Bad news from the Dartmouth Newspaper:

The Interfraternity Council voted Tuesday night against allowing national Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi to receive official College recognition. The vote marked the first time the Council has considered expansion since the Board of Trustees lifted its moratorium on new Greek organizations last June.

A small group of students interested in AEPi have been meeting weekly since late fall and now seek to be officially recognized by the College. Although IFC presidents seem reluctant to expand, members of the AEPi interest group believe there is a need for their fraternity within the Dartmouth social scene.

AEPi President Patrick Karas offered some comments in the article about why he thought the vote went the way it did:

Karas said he fears that the current fraternities of the IFC view a new fraternity as competition, but he stressed that “there are plenty of eligible undergraduates” interested in AEPi who are currently unaffiliated, and thus AEPi would not be competing with current fraternities for new members.

Cunningham believes that the vote against AEPi is not related to the fraternity’s official affiliation with Judaism. Rather, Cunningham believes that IFC presidents do not see a need for expansion at this time.

Karas said that some fraternity presidents expressed concern that a Jewish fraternity would segregate the Jewish community, but he believes that this will not happen due to the social, rather than religious, nature of the organization. Despite AEPi’s initial setback, the club plans to try once again for the IFC’s approval.

The Dartmouth fired back two days later with an editorial criticizing the decision, “Having the Players Call the Game”

Karas said in the article that they will move forward with their plans, and that they hope to eventually gain university recognition. Brothers everywhere can help out their efforts be using the online rushee referral form from the International AEPi website to pass along information about any Jewish friends or relatives at Dartmouth.

For those of you who have been living under a rock unfamiliar with Wikipedia, it’s an online Encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, and all the content has been added by individual users. [You can read more on the About page at Wikipedia.]

Alpha Epsilon Pi has its own page at Wikipedia. Right now, the entry has information on AEPi’s Mission Statement, History, Notable Alumni, List of Chapters, and External links. Most of these entries are very brief and could use some editing to bulk them up and provide more information.

For an example of a substantial fraternity entry in Wikipedia, check out the Delta Kappa Epsilon entry. For DKE there is a lengthy history of the fraternity, instead of the three paragraphs that the AEPi entry has. Our entry could also use some photos of other important fraternity items, such as the pledge pin. The notable alumni list could also be expanded, and organized by profession, similar to this.

Also, under the list of Chapters only a few link to the website of that chapter, and that is something that anyone can easily change so that the list on Wikipedia will always have the current links for all of the chapter websites. I’ll link to the site again in the future if it is improved upon.