All for One: 178 Years Later, Fraternity Still Matters
Six friends asked whether fraternity could mean something more—178 years later, Phi Delts are still answering yes.
“They never made me ask for help; they just showed up.”
That’s how Jelani Gandy, Stockton ’21, describes the roommates who carried him through the worst year of his life—losing his father to cancer, then his brother, during a global pandemic. It’s also, in two short phrases, what Robert Morrison and five friends were trying to build at Miami University nearly 180 years earlier.
Phi Delta Theta was born at Miami University in 1848 from a question: Was there room for a new fraternity that was founded on a different basis? With no fraternities then operating on campus, Robert Morrison raised the idea with John McMillan Wilson. Fifty years later, Morrison recalled that the founders believed fraternity life should rest on mutual responsibility: every man is an individual, but he is also a member of society. To be happy, he claimed, it was essential that it was man’s duty to be helped and to help others. The Immortal Six approached the creation of the Fraternity with all the seriousness their scholarly and philosophical training could provide. As John Wolfe Lindley later confirmed, they never imagined that the society would be merely local or temporary.
“Primarily, the Fraternity is a social organization. It is the duty of the members to render mutual assistance to one another in all honorable undertakings.”
Walter B. Palmer
What were those six friends seeking when they sat down to write The Bond? Connection, belonging, growth, and a way to become better men. Nearly 180 years later, those same aspirations continue to draw men to Phi Delta Theta.
Since its founding, the Fraternity has helped young men learn both how to support others and how to accept support in return. Along the way, they have become better friends, scholars, community members, and citizens.
In the Spring 2026 issue, we shared findings from research by the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) and Foundation for Fraternal Excellence (FFE) on the male loneliness epidemic. The data showed that, in relation to young men’s mental health and overall well-being, college students who join organizations such as fraternities report greater fulfillment and meaning in their lives. We wanted to understand what those findings look like in the lives of Phi Delta Theta members. Fraternities offered a path in 1848; today, amid uncertainty for young men, the following stories show that the lifelong value of brotherhood is measured by belonging, purpose, accountability, and relationships built to last, and that fraternities can counter the prevailing trend toward isolation and loneliness.
Belonging
Drew King’s (far right) confidence grew as he and his chapter brothers built Arkansas Beta. Pictured here with his wife, Allison, and Gavin Grubbs, ’24.
When Drew King, Arkansas State ’23, arrived on campus four hours away from home, he was hoping to create new opportunities and become more independent. A global pandemic wasn’t part of that plan. Looking for a way to connect with others, he picked up an old hobby, disc golf, and met a group of guys helping to establish a new fraternity chapter on campus. At first he wasn’t interested—fraternities weren’t his thing—but the idea of shaping a chapter’s culture from the ground up, rather than joining one already set in its ways, changed his mind. “What I found was a group of men committed to personal growth, leadership, accountability, and supporting one another,” he says. “More importantly, I found an organization dedicated to building better men in a world that often encourages the opposite.”
The culture Drew’s founding class built at Arkansas Beta is visible in senior Harrison Herget, who wasn’t looking to join a fraternity either—he nearly left Arkansas State to stay close to high school friends before his mother and girlfriend persuaded him to try recruitment. “Being part of Phi Delt has given me a sense of purpose far greater than anything I would have found as a typical student,” he says.
For Bill Lenz, Iowa State ’63, the stakes were even more direct: without his membership, he says, he would not have stayed in school. “As a freshman, the active support of scholarship was of great importance and is what kept me enrolled,” he reflects. “As time went on, social interactions opened access to extracurricular activities, built significant friendships, and even romantic connections, too.”
For these members, finding their place connected them to relationships that, over time, lit the flame for something larger: a reason to lead, serve, invest in others, and ultimately, belong.
Finding Purpose
Technology may keep today’s students constantly connected, yet many young men still feel isolated and uncertain of their place in the world. In that gap, brotherhood can offer more than companionship; it can provide direction. For Mercer senior Shourya Dhruv, Phi Delta Theta filled that gap by providing “authentic relationships, mentorship, accountability, and a community that encourages personal growth.”
Jeff Hill, Nebraska ’11, had such a positive fraternity experience that he wants to pay it forward. “I joined for the networking, but I gained a purpose,” he says. Now a college lecturer, writing tutor, and editor pursuing a PhD in human sciences, Hill has devoted his doctoral dissertation to studying how to re-engage disengaged young men. “Members of Phi Delta Theta are not immune to the problems of today,” he says, “but they are certainly better equipped to combat them. Together.”
Louisville-based lawyer Matthew Bunnell, Western Kentucky ’17, acknowledges that a person can still feel lonely in a group. But Phi Delta Theta can, he says, “give you a purpose that is bigger than yourself. Whether it’s philanthropy or running for an officer position, there are natural opportunities to get you to open up your lived experience.” Bunnell was one of a handful of men who restarted the Kentucky Eta Chapter, and alumni and chapter advisers guided the undergraduates toward professional opportunities. He credits Joe Morel, ’02, with helping him secure his first college job at a law firm: “I might not even have gone into law without that introduction,” he says.
Purpose becomes most powerful when members have the resources and opportunities to act on it. Scholarships, leadership programs, and chapter responsibilities turn the ideals of brotherhood into practical support and real-world preparation.
Defining Value
Scholarships and Grants
Shourya Dhruv received a Phi Delta Theta Foundation First-Generation Student Scholarship that eased the financial burden of college. “As a first-generation student,” he says, “it also served as a reminder that the Fraternity believes in investing in its members’ potential.” Matthew Bunnell felt similar relief after receiving two Foundation scholarships. College, he believes, should be about “finding yourself, finding community, building relationships, making connections, finding mentors, and networking with alumni”—not worrying whether there’s enough money for meals, academic needs, or fraternity membership.
To date, the Foundation has awarded more than $1.1 million through the First-Generation Student Scholarship program. Over the past twenty-five years, it has distributed more than $9 million in educational grants supporting the Fraternity’s leadership programs, conferences, and educational initiatives.
Leadership Development
Both the Kleberg Emerging Leaders Institute and the McKenzie Family Presidents Leadership Conference link practical competencies—communication, accountability, problem- solving—to the principles of The Bond. After attending Kleberg in 2025, Nate Buntzen, UC Davis ’27, says it “showed me that Phi Delta Theta was much more than just the chapter here at UC Davis I call home.” Harrison Herget, who attended in 2024 and returned in 2026 as a peer mentor, carried a similar lesson: the value of “openly sharing ideas and being willing to both give and receive help. . . . These conferences open the door to a nationwide network, if you’re willing to put yourself out there.”
Career Preparation
Chapter leadership often provides real-world experience before graduation. “Something the Fraternity really helped me with is learning how the corporate world works,” says Max Sheehan, Chapman ’27. Don Wiggins, Georgia Southern ’71, now chairman of Heritage Capital Group and professor emeritus at the University of North Florida, traces his sense of how organizations function back to his time as chapter president: “It gave me a sense of how various phases of an organization work together.”
Michael Good, Southern Indiana ’97, credits the Fraternity with pushing him beyond his comfort zone: “It gave me opportunities to lead, work through conflict, organize events, and interact with people with very different backgrounds and personalities. Those experiences prepared me for the real world in ways a classroom never could.” Now president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, Good has led organizations across healthcare, technology, manufacturing, motorsports, and nonprofit leadership. Yet the Fraternity’s deepest value, he says, extends beyond professional success: “It’s measured by who is still there thirty years later—that’s the real value.”
Everyday Value
Programs and scholarships illustrate the Fraternity’s value at scale. Yet members often understand that value most clearly in quieter moments, when a brother notices a need and responds without being asked.
Greg Hofstatter, CU Boulder ’28, believes that value is “shown less in the big moments and more in the small ones that happen day to day. Last fall, I tore my meniscus and was faced with a long recovery. In the weeks that followed, whether someone dropped me off at appointments or class, did me a favor, or let me take the more comfortable seat on the couch, I experienced the small things that make a brotherhood like mine so valuable. I could have gotten through recovery on my own, but having people make my life easier without a second thought didn’t just make it easier; it meant something.”
Fraternity also teaches service-minded leadership. When Georgia Gamma raised more than $13,000 for Live Like Lou, Shourya Dhruv said the experience reminded him that “fraternity isn’t just about friendship; it’s about using our collective efforts to make a meaningful impact on others.” Max Sheehan reached a similar conclusion after California Phi supported its Live Like Lou ALS family: “It is valuable to surround yourself with people who want to help others and make the world a better place.”
Sometimes those small acts of care become a lifeline. For members facing loss, uncertainty, or upheaval, brotherhood is not an abstract ideal but a group of people who choose to show up.
Brotherhood in Action
Jelani Gandy opened this story. Not finding a fraternity on campus that fit what he was looking for, he and a group of thirty strangers built New Jersey Delta from the ground up—and that bond proved critical during his senior year, when he lost his father to cancer in August 2020, then his brother on the day of his grandfather’s funeral, all during a global pandemic. “My roommates Kyle Jackson, Richard Diaz, Drew Broesler, and Robbie Mansfield were the men who carried me through it,” he says. “They never made me ask for help; they just showed up. They sat with me on the hard nights, dragged me out of the house when I needed it, knocked on doors for my campaign, and made sure I never grieved alone. That’s what brotherhood is.”
Joe Staker, Kansas ’27, believes it’s the subtle moments where a lifelong brotherhood is built: “seniors mentoring freshmen, pledge brothers studying for an accounting exam, weekly bible studies, and conversations with Mom K, our house mother.” Only through those moments, he says, does a fraternity transform “from a few letters on your shirt to the greater realization that you have a support network of men pushing you to become the greatest version of yourself.”
Showing up in a crisis reveals the strength of brotherhood. Continuing to show up across decades reveals its permanence.
“The spirit of the Fraternity is well embodied in the mutual pledge, ‘All for one and one for all.’”
Walter B. Palmer
Fraternity for Life
From left to right, Will Drebes, his son, and father, Bill Drebes.
In a world where it’s easy to have thousands of online connections but few people you can rely on, Michael Good believes “brotherhood isn’t about wearing letters—it’s about having people who challenge you, celebrate your successes, hold you accountable, and show up when life gets difficult.” Those lessons, he says, don’t end at graduation; if anything, they matter more as careers, families, and life grow more complex.
Will Drebes, UNLV ’91, who founded Nevada Beta, has always told prospective members: “You get out of Phi Delt what you put in.” Ben Morrow, Westminster ’21, arrived on campus planning to focus solely on academics, but calls joining the Fraternity the best decision he’s ever made—it gave him “a sense of belonging and responsibility” he now hopes to pay forward as an alumnus. Dr. Gregory Gray, Clarion ’11, credits the Fraternity with teaching him time management, how to find his voice as a leader, and how to communicate effectively: “you gain experience and life lessons, but brotherhood continues to grow and brings you back to your roots.”
No one describes what might have been lost more directly than Matthew Bunnell:
“I don’t think the sense of belonging and community would have existed for me. While I’d like to think that I would have made friends—I’m sure I would have—my core group of friends here in Louisville is all former Fraternity people or people I met because of Phi Delta Theta. I often get together and play golf with a couple of these guys. I watched the FIFA World Cup with my Fraternity brothers, their spouses, and kids. But the relationships we built in the chapter house go deeper than playing or watching sports today. It’s those moments in your life where you rely on these friends for their support. My brothers have stood by me as my parents recently went through cancer treatments. It’s these moments that prove these friendships are more than just surface-level college relationships you leave behind when you graduate. So, yeah, I just can’t imagine my college experience without joining Phi Delt. It was really by far the best decision that I made during my time at WKU.”
As you read these stories, you may have recognized your own Phi Delt experience. Like Drew, Harrison, or Ben, perhaps you were not looking for a fraternity until a friend, a family member, or an inner voice encouraged you to take a chance. Perhaps an adviser helped launch your career or inspired you to give back. Perhaps you have met another Phi Delt unexpectedly, attended a First Thursday with the Phis, or reunited with old friends and resumed a conversation as though no time had passed.
Bill Lenz recently saw the depth of those bonds in messages sent after an older brother entered the Chapter Grand: “He was my oldest friend and was one of the most admirable people I have known.” Another wrote, “He was my pledge dad. He was extremely helpful to me with the guidance that a young Phikeia needs during that first year away from home. I will cherish the memories of those times.”
Relationships like these do not happen by accident. They begin with a choice to be open to the question, “What if?” Since 1848, Phi Delta Theta has pursued what Walter B. Palmer called its three principal objectives: “the cultivation of friendship among its members; the acquirement individually of a high degree of mental culture, and the attainment personally of a high standard of morality.” Those Cardinal Principles have shaped the lives of more than 300,000 young men.
Jelani Gandy’s roommates never made him ask for help. They just showed up. That is the pledge Phi Delta Theta has made to every member since 1848—and the promise it can only keep if today’s alumni choose to make it, too.
