Six fraternity brothers who met at Florida State University in the 1980s and are still friends today have established FSU’s first scholarship endowment dedicated to students from one of the historical fraternities known as the Divine Nine.
FSU graduates James Brooks, Donald Harvey, André Jackson, Charles Johnson, Leonardo Starke and Zack Stewart have launched the gift under their group name “Disciples of the Diamond” to endow a scholarship for students who belong to the Theta Eta Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, one of the nine Black Greek-letter organizations that comprise the National Pan-Hellenic Council.
The first scholarship will go to FSU junior Alen Felix, a first-generation college student from West Palm Beach who is majoring in human development and family sciences on a pre-physical therapy track. He will receive $3,000 during the school year, which includes $2,000 from the state through a two-to-one matching program for gifts that support first-generation students. More students will receive funding through the scholarship as early as next semester.
“Being chosen to be the inaugural winner of a scholarship that comes from the previous brothers of my fraternity means absolutely everything,” Felix said. “It shows that brothers care to give back to where they came from. In the future, I will return the favor and do the same. I am truly grateful for this opportunity to receive this scholarship.”
The “Disciples of the Diamond” group, whose name references the diamond symbol commonly used by the fraternity, came up with the idea to endow an FSU scholarship while they were golfing together on vacation in the Dominican Republic. All first-generation students themselves, they made the commitment to one another that together they’d help college students who come from similar backgrounds.
“It’s just a sheer blessing that I could attend college, attend Florida State, get my degree, and then some of the other achievements, just a sheer blessing,” said Disciples member Stewart, who works as an operations site leader for Amazon. “And when you’re blessed, you’re being blessed so you can bless others. That’s what providing this endowment is: It’s a vehicle for us to bless others.”
After graduating FSU, all six friends secured successful careers that span the fields of aerospace operations, human resources management, real estate and entertainment law, biotech sales and corporate finance.
