ONYOTA

Simple. During my first interaction with LSU, we partied till 6 AM. At 7 AM, a brother said, “We have community service in 2 hours, and we can’t miss it.” Coming from where I come from, it was always instilled in us that either you party too hard and are not productive, or you work too hard and don’t have enough fun. As a new college student, I sought that balance displayed by these brothers.

 

After months of knowing them, unlike other fraternities, they never asked me to pledge. They never thought they knew me well enough to ask me to be a part of their brotherhood—it was just the way they carried themselves. The thought process has always been: if you want it, you have to go get it. And that resonated with me.

 

 

What’s special about Onyota?

Ray and I—my linebrother—were there from the beginning, alongside our founders. We’d meet in the basement of South, plotting the perks of bringing LSU to campus. Unfortunately, Ray and I slacked our first semester and didn’t get the grades to pledge. Seeing our friends pledge, cross, and bring to life the shared vision motivated us to not only get the grades but to help the chapter reach the next level—to fundamentally change the perception of organizations on campus.

 

Onyota will forever be the place where we cut our teeth. We fought, we learned, we worked harder than anyone we knew to engage the campus on social issues that affected our school and the community at large. Onyota still holds that true. I saw Onyota—and LSU, for that matter—as clay: something we could mold as needed.

 

 

How can you relate to the chapter motto?

I love that this is the chapter motto. What I love even more is that it came after us—proving once again that diversity of thought, creativity, and hard work are the essential skills it takes for any woman or man to change the world. And though we’ve all done a lot in 10 years, I can’t wait to see how we change the world in the next 20.

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