facilitators are not members of the fraternity.

“We knew that having a variety of perspectives was important, so we wanted to include non-members involved as faculty, and we also wanted the Ritual to be the foundation of the program,” Schneider Rueter said. “When we’re talking about character, we want to be sure that the participants are also reflecting on what they learned from their Ritual.”

Approaching the dichotomy of having a largely exoteric experience on esoteric themes seems improbable at first glance, but it also presented an interesting development opportunity for participants and facilitators alike.

Byron Hughes, a higher education professional with nearly 20 years of experience and a member of Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity, has served as a lead faculty member for Emerging Leaders multiple times and spoke to his experience as a non-member facilitator.

Byron Hughes, an Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity alumnus, is one of many non-member volunteers who have given their time to Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders.

We are there as non-members, but the participants have the opportunity to engage in something that has meaning and purpose to Pi Kappa Phi,” Hughes said. “They also look at a paradigm for them about what the Ritual experience should be about.

Emerging Leaders’ Curriculum doesn’t shy away from the Ritual, it actively challenges members to consider their commitment and assess how they can apply it to aspects of their life that don’t directly involve Pi Kappa Phi.

“We all worked together to talk through this issue, and we had to brainstorm how we make sure that every single day is grounded in the Ritual, but presented in a way that it can be publicly discussed,” Schneider Rueter said. “The importance of helping participants learn how to talk about Ritual in a public way was a cool challenge.”

“It's not just focused on the secret ceremony that's taken place but really more so focused on the opportunity for our fraternity or organizations to come together for something meaningful and tactful,” Hughes said.

Students are tasked with making a commitment that they will hold when they return to their chapter, and are supported throughout the week as they develop connections with their brothers from across the nation.

REVELATIONS & THE FUTURE TO COME

Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders’ continued impact is a result of the program’s fluid philosophy and dedicated participants and supporters who come together for the quintessential shared experience.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all program,” Wes Breeden Beta Omicron (Northwewstern State) said. “It meets you where you are, and whatever it is that you are seeking it has it.”

Breeden’s experience as a perennial leading faculty member for the program has been that every man who commits to being a leader by attending the Emerging Leaders will have a moment where they connect with the curriculum.

Wes Breeden, an alumnus of the Beta Omicron Chapter at Northwestern State, has led several sessions of Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders as a faculty member.

“One of the great things about Emerging Leaders is that throughout the day, and throughout the week, you see these lightbulbs come on at different times,” Breeden said. “One student’s lightbulb may turn on when we’re talking about brotherhood while another’s will when we are talking about character.”

Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders isn’t just Pi Kappa Phi’s most impactful program. It is a culmination of more than 100 years of history, more than 50 years of brothers sharing their national experience, and more than a decade of intuitive decisions from Pi Kappa Phi’s leadership to evolve one of the first national fraternal leadership conferences at a campsite in South Carolina into a signature annual event.

The students, alumni and friends of the fraternity who continue to support this program, however, play a crucial role in the continued development of Emerging Leaders.

Tavianna Williams, Pi Kappa Phi's current Assistant Executive Director of Training & Development, previously served in a volunteer role for the fraternity as a Pi Kapp College for Emerging Leaders faculty member.

“If you have any inkling that you are looking to make an impact in your fraternity, this is it,” Breeden said. “If you’re an undergraduate member, take that step and come, and if you are an alumnus, this is where your time and treasure should be spent because what you put into this program won't just change their lives, it will change your life.”

When Pi Kappa Phi’s dedicated students and volunteers come together, what can be attained is insurmountable. The shared experience of Emerging Leaders has connected hundreds of men through the values of the fraternity, and allowed men to see the mission of our Founders be realized as they stand in the very place where Pi Kappa Phi’s mission began.

What is always so attractive to me about the program is that it truly is a week for fraternity to be its very best,” Campbell said. “It is a group of guys having fun with one another, learning about themselves and pushing each other to grow. It is people from all over the country from a variety of background experiences who are so invested in one another, and who build relationships for years to come.

That mission will continue to be carried out as men continue to come together and experience fraternity at its very best.

If you trust your brothers and you believe in this fraternity, take that step,” Breeden said. “Don’t let fear dictate your path. Get on the plane, get in the car, and go. The only thing you are going to find is exactly what you are looking for.