The Presidents of the Interfraternity Council (IFC) have voted five to one to allow Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity (PIKE) to form a colony on campus.
The decision was made after a presentation by PIKE representatives Joe Wegelin, director of expansion, and Justin True, director of communications and marketing, during an IFC meeting on May 1 in the Student Union’s Pelican Room.
“I’m pretty excited,” said IFC President and member of Kappa Alpha Fraternity Liam Doyle. “Their presentation was very organized and professional, and I think they stand to offer the fraternities we have on campus many new ideas because they do many things differently than we do.”
According to Wegelin, PIKE approached Southeastern asking to join the campus’ Greek organizations. Since then he has worked with Assistant Director of Student Engagement Elizabeth Richardson to coordinate the meeting with the IFC.  
“A lot of work went into just this one meeting, this is about a fraction of what’s to come,” said Wegelin. “Over the summer, we will begin cultivating and training Alumni in the area before we begin recruitment in the fall.”
According to Wegelin, the colonization of PIKE will occur in three phases over the course of a year.
The first phase, which will lay the groundwork of the colony, will begin this summer. During this five-week period at least six PIKE alumni will be assembled and trained as an advisory board, which will oversee the formation of the chapter. Phase two includes several meetings of this advisory board. The expansion will conclude in the third phase, scheduled to end in Fall 2013, with the establishment of PIKE’s charter.
Of course, the chapter will only succeed if PIKE can recruit enough members after their colonization efforts. However, Wegelin stated in his presentation that PIKE’s success rate with opening new chapters is around 97 percent. After he learned the vote passed, Wegelin was very happy for his fraternity.
“We’re very excited to be a positive addition to Southeastern’s Greek community,” said Wegelin. “We think that Southeastern will be a great home for our fraternity. It has high caliber students, it’s an expanding institution and there is still a lot of room for growth.”