Alpha Kappa Psi Principled Business Leadership Institute Conference
Post by Ji Hwan Kim ’18
As one of the founding fathers of the Gamma Nu chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi at Babson, I’ve been involved with the world’s largest professional business fraternity since my first-year of college. Since I have had such a positive experience with AKPsi up until this point, I had high expectations going into AKPsi’s Principled Business Leadership Institute. Because the fraternity’s tagline states that it aims to be “the premier developer of principled business leaders,” the organization provides several leadership and professional development conferences on a regular basis; one of which is the PBLI. The fraternity sponsored conference is held every year at various locations around the country. For the 2017 series, the fraternity held PBLIs in Atlanta, GA; Philadelphia, PA; San Francisco, CA; and Chicago, IL. In order to have an opportunity to network with the chapters closest to Babson, we decided to attend the Philadelphia conference from Feb 3-5th. Going into the conference, I had two goals in mind: get to know as many brothers from other chapters as possible and obtain ideas on possible future programming for our chapter.
From the moment we got to the hotel, I felt an aura of brotherhood throughout the building. Knowing that I was surrounded by brothers from all over the country gave me a sense of comfort, even though I didn’t yet know them personally. After checking into our rooms, Teresa and I headed over to the opening ceremony to get our PBLI experience started. At the opening ceremony, we had the opportunity to sit with brothers from the University of North Dakota. We had a great opportunity to share stories about each other’s chapters as well as share ideas on programming and activities that have been successful for each chapter. To our surprise, we learned shortly afterwards that we were seated right next to Bentley’s chapter of AKPsi, who had been awarded the prestigious “Chapter of the Year” award. Because this is a distinction that every chapter strives toward, Teresa and I made sure to have great conversations about what they did to get a high level of achievement and recognition. In addition to the great networking we were able to do during the opening ceremony, we were also able to contribute to important fraternity decisions by voting on amendments to by-laws and approving nominations for fraternity leadership positions. Throughout the conference, we continued to meet more brothers from various regions of the country. The brothers from West Virginia University stood out as we were able to further our relationship beyond PBLI as we planned an inter-chapter event via Skype for a future date. Lastly, we were able to meet brothers from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who drew our attention because they were currently in the process of re-chartering their chapter. Because I was able to experience the re-chartering process with the Babson chapter throughout my first and second year of Babson, I was able to have an extremely valuable conversation with the future brothers from New Jersey.
In conclusion, PBLI ended up being a phenomenal learning and networking opportunity for myself and the rest of the Gamma Nu chapter. Not only was I able to make connections with brothers from other parts of the country, but I was also able to bring back to Babson some of the ideas and programs of successful chapters all throughout the country. I look forward to applying the leadership skills I learned at PBLI to my chapter to help Gamma Nu continue to grow and prosper at Babson College. Thank you to the Undergraduate Professional Accelerator Fund for this great opportunity!