Southern Illinois University Colony

In the Fall of 2006, Orlando Cardenas began his undergraduate career at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. There, he met a group of guys who ended up trying to recruit him to join their fraternity. But he did not like what they offered. Going about his business, he met more people and became friends with a specific group of guys who would just hang out together on the daily basis; those other young men were not in any Greek organization themselves. Then one day, the topic of starting up their own fraternity came up randomly. The young men sat down and discussed what issues or voids they wanted to fulfill at their campus, if they brought a new fraternity. Off the bat, retention at the school itself was an issue; most SIUC students, being from the Chicagoland area were pretty far away from home, and more often than not, they would drop out after their first semester. They also wanted to create a true home away from home for their members, as well as give the male SIUC student body another option in their fraternal ambitions. The interested young men did a lot of research in a Latino and Multicultural fraternities. As they narrowed it down to four organizations, they reached out to all of them; two kept constant contact with them, one being Omega Delta Phi. The young men did extended research on the two organizations before making a final decision. During their next meeting, the decided on the organization’s image, sacraments, and they all liked the colors, which was an added plus: Omega Delta Phi was their final decision. The group reached out to Sunny Reyna, who was in charge of expansion at the time. They quickly got to work on the requirements that needed to be met; out of a group of about fifteen, it dropped to eight because of some requirements. During their intake, they visited Alpha Sigma chapter a lot; “The U of I brothers were very helpful and treated us well,” said Cardenas. As a prospective member, Cardenas recalls visiting Alpha Beta chapter at Michigan State University; they were the hosts for the Midwest Regional Conference in the Spring 2008 semester. “It boosted our morale. We had a lot of fun during the dry process,” states Cardenas. Not long after that regional conference, the Unmasking for the Founding line at SIUC took place. They young men quickly got support on their advisors, and a few student organizations, especially Delta Phi Mu Sorority. Many people liked what they were trying to establish on campus because they know what it is like to be away from their family for long periods of time. The SIUC founders were also trying to establish a diverse, all inclusive image. And in their early years, it was evident. On May 3rd, 2008, the Southern Illinois University Colony of Omega Delta Phi was officially founded. The founders of the B.O.S.S. Line were Ricky Rolando Quebrado, Manuel Flores, David Leija, Luis Gabriel, Orlando Cardenas, Julian Rios, Cesar Arteaga, and Alejandro Gonzalez. Though SIUC colony has gone through some tough times, they are still standing. Hats off for neo, Carlos Medrano! He is always reaching out to brothers for assistance with rebuilding SIUC back to its strong roots. The main strength SIUC has is a very strong brotherhood. Those brothers are very close to one another and support each other when necessary. They have more than 40 brothers crossed to date. Wishing SIUC the best!