At the end of last semester, eight students, with the help of an expansion coordinator from Delta Kappa Epsilon headquarters, set out to rebuild the Phi Rho chapter at Penn State that had been suspended since February 2020.
Rebuilding a chapter that was suspended for allegations of “serious misconduct” in the past comes with its own difficulties. Titus Tieman, DKE’s executive vice president, said part of overcoming that reputation starts with recruitment.
“We’re going to be selective on the guys we choose and based on our selection we will choose good people, who are like-minded and eager to build this foundation with us,” Tieman, a second-year studying civil engineering, said.
Kristian Citko, DKE’s president, was one of the original eight in charge of the first rush process. He said recruiting was difficult at first because they were lacking the resources other fraternities had, like a house to hold a zone day to invite in potential pledges.
Citko, a second-year studying accounting and finance, said DKE set up posters and created an Instagram account for recruitment but traffic on zone day was still low.
Even with the low turnout, Citko said they kept up with recruitment through word-of-mouth advertising, which worked best for them.
Starting from eight members, DKE has now grown to 25 at the end of recruiting.
While there are 35 Penn State IFC organizations, the members of DKE each had their own reason for wanting to be part of founding a new fraternity chapter.
Arav Kasturia, DKE’s treasurer, said the ability to shape the organization was a strong drawing point for him.
“I was definitely looking to get more involved and the concept of taking an organization and building it up off the ground, I found really intriguing,” Kasturia said.
