Professor James Rainey is going out with a bang.
Rainey will be the guest of honor at a party thrown by the members of Alpha Kappa Psi from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Harper’s Restaurant & Brewpub, 131 Albert Ave.
The party will honor Rainey’s retirement from the corporate housing board of the fraternity.
Rainey, the former associate dean of academic affairs for The Eli Broad College of Business, has served as a faculty brother to MSU’s Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity since 1967. He was chairman of the corporate housing board, taking on the responsibilities of operating the fraternity house property.
“He’s been one of the most outstanding members we’ve had in the history of our chapter over the last 30 years,” said accounting senior Lou Barkman, the president of the fraternity.
Rainey led refinancing efforts in recent years, allowing several improvements in the house including repaving the East Lansing fraternity house parking lot, rewiring electrical outlets, and wiring the house for Ethernet connections. The house’s mortgage will be paid off in the next seven years because of Rainey.
Rainey said his departure is bittersweet and his experience with the fraternity was rewarding.
“A long time has passed,” he said. “We need to bring in some new people with some new insights and new energy. I think it is a natural occurrence.”
Rainey said the fraternity is unusual because it is a professional organization, with male and female members.
“What I like to see the most is students who join the organization early, become active, learn about the organization and assume leadership, then graduate and move into the work world,” he said. “It has given me the most pleasure to see them develop, succeed and then return.”
Rainey has even offered money out of his own pocket to help the fraternity when it has faced financing troubles.
“He is a mentor, someone to look up to,” supply chain management junior Lynsey Hochstetler said. “Because of him and his work, Alpha Kappa Psi is still alive. We wouldn’t have a house and (it) wouldn’t be the fraternity that it is.”
The fraternity, located at 123 Louis St., is in the process of setting up an endowment scholarship in Rainey’s name.
“He helped us finance the house and he’s been instrumental with getting other business college faculty to help with the fraternity,” Barkman said.“There hasn’t been a brother who has graduated from the fraternity in the last 30 years who hasn’t met him and doesn’t know his impact.”
