Last Tuesday I attended the first Alpha Kappa Psi general informational meeting in an effort to try to expand my social circle and learn more about the fraternity itself. After sitting through the opening presentation, the brothers of the fraternity established themselves as ambitious, hopeful, and already successful individuals in the minds of many in the audience—or at least me—and they attributed much of the development of these traits to their role and efforts within the fraternity.
One could easily notice that Alpha Kappa Psi’s demographic at Baruch College largely consists of Asian/Asian-American students despite Alpha Kappa Psi not officially recognized as a club or fraternity/sorority that specifically caters towards individuals of Asian descent. Those who are familiar with Alpha Kappa Psi’s history would find this ironic due to its initial restrictive policies in regards to who was accepted; who were solely Christian males of the Caucasian race up until 1950. As an individual who attended school in a township where the Asian demographic is marginally higher than Baruch College’s, and as an individual who even had participated in clubs in which the purpose was to represent Asian-American culture, I still was quite astonished by the disproportionality in comparison to Baruch College’s demographic.
The purpose of that statement is not to suggest in any way that it is an issue of any sort or that I was bothered by this in any way; rather, it was to note that I was simply surprised by the lack of diversity in this specific fraternity. One could easily say the same thing about the disproportionate amount of African-Americans on the basketball teams at my former High School, yet some may expect it due to that similar disproportionality being depicted in the professional basketball leagues. Ultimately, I conclude that this feeling of surprise came from my lack of both familiarity and knowledge of student clubs/organizations at Baruch College, due to it being my first-semester.
I forgot to take a picture. My bad.