University of Arkansas - Fort Smith
"The University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Provisional Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order seeks to help support and serve the University and local community while giving a lifetime experience to its members and teaching them lessons of duty, honor, academics, and chivalry all in reverence to God and His women."
The mission statement of the Chapter is one that came to us early on and it is one that all brothers stay in agreement with. Not only is the chapter focused on the teachings of the Order, but we also believe in making this experience a life-long experience for all of the brothers. Greek Life was brought to the university in 2007, and our chapter is one of two of the original chapters starting at the school. Because the school is new to Greek Life, one of our goals was not to just help our chapter grow, but to help the entire Greek system grow. That goal is still being attained and surpassed as more students apply and show interest in Greek Life each semester. In the fall 2008 semester a goal was given to all fraternities to have at least 45 male students sign interest forms for IFC recruitment, and with the help of our chapter and the multiple recruitment events that we hosted, the IFC surpassed its goal by obtaining 65 interest forms filed. Other chapter goals include being the most well known fraternity on campus and within the community. One of the ways that the campus recognizes us is demonstrated by our victory in the first annual Greek Week. In the community, our chapter has on more than one occasion been featured in the local Times Record newspaper, Channel 5, a local news broadcast, and our members have been pictured on the magazine “Entertainment Fort Smith.” One of our biggest challenges has been to grow in quantity as the University is still a small school based on mostly non-traditional students. However, we are the second largest chapter in the IFC and take advantage of the size of our chapter because it has helped us grow stronger in brotherhood. Although we do not have a house, we have never had a problem finding a common place where all or most brothers go to on certain days of the week. With our chapter still growing and everyone taking part, it has been very easy for all of the brothers to know and recognize one another as members of the chapter outside of KA events. Although we understand that personalities between brothers can clash and ideas can be conflicting at times, the members have learned to accept and appreciate different ideas and once the idea has been decided upon, the rest of the brothers then move forward together with the idea as a unit. Because the provision process is lengthy, some of older members have began to feel apathy and exhaustion during their tenure in the chapter. One way the chapter deals with this is by giving the older members and officers more general goals with which they can delegate specific tasks to newer members. This works two-fold; the older members are now focused on getting the newer members caught up and the newer members are able to take part in the success of the chapter. The biggest challenge for the chapter has been record keeping. In late spring 2008 our Number III kept all records on file in paper form. During this time, a strong thunderstorm and tornadoes came through Fort Smith and the records prior to that time were destroyed. The current Number III now uses an electronic filing system as a storage medium for all documents, however, we are currently in the process of obtaining a filing cabinet for two different forms of record keeping in case one should fail, we will still have our records.
The chapter has in many ways already been successful. From a community perspective, our participation and service has caught the attention of many local citizens. Elise Cooley, who is the chapter's point of contact for the Junior League of Fort Smith, has on more than one occasion requested our help for events that the Junior League was hosting. In the fall 2007 and fall 2008 semesters, the Junior League hosted the annual events that the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith chapter of Kappa Alpha helped to put together, the Susan G. Komen Paint the Park Pink and the Junior League Christmas Bazaar at the Civic Center. Also, in the fall 2008 semester the University held its first annual Greek Week where all fraternities and sororities competed in multiple activities where the winner of each event was given points. Our chapter was the first overall winner and champions of the first annual Greek Week.
