“The True Gentleman” is their motto.

Meaning be true to theirselves, their brothers and their community.

Three freshmen came to Eastern not knowing they would become the founding fathers of Eastern’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

Sam Harris, Justin Myers and Andy Laird were recommended to start the fraternity by Paul Willard, the Assistant Resident Director of Carman Hall.

Willard helped the men get approval of starting SAE and become a colony, which is the first step to becoming finalized.

In order to become a colony the fraternity needed between 10 to 20 members, a fee of $75 per a member, 2.5 grade point average and $3,000 in their account to start the chapter.

“No one or group of people can start a fraternity, it’s a group effort,” said Harris, a finance major and treasurer of SAE.

As they continue to build up membership, there are currently 14 SAE members.

“Each of the members are active in leadership groups throughout campus, which is rare to find,” Harris said. “It’s amazing to have started from scratch and made something like this work.”

“When the option came up, we couldn’t pass this up,” he said.

With more than 285,000 members, SAE is one of the largest social fraternities in the country.

“There’s a certain prestige to starting a fraternity,” said Laird, an education major and correspondent of SAE. “SAE holds a lot of weight in the U.S., it’s good to be a part of.”

Although it takes a large time commitment and organization, Harris thinks starting SAE has been a great experience.

“It’s been a lot of fun so far. We’ve made a lot of friends and the amount of work we’ve gotten done is surprising,” Harris said. “We work to work together. Hand-in-hand.”

Also, forming a fraternity from scratch has helped the members get a better idea of the meaning of a fraternity.

“We get to see the idea of what a fraternity is all about, not just a bunch of guys sitting around on the weekend drinking beer,” Laird said.

The members decided to form the fraternity early in their college career so they would be able to see how it progressed throughout the years.

“We didn’t want to start the fraternity our senior year and leave,” Harris said.

The founders were surprised with the amount of support given from Greek community.

“We were more than welcomed coming to campus,” said Myers, biology major and president of SAE. “Other fraternities have helped and supported us so much. They’ve even offered to help us sponsor events.”