At the recent Spring 2022 Greek Awards ceremony, Pi Kappa was one of two chapters to recognized with multiple awards.
On April 18, the chapter received following awards:
• IFC Brother of the Year, Jonah Adler
• IFC Scholar of the Year, Samuel Bernicke
• Distinguished Service Award, Pat Kuhnle
The two undergraduate members were among eight IFC individual award winners announced at the ceremony. Pi Kappa Phi was among the two chapters to win more than one award out of the 41 campus fraternities.
Furthermore, Pi Kappa Phi was a finalist for the RB Stewart Award given annually to Purdue’s best fraternity, an award it has won 10 of the last 15 years. This year’s winner was Beta Theta Pi.
Adler, who was Pi Kappa Phi’s vice president, is also the Interfraternity Council’s Chief Justice. As chapter vice president, he was responsible for brotherhood events and involved in new member recruitment.
He was an emcee for the 2022 War of Roses event as has been very involved in the chapter’s outreach to people with disabilities through The Ability Experience. He was the lead contestant in Miracle Mania, a dance competition hosted by Phi Mu raising money and awareness for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and locally for the Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.
As IFC Chief Justice, he works with struggling chapters that have been accused of breaking risk management or operational rules.
He maintains a 3.87 GPA as a junior on the dean’s list while doing biomedical research and serving as a math tutor. He is from Vienna, Virginia and has previously been chapter house manager and IFC Director of Scholarship
Bernicke maintains a 4.0 cumulative GPA as a sophomore chemical engineering major from Cincinnati, Ohio, who tutors chapter members in chemistry and calculus. He is part of Purdue’s Honors College, on the dean’s list and minors in economics.
He conducts research on potential cancer immunotherapy nine hours each week on campus. This semester he was the IFC New Member Recruitment chairman and serves of the board of the Purdue Student Publishing Foundation, the non-profit organization that owns the Purdue Exponent. This semester, he was risk manager for the chapter.
The former chapter rush co-chairman will be an intern for Proctor & Gamble in 2022.
Kuhnle was honored for his service to Pi Kappa Phi as well as other chapters in the areas of strategic planning and new member recruitment during his three decades of volunteering to the Purdue Greek community. Previously, he has won the Father Phil Bowers Purdue IFC Chapter Advisor of the Year seven times and has been recognized by the national fraternity as an Advisor of the Year recipient.