Home Away From Home Campaign Video

When a young man arrives in Vermillion to begin his first semester, he hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s in for. In the August heat, he hauls totes and hangers into a large complex that hardly resembles his childhood home and is filled with thousands of new faces, eyes as wide as his own.

Knowing little of his interests or skills, he chooses a major, attends (or skips) class, joins a club, and announces a career goal. Each time he leaves his residence hall, his community grows.

But it’s the lucky few who truly find a home.

Fraternities have played a unique role in helping young men grow into themselves for nearly as long as the University of South Dakota has existed. If classrooms were built for schooling, fraternities were built for learning.

Almost by accident, fraternity men engage more fully on campus, give more generously to their community, and score higher GPAs than their non-Greek peers. Only it’s not an accident, and their success extends decades beyond the college walls.

Among them, Lambda Chi Alpha stands as the most storied and within its roster, many of the most successful. Beyond vocation or accolade, Lambda Chi’s are good men—in a world whose communities and families need good fathers, husbands, and brothers.

Wherever we are today and whoever we’ve become, we owe a part of that to our time at 327 North Pine. There, we grew up—we learned to disagree with respect, to succeed without arrogance, and to lead by serving.

On the surface, the Home Away From Home Campaign looks to rebuild a facility that’s too old and worn to continue. But, more importantly, this campaign does for the next generation what the previous did for us.

Your support to this campaign reaffirms what we knew to be true then and still know today: that Lambda Chi Alpha is our home and young men today are worth our investment.

Yours in ZAX,

Dennis Daugaard, Jim Abbot, & Mark Mickelson

Campaign Co-Chairmen