Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The Epsilon Rho Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi’s Renewed Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Currently, our Justice & Accountability Chairs work closely with the Brotherhood on a variety of initiatives including bias training, affinity events, and financial equity.

“The Epsilon Rho Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi recognizes that we have a collective responsibility to become more ethical than the systems under which we operate. We recognize that a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization makes us better equipped to uphold our five core values: fellowship, knowledge, integrity, service, and unity. We recognize that, as an organization, we have failed to ensure that our organization is accessible to all, and we are enshrining here our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

We still have much more to do. We are taking these steps to promote accessibility and inclusivity because we acknowledge the past and existing inequities in our systems.

-The Members of Alpha Kappa Psi, Epsilon Rho Chapter

Our Core Values and Goals

  • We hope to use our diverse backgrounds and interests as a strength to support one another.

    Critical reflection on our identity as an organization underscores our unequal racial representation and begets the need to declare that we have a problem. Our members have collectively agreed upon our renewed commitments to making Alpha Kappa Psi a space that is open to all, exists for all, and is built by all. We want to make it unequivocally clear here that all of our members and prospective members, regardless of their socioeconomic, racial, sexual, religious, ethnic, and gender identities, have a place within our organization. We are recognizing the strength in our diversity, and have an obligation to one another to build space for the marginalized.

    Additionally, our active members and alumni have areas of study stretching across Penn’s four schools, industries ranging from public policy to private equity, current locations spread across the world, and richly differentiated backgrounds. Our array of interests is varied, and we recognize that we must take a more active role in ensuring that the interests of our members, and our potential members, receive adequate support and nurturing. Below are our new initiatives to promote DEI through fellowship:

    1. We have restructured our executive board and established two new and four reformatted positions whose goals will be to promote accessibility to our organization:

      • Two Justice & Accountability Chairs

      • Two Marketing Chairs

      • Four Professional Chairs

    2. We are committed to uplifting our diverse backgrounds and interests at our external professional events.

    3. The J&A Chairs will work actively to maintain AKPsi’s membership and network repository so members know who to contact and how.

  • We aspire to facilitate broader discussions of internal and sociopolitical issues.

    The painfully evident range of crises in the United States have demonstrated to us a critical need to reflect upon aspects of our identities, organizations, and societies. We must create designated spaces to discuss, analyze and reflect on these issues because sharing grief, experience, and frustrations with one another promotes critical growth and knowledge. Consequently, we have developed new initiatives to ensure DEI through knowledge:

    1. We offer ad-hoc safe spaces for our members when shocking events galvanize our attention.

    2. We require newly inducted members to attend unconscious bias and identity workshops.

    3. We have anonymous forms that notify our President of internal conduct violations.

  • We plan to deconstruct barriers which may prevent current and prospective members from enjoying our organization.

    We cannot make a commitment to inclusivity and equity without rooting out the practices which have made us inequitable. The Epsilon Rho Chapter recognizes the relative homogeneity of our current members and how our conduct, events, and past initiatives play an integral role in reproducing this homogeneity. Thus, we have made a commitment to new initiatives to promote DEI through collective and personal integrity:

    1. All members of this organization will have access to financial support, as we work to continue tearing down economic barriers to our Chapter.

    2. We are working to diversify the pipelines from which we receive applicants.

    3. We have made significant changes to our recruitment process to promote broader accessibility, regardless of professional and economic backgrounds.

  • We seek to bring philanthropy and community engagement to the forefront of our Brotherhood.

    Working alongside our communities is a value on which this Chapter humbly admits it has lost its focus. The vision of the National Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi is to be “recognized as the premier developer of principled business leaders”. We recognize that our ability to become principled leaders in any field is greatly enhanced by working with the community to promote the general welfare of everyone. With the following new initiatives, we will be building on our commitment to DEI through service:

    1. Attendance at community service events are now mandatory for all members.

    2. We have begun forging new partnerships with community-based organizations to support the broader welfare of the Philadelphia community.

    3. We are reviewing the rules regarding fundraising with Wharton and will begin making financial donations to organizations.

  • We will root out our practices that make our members feel unsupported.

    The first two words the members of our organization learn are “unity and accountability.” We are united as an organization and accountable for the actions of our members. As a collective, we have worked over the past semesters to internally ensure that we are all individually cared for by this fraternity. Though we still have much to carry out, we have prepared this list of initiatives to promote DEI through unity:

    1. Use democratic methods of deliberation to decide on new initiatives and to reinforce our core values with periodic examinations of internal practices.

    2. Collectively support our members when they face discrimination, assault, and other forms of violence.

    3. Use our end-of-semester reflections to have organization-wide discussions of necessary changes to the Chapter.