True Brother is the pathway defining a brother’s journey through Lambda Chi Alpha, from recruitment and association to alumni status by introducing the inner circle, outer circle, and lifelong mastery circle.
Seven Core Values
The backbone of True Brother is its Seven Core Values. The acronym LDRSHIP is used to represent the values of loyalty, duty, respect, service and stewardship, honor, integrity, and personal courage.
- Loyalty: Bear true faith and allegiance to Lambda Chi Alpha, your chapter, and your brothers.
- Duty: Fulfill all your obligations from associate member and ritual oaths.
- Respect: Treat people as they should be treated.
- Service & Stewardship: Put the welfare of Lambda Chi Alpha, your chapter, and your brothers before your own. Know that as a brother you hold something of value in trust for others.
- Honor: Live all our values and be an honorable man.
- Integrity: Do what is right all of the time — walk the walk.
- Personal Courage: Demonstrate the courage of your convictions.
LDRSHIP is who we as a Fraternity are, what we know, and what we are expected to do. It’s our character, our competence, and how we take action as leaders that define the True Brothers of Lambda Chi Alpha.
Outer Circle
New members of Lambda Chi Alpha are recruited and then immediately welcomed as potential brothers in the bond through the Fraternity’s exoteric Associate Member Ceremony.
After experiencing the Associate Member Ceremony, new members are exposed to the Calling to Brotherhood — Lambda Chi Alpha’s associate member education program and training curriculum.
Over the course of the eight weeks, associates learn about Lambda Chi Alpha, its history, organization, and governing bodies. The associates are trained to become leaders of their chapter, campus, and country. As important, associates are taught how to develop brotherhood.
During associate member orientation, new members learn the Seven Core Values, which form the foundation of Lambda Chi Alpha’s approach to brotherhood.
Over the ensuing weeks, the Seven Core Values are examined, one per week, and defined as to how each core value relates to real situations in Lambda Chi Alpha.
The last step before initiation is the associate member’s exposure to our Exoteric Mysteries — the True Brother’s approach to pre-initiation. As understanding the pre-initiation is a crucial component of the undergraduate experience, the Fraternity now offers 20 approved pre-initiation events and activities.
Inner Circle
The inner circle is the stage in Lambda Chi Alpha where brotherhood development takes root and answers the question: “How do I translate what I learned while in the outer circle and best use my talents and skills to help build my leadership and programmatic skills?”
Historically, this is the area where most chapters drop the ball by not continuing to develop our members after initiation.
During this important stage, knowledge about the Fraternity and rituals is translated and turned into action and skill building for our members. Thus, we create better chapters for Lambda Chi Alpha by increasing the capacity of our undergraduate brothers to work productively at the chapter and community level.
The initiated brother’s journey of True Brother is divided into four levels, with each level focusing on a set of developmental outcomes that contribute to the construction and adoption of the True Brother identity.
Each level focuses on a developmental pathway — faithful stewardship, servant leadership, leadership of character, and lifetime brotherhood — from which brothers can choose a range of participative experiences that suit their learning and development styles.
Reflective exercises associated with each developmental level ensure that brothers do not miss the meaning of their experiences.
- Faithful Steward: A brother who is a faithful steward understands that Lambda Chi Alpha is a precious gift that is given to him and that it is his duty to be a good steward of its welfare all of his life.
- Servant Leader: TThe servant leader is committed to self-improvement, lifelong learning, and personal growth, and he always strives to provide for the legitimate needs of people. He also understands that being a servant leader means investing personally in the development of others by actively teaching, mentoring, and role modeling the way of the True Brother.
- Leader of Character: Lambda Chi Alpha expects a member to be a leader of character. The leader of character leads from a base of values. He not only has the technical competence to do things the right way, but his character gives him the courage to do right things..
- Lifetime Brother: The True Brother understands that the solemn oaths freely undertaken during our rituals obligate him to commitments beyond graduation from college. The lifetime brother seeks ways to continue to serve because he sees real value in his fraternal experiences and wants others to have the opportunity to share those same experiences.
Lifelong Mastery Circle
The lifelong mastery circle is simply a way to convey there is life in Lambda Chi Alpha after graduation. It recognizes that those brothers who truly grasp our ideals and teachings have much more to offer the Fraternity and the larger society as men of character.
The goal of the undergraduate experience is to master the experience and then live our principles and ideals.
The lifelong mastery circle actually begins before graduation and helps our graduating seniors’ transition into productive alumni. Service back to the Fraternity is also something that should be striven for and can be tracked.
Examples of service include serving as a chapter adviser or housing corporation member, being a local alumni volunteer, donating financially, or serving on the Fraternity staff or an international board.
Initiative in Summary
The True Brother journey is designed to support the successful development of young men, understanding the significant developmental tasks of this period of life, maximizing the positive influence of peers and mentors, and moving our brothers towards an increased capacity for self-reflection and self-awareness, empathy, altruism, and intimacy.
This program sets up goals of leadership, stewardship, learning and service, and explicates a range of core values associated with being a true brother, which when pursued, leads toward a better tomorrow for Lambda Chi Alpha.