AU's Interfraternity Council recognized a new fraternity on campus, Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), which officially advanced from an interest group to a colony Wednesday.
AU's TKE colony currently has 17 members, according to AU TKE President Josh Linder.
Students from AU's Tenley campus started the process of founding a TKE colony during the last academic year, according to IFC President John Barber. Linder said he helped recruit others who were interested in the fraternity and consulted the IFC.
At last week's IFC meeting, TKE gave a presentation about their fraternity and goals, and the IFC approved the fraternity's recognition, according to Linder.
Christopher Hanson, a grand council member of the national TKE fraternity, met with AU's TKE members over dinner last week and discussed the fraternity's declaration of principles, including strategies on how to live with these principles and how to bring them forth in a non-traditional manner.
The TKE declaration of principles is about strict adherence and unswerving fidelity to what the fraternity believes to be the basic principles of true friendship. The essential elements of true brotherhood are love, charity and esteem, according to the fraternity's Web site.
The brothers of TKE look forward to being accepted into the AU greek community, according to Linder.
"We can't wait to contribute to [AU's] community," Linder said. "In fact, we feel we've already brought positive impact to AU's campus life. This is truly a memorable moment in life. It has taken [much] turmoil and work to get here."
This new fraternity would contribute to AU's greek environment, said Josh Kaplan, a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi and a sophomore in the School of International Service.
"As a member of another greek organization, I feel that TKE will bring a lot to AU and raise the profile of greek life as a whole on AU's campus," he said.
Linder said the TKE colony believes in bringing ideas into action, and action into service. Their first event as an established campus fraternity was to volunteer their time Thursday during AU alumnus and former NBA star Kermit Washington's campout event to call attention to hunger in Kenya.
"I'm proud of these other 16 gentlemen, and I more than appreciate the help we have received from the national organization," Linder said. "We are looking forward to working with the other greek fraternities and sororities. They are all so wonderful."
A group of students at Illinois Wesleyan University founded TKE in 1899 in Bloomington, Ill. There were 245,657 members as of Sunday, with chapters or colonies on more than 300 college campuses, according to TKE's national Web site.
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