Three Freshmen Start New Fraternity

By Broadside Staff Reporter Ethan Vaughan
Photo by Broadside Photography Editor Courtney Erland

Three George Mason University freshmen students began their first semester at school by building a new Greek fraternal organization: Alpha Kappa Lambda.

Ryan Harty, Joseph Russo and Ray Sami founded this local chapter of the national Alpha Kappa Lambda in November.

The Mason Alpha Kappa Lambda, currently one of five AKL “colonies” around the country, would become the national fraternity’s thirty-eighth fully-fledged chapter if chartered, a move that Ryan Harty, now president of the fledgling brotherhood, hopes will come by the end of the semester.

This ambitious goal comes from a group that, its founders say, has prided itself on being innovative and doing things differently. Certainly, the AKL colony has already laid the groundwork for certain precedents to be set in the Mason
community, though it remains to be seen, these possibilities will be realized.

If inducted as an entirely functional unit, AKL will be the newest Greek chapter on campus and will have what is the youngest Executive Board of any Mason fraternity; President Harty is 19 years old, while Vice President Sami, Educator Russo, House Manager Hoy and Social Chairman Matthew Casper, are all 18.

“Some fraternities don’t take us seriously,” Russo said, “and some worry that we’re taking their people.”

“I think that’s what gives us the best advantage,” Harty said of AKL’s youthful leadership. “I’ll be here for four more years.”

Harty goes on to say that most fraternity leaders, who assume charge in their junior or senior years, often have
one academic calendar in which to enact the policies and establish the traditions they believe in before they graduate and new students take the helm. Starting out early, Harty believes, will allow him and his peers to fully impart their vision onto Mason’s AKL in a way he hopes will be long-lasting.

House Manager Travis Hoy said, “We can make it how we want it to be.”

“Making it how they want it to be” is a key premise, and, as the AKL founders tell it, was the reason for their fraternity’s establishment in the first place.

Harty, Russo and Hoy were all associated with other fraternities before embarking on their own project. Harty
and Russo were pledging for Phi Sigma Kappa during the fall semester.

“We liked it,” Harty said. “But while we were involved with schoolwork, while we were involved with other activities,”
pledge obligations took up a good deal of their time.

Harty states that though he enjoyed Phi Sigma Kappa, he and the others found some of the fraternity’s demands to be difficult.

“We just thought we’d have fun doing it another way,” Russo said.

That other way includes what the AKL founders trump as a more inclusive atmosphere, a decided focus on academics and a yearly membership fee of $225, one of the lowest rates at a university where the average fraternity brother pays dues
of $700 per year, according to the AKL founders.

AKL leadership states that, since the colony’s founding on Nov. 11, it has recruited 23 members, a figure that makes the teenage fraternity one of the fastest growing in Mason history. The Executive Board hopes to increase that number to 30 by May and already has a number of activities planned for the near future.

On Jan. 26, nine AKL members will attend a black-tie charity event at James Madison University. The fraternity plans to donate just under $300 to help forward the preservation of rainforests worldwide.

Additionally, Russo is in negotiations with the group “America’s Wounded Soldiers,” headed by Laura Bush, who shares the first lady’s name, to do volunteer work visiting with servicemen and women who have been injured in the course of the Afghan and Iraqi wars.

Russo says that he and his fellow members would bring the soldiers flowers and cards and “[give] them the appreciation they deserve.”

Fraternity leaders will be setting up a kiosk in the Johnson Center for the next two weeks, Monday through Thursday, and can also be contacted through their Facebook group.