If one was passing through campus early this evening, one might have seen a crowd of over a hundred people gathered in a circle on the Low steps. It’s even more likely though, that one might have simply heard the crowd, as the music was loud enough to turn heads on the other side of Broadway.

Inside the circle, the crowd– who were all bundled up in hats and mittens– was a much smaller circle of the five newest spring 2008 Alpha Kappa Alpha inductees. The five girls wore short-sleeved black minidresses, tights, and sky-high black heels. “They must be cold,” the man who seemed to be in charge of the music whispered to another onlooker.



The girls rotated between keeping still in precarious position–arms akimbo, smiles plastered on their faces–and performing choreographed dances for the shrieking, clapping crowd. Elder sisters repeatedly emitted a high-pitched noise that registered somewhere between the sound of chalk scratching and a hungry baby eagle.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes of performance–not to mention six weeks of prior pledging–the elder AKA sisters walked into the middle of the circle. They wore matching black jackets with pink writing that spelled out a sort of nickname (“Violator”, “Hustle + Flow”) on top of more pink writing that read: “The Untouchables.”

The sisters handed the pledges (or rather, at this point, new sisters) similar lime green jackets. The crowd seemed relieved as each dancer was handed a jacket that she quickly buttoned up. The apparently ceremonial handing-off-of-the-jacket also provided each new sister with a nickname; Nicole, CC ’10, became “Maniacal”; and Brooke, CC ’10, was not born “Galactica,” she became her.

Everyone now appropriately dressed for the breezy, wintry night, the pink-jacketed girls and green-jacketed girls embraced one another to the delight of the crowd. The music started up again, and Bwog could hear it all the way home.

– JNW