By Nathan Eagle
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Diego Gil, from Colombia (left), the vice president, and Jose Antonio Madera Jr., from Puerto Rico, the president, preside over Sigma Lambda Beta at Miami University. The Cincinnati Enquirer/MICHAEL SNYDER

OXFORD - A new Latino-based fraternity hopes to help Miami University students campus-wide embrace diversity.

"It's a diverse world," said Joel Rivera, president of Sigma Lambda Beta, which gained official recognition and a charter in December. "We'd like to promote cultural awareness ... promote diversity."

While the fraternity is geared toward Hispanics, all potential members are welcome, said Rivera, a senior zoology major from Panama City, Panama. The other six members are of Puerto Rican, Colombian, Mexican or Nicaraguan descent - except Joe Coury, the only one of the seven initial members who is not Hispanic. Coury is of Lebanese descent.

Sigma Lambda Beta was founded April 4, 1986, at the University of Iowa. Chapters now stretch coast to coast and to Puerto Rico, according to Rivera. The members make a lifelong commitment to brotherhood, scholarship, cultural awareness and community service.

"We feel we should give back to the community," Rivera said. "There's a lot of people in Cincinnati, Hamilton and Oxford that aren't so privileged. We want to help those people."

In February, the group arranged an inside look at university life for some Withrow High School students from Cincinnati.

"We wanted to try to show them the college experience," Coury said. "We also wanted to show them that there are a lot of ways to pay for college."

The students came to Miami for two nights. Fraternity members took the teens to class, helped them with financial forms, gave them words of advice and had fun.

"One of the big things we're trying to do is garner support from not only the Cincinnati community, but the Cincinnati Latino business community," Coury said. "We're trying to get some scholarships going for Miami."

University statistics show that some 260 of some 15,400 undergraduate students enrolled last year were Hispanic, compared to 117 in 1994.

In Butler County, the Hispanic population jumped from 1,467 (.05 percent of the countywide population) in 1990 to 4,771 (1.4 percent) in 2000.

The idea for a Miami chapter had been stirring since 2001.

"Eventually, we got the ball rolling," Coury said.

Todd Arrington, senior program assistant for multicultural student enrichment at Miami, said the campus has evolved from "just a handful" of Hispanic students to formation of several related groups, including a club called Sabor, and the Association of Latin American Students.

Sigma Lambda Beta "is one of those things that people didn't think would happen, and it happened," Arrington said. "These guys have a lot of drive, a lot of pizazz. On top of that, they are some really smart guys."