Quote:
Originally posted by aephi alum
Meaning what exactly? Does AEPi's national office say to each chapter, you have to co-sponsor a certain amount of programming with Hillel each year? AEPhi doesn't have that level of association with Hillel - our chapter was never told that we had to actively co-sponsor programming with Hillel or anything like that. Most of the Jewish-oriented things we did was either by ourselves or co-sponsored with AEPi or somebody else; Hillel's only participation was some advertising. (We got in good with the administrator  )
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I know AEPhi is a national partner. I don't know your involvement and to what extent.
We are strongly encouraged to have programming with Hillel. A lot of the top Hillel board members are AEPis. Also there is a lot of funding made available to do things along with Hillel. Nationally you can ask for grants for certain programming and receive it at the local level. There are Friday night dinners, parties, break-fasts, seders, political talks across different spectrums...everything on every single level.
In general, a lot of AEPi chapters do rush folks at Hillel. A lot of hillels are also run by AEPi members and even their executive directors are often given honorary initiations. It goes into even greater involvement than that.
This doesn't mean that AEPi is an extension of Hillel. It never was and never will be. AEPi does Jewish programming because it is "The Jewish Fraternity". Go to the website. Look at the very top of the page. But AEPi caters to what its brothers want and usually along with the responsibility we hold to the community, we also have our own social programming. We do stuff with AEPhi, SDT, DPhiE, or whomever else. On my campus, we didn't have those sororities but AEPi had its date nights, it had its formal, it had its raunchy parties, it competed and did well in both IM sports and sorority competitions, and it also did programming with both Hillel and Chabad (phoneathons, community service, friday night dinners, seders, and sponsoring political speakers). This was my campus and not every campus. Some schools don't have a single Jewish student and the AEPi chapter reflects that. Some schools are not too close to Hillel for whatever reason, but most are and most manage to rush kids who go to Hillel.
Edited to add: AEPi has seen a surge in numbers and chapters in the last 5 years. A lot of it is attributed to the deeper involvement in the Jewish community.
-Rudey