One fraternity was tossing around a football, the other was painting shirts. Both were out recruiting.

Tuesday afternoon, two of Oregon State’s smaller fraternities—Delta Lambda Phi and Kappa Delta Rho—took to the MU Quad and the SEC Plaza hoping to find new students to join their respective chapters.

Delta Lambda Phi focuses on diversity and does not segregate based on a member’s sexual orientation. According to Philanthropy Chair Chris Hands, the fraternity wants to be welcoming to all people.  

“We want to be the really inclusive fraternity on campus,” Hands, a senior communications major, said. “We know that Greek life has the misconception to not be as inclusive as everyone wants them to be.”

Chartered in the fall of 2015, Delta Lambda Phi became fully operational in the fall of this past year.  With only six members, Hands is hoping for that number to double throughout their recruitment week.

Besides selling themselves as an inclusive fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi emphasizes that they are not the ‘typical fraternity’ and that students who choose to join will be part of the building process of the new chapter, according to Hands.

“The people who actually join actually get to start the process with us of creating our bylaws and being able to be there at the foundation of the fraternity, and be able to take the chance to make the fraternity the way people want it to be,” Hands said. “A lot of the fraternities on campus have been around for so many years that when you join, you don’t have much of a say, you have to go by the rules and don’t have much wiggle room.”

For Kappa Delta Rho, 40 is their magic number. Currently without a house, once Kappa Delta Rho reaches 40 members, they will be able to get one. This, according to Social Chair Esteban Vega, will help them attract even more new members to their chapter.  

“We have to go out and recruit people,” Vega, a freshman majoring in bioengineering, said. “Whereas bigger fraternities have people come to them.”

The elevator pitch that Vega and senior Bryce Robinson are giving to potential members is the close-knit community that is created by the small number of brothers.

“We just really want to get to know the guys,” Robinson, a freshman studying microbiology, said. “Make sure that they are people we can get along with and help the fraternity.”

“I was able to get to know everybody and it felt like a closer community,” Vega added.