With hair still damp and several neckties still unknotted, the founding members of Syracuse University and SUNY ESF’s Delta Lambda Phi social fraternity beamed with pride and tinges of apprehension.

They trickled in, one at a time, to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center last Saturday night for a reception celebrating their leap to colony status.

‘I’m feeling tons and tons of excitement,’ said Derek Bryant, a sophomore landscape architect major in the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. ‘And nervousness. I really don’t know what to expect at the rituals later.’

After a little more than a month of planning, the seven SU and ESF students and one community member, Cliff Lyons, raised money, filled out all the paperwork and met all the national requirements to make their interest group a colony. They received their pledge pins and, shortly following the reception, underwent their rituals to become formal pledges.

‘These guys are really pioneers,’ said Adrea Jaehnig, director of the SU LGBT center. ‘They’re really creating space in part of the university and really creating space for the people after them. They may never know the impact they’ve had on them.’

Guests mingled, smiled and laughed with the members of the new colony in the center’s small, spotless lounge. Short stacks of the group’s signature sugar and chocolate cookies, carefully arranged on a black plate, rested on a table of refreshments.

Jaehnig peered up into the eyes of several members and questioned the dating policy within the group.

‘There’s a hands-off policy,’ said James Kaechele, president of the group. He and his fellow members tried to explain the circumstances of in-house romances.

‘So could you date him?’ Jaehnig asked, pointing to Scott Huegelmeyer, a junior English major, another member.

‘No, but I wouldn’t want to,’ Kaechele said, grinning as the group laughed.

As the room filled with people, the SU and ESF colonists became almost indistinguishable from their fellow brothers and colonists who had arrived from Boston, New York City and other locations to celebrate their accomplishment.

‘It’s really fun to be hanging out with different people from other chapters,’ Bryant said.

Although they had only met some of their guests that day or the day before, they had already felt like close friends, Bryant said.

‘We can all hang out and have fun with each other when we didn’t even know each other,’ Bryant said. ‘We all have this one bond of DLP.’

Several of the guests were amazed by the rapid achievement and brotherhood of the SU and ESF colony.

‘Everything I see here has been incredibly impressive,’ said Josh Powell, a member of the founding class of the Washington, D.C., chapter. ‘I’ve just kind of seen a sense of how they’ve already formed really close friendships, and that’s very unusual in a brand new colony.’

Howard Waters, an alumnus from the Boston chapter, said that, although he has lost close contact with some of his brothers, his attendance at the reception reminded him of how the bonds last a lifetime.

‘What they’re forming here is this incredible kind of friendship that you’ll always have,’ Waters said. ‘Everything is the same coming back.’

Published on November 26, 2003 at 12:00 pm