Members of the Multicultural Greek Council are striving to expand and promote their organizations across campus with the first co-ed Latino-interest fraternity joining their efforts this academic year.
Alpha Psi Lambda officially joined the cultural-based Greek life council in March and has been fully operating on campus as of Fall 2024. The fraternity, however, has been trying to make it on campus since 2018, according to Alpha Psi Lambda president and Weinberg sophomore Theo Damita.
“I remember we sat in some random room in Main (Library) last year and, for two hours, went through all these documents. Eventually, we made a plan,” Damita said. “To start a fraternity or sorority, people must have the same kind of push.”
Like other MGC organizations on campus, Alpha Psi Lambda is working to recruit more members and increase awareness about MGC in the Northwestern community.
For some MGC chapters, this can be challenging as they do not have a common living arrangement, unlike the majority of other on-campus fraternities and sororities.
“MGC is really based on community,” Alpha Psi Lambda secretary and Weinberg sophomore Alison Ayala said. “It’s not like you wake up next to these people and you have to see those letters. You have to go out of your way to be surrounded by that culture.”
Ayala said it can sometimes be difficult to plan meetings or events, as members live in scattered places across campus. At the same time, he said he’s glad he has his own personal space.
Being uniquely co-ed as a fraternity, Alpha Psi Lambda models off the notion of “familia” — “family” in Spanish — a term meant to transcend the limits of gender.
“You don’t have a family with only having brothers or only having sisters,” Damita said. “And so I think with the co-ed aspect, especially for low-income, first-generation students, they’re coming to this space at Northwestern and finding that family.”
