Delta Kappa Epsilon

(Excerpted and slightly modified from the DKE Pledge Manual)

Delta Kappa Epsilon has been around a long time. It continues to flourish because it meets basic needs and desires. Men join fraternities for different reasons, but the fraternity experience – and in particular the DKE experience – conveys a great many values and benefits which are not always apparent to a man when he considers pledging. In the Fraternity – first as a pledge and then as a Brother – you will find a sense of involvement, satisfaction, friendship, and personal development that you will not experience anywhere else. Here are some of the benefits you will enjoy.

Personal Development

In DKE, you will find a congenial, stimulating environment that will help you to develop fully as an individual. The purpose of the Fraternity is not to mold you into some pre-determined stereotype, but to give you the freedom and support to realize your potential to the fullest degree. DKE respects the individual – indeed, when a DKE chapter is discussed on a campus the phrase “a great group of individuals” is often heard.

Improved Personal Relationships

Anyone who can’t get along with people has a pretty bleak future. In the give and take of chapter life you will learn to deal with different people in difference situations, to adjust yourself to the demands of communal living, to win others to your way of thinking, to get cooperation, to criticize without giving offense, to develop tact – in other words, to get along with people. And the interesting thing is that more likely than not you will develop these skills without even being aware that you are doing so! In the shared comradeship of DKE life, many things are possible.

Teamwork

In DKE you are a member of a team – your chapter, and in a larger sense, your Fraternity. It gives a sense of purpose, of belonging, of working together to reach a goal, whether it’s a simple bit of chapter house repair or an extensive community service project. Just as the good life is seldom lived alone, and teamwork is an essential component of modern life, so will the cooperation, the feeling of pride and accomplishment, the mutual help and encouragement, the group spirit – yes, the brotherhood – of your chapter greatly enhance your enjoyment of college life and prepare you for the world at large.

Orientation

A DKE chapter – even a large one – is a sufficiently small unit to help you get, and stay, oriented on campus. Confronted by unfamiliar faces, confusing activities, demoralizing bureaucracies (even small colleges have those), and the challenge of new freedoms, values, ideas, and opportunities, you will find the chapter of immense help in guiding you through the personalities and pressures of college life.

A Home

Where the chapter has a house (most DKE chapters do) you have another benefit: a place to live in, to both share with others and call your own, to run, to improve, to enjoy, to remember, so that as an alumnus, you will return not only to a building but to a source of pleasant memories.

Leadership Development and Business Training

Fraternities develop leaders, and DKE is known for the high percentage of its members who are leaders in all areas of life. Allied with leadership development, DKE provides you with training in chapter management and supervision. The administration of a chapter, or a committee, the use of budgets and the handling of financial affairs, the running of a chapter house kitchen – in these and many other aspects of chapter operations you will gain valuable experience. And in chapter meetings you will have training in debate, in making presentations to a group, and in parliamentary practice.

Campus Involvement

If you want to become involved in campus activities – athletics, journalism, student government, and so on – your chapter can usually assist you through the networks of interpersonal connections which underlie these activities. The chapter will doubtless encourage you to participate and to excel for both your own sake and for the prestige of the Fraternity on campus.

Social Poise

A Deke is expected to be a gentleman, and a gentleman is expected to know and practice the social graces. In the chapter house you can expect to perfect your knowledge of these, to have the rough edges smoothed down a bit, to trade any idiosyncrasies for more agreeable social traits. It also goes without saying that the chapter will provide you with more opportunities for social life than you could expect to enjoy as a non-fraternity man.

Enhanced Conduct

DKE makes a conscious effort to translate the Fraternity’s high ideals into practical application within each chapter, DKE expects its members to live up to certain standards of conduct and to observe in their daily lives the ethical and moral values which are a part of the DKE heritage.

Alumni Benefits

Although alumni benefits are usually not the first concern of a potential member, you should be aware that they are substantial and include access to the DKE Club of New York and associational benefits relating to 40,000 living DKE alumni.

Wider Outlook

One of the most important aspects of being a Deke is the opportunity to visit and meet with members of other chapters across the U.S. and Canada, exchanging ideas and experiences and truly enjoying the pleasures of International Brotherhood. For the rest of your life, the fact that you are a Deke will enhance your visits to DKE campuses, and will give you a bond of shared experience not only with fellow Dekes but with all fraternity men you meet.

Brotherhood

To a Brother in DKE, the motto “Friends from the Heart, Forever” is not an empty phrase: in the DKE chapter you will meet men who will be your cherished friends for life. Friendships you make elsewhere may or may not deepen in time, but the DKE bonds of camaraderie, common experience, shared ideals, communal living, and the working together in mutual support to achieve common goals, forge ties of brotherhood that last while life endures.