Las Vegas, Nevada – August 1-5, 2017
Submitted by: Akia Britton, Alpha Kappa Psi Chapter Liaison
The 59th Biennial Convention offered an opportunity for the entire fraternity, students, alumni, and advisors to get together to grow as members and principled business leaders. There were several keynote speakers, social outings, and fraternity rituals each day. Some of this year’s social events gave members the opportunity to see Las Vegas with fraternity brothers, and included daily morning yoga, a pool party, a tour of the famous Fremont Street, High Roller tour, and an alumni night at the Mob Museum. Members also attended award luncheons and a grand banquet to recognize those chapters that did outstanding work over the past year.
The convention is divided into two parts: Chapter Congress and College of Leadership. The purpose of Chapter Congress is to vote on fraternity constitutional changes, and on a new national President and Executive Vice President. This gives each chapter an opportunity to gain many skills and knowledge, and to give their opinions and vote on subjects that matter to the fraternity. The Chapter Congress gave participants the opportunity to learn how to hold a congressional meeting using Robert’s Rules of Order, and the steps required to make, pass, amend, and second a motion. Participants learned the qualifications of the candidates for President and Executive Vice President and were able to hear what they planned to do, if elected into the position. The College of Leadership helped members develop leadership skills, such as: how to communicate effectively, how to delegate tasks, and how to use their resources to make them better leaders. They also learned what it means to be a member of Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity. This session also provides a basic version of officer training, and allowed participants to learn about important fundamental changes that chapters will be required to implement this academic year. This new change was the inspiration for the theme of convention, “The Why, How, and What of AKPsi’s Future.” Topics in this session centered around the theme and showed members how they can maximize the benefits of membership in this prestigious organization.
Members also heard from different speakers, including a Bank of America executive, and the CEO of Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, Pat Falotico. She spoke about what it means to be engaged members, and shared her personal philosophy, her experience in her past position as an executive for IBM, and what she does now to help leaders. Both shared their stories about how they worked their way up in the business world and how current members can start preparing themselves for life after graduation.
Chapter officers also had the opportunity to meet the new Regional Director, give her an overview of what chapters will be doing this year, and hear her recommendations and advice. Most importantly, members had an opportunity to connect with over 1,200 brothers. This opened up several networking opportunities in different areas of the country like Florida, Oregon, California, and even foreign countries like the UK and Japan. “It is difficult to measure the benefits gained from being able to connect with other members,” said Akia Britton, Alpha Chi Psi Chapter Liaison, “but it was the most valuable benefit of the convention, because it could potentially land us our dream job or internship.”