With the new year comes a new fraternity, as Lambda Chi Alpha has officially become part of the Greek Life community here at Marshall University.

While the fraternity is starting out fresh this semester, it has been part of the Herd before. Lambda Chi Alpha was a small fraternity at Marshall, but it slowly disbanded due to lack of membership. With new goals in mind, Taylor Krivas, senior educational leadership consultant, said he is optimistic while recruiting.

“There are definitely places (at Marshall) that are not being hit to be able to reach out to gentlemen that are more academically inclined and looking for service opportunities,” Krivas said.

Lambda Chi Alpha is starting out like all other Greek organizations as a colony. After gathering 40 members, the colony can then be chartered and accepted as a chapter within the organization.

Lambda Chi Alpha was founded by Warren A. Cole in 1909 at Boston University. The fraternity steadily spread down the east coast and eventually to the western regions. Today, Lambda Chi Alpha is present on 194 campuses, and it continues to expand across the country, including colleges like Shepherd University, West Virginia University and now Marshall University.

Krivas said the new fraternity hopes to be an organization that provides an abundance of community service opportunities. Lambda Chi is internationally partnered with Feeding America and has helped provide over 15 million meals to struggling families. Krivas said Marshall’s chapter is also hoping to coordinate with the food bank in Huntington to help those in need locally.

According to its website, Lambda Chi Alpha’s goals include expanding membership, expanding beyond the social norms of fraternities and sororities and to “offer an experience that focuses on the maturational development of today’s college men.”

Krivas said Lambda Chi Alpha searches for schools where they believe certain niches of men are not being reached by other fraternities. He said his goal is to reach roughly 32 brothers by the end of this semester.

Anyone interested in joining Lambda Chi Alpha can contact Taylor Krivas at either [email protected] or [email protected].

Sarah Ingram can be contacted at [email protected].