During rush, many fraternity men assert that membership grants Brothers access to networks that stretch beyond college graduation. Hayden Smith ’24, who joined Adam Singer ’24 in his artificial intelligence start-up Lunomotion, believes this and is living it.
“Without Sigma Chi, I wouldn’t have met some of the best friends of my life,” Smith said. “I wouldn’t have met Adam, and now we’re living together and doing this endeavor with each other.”
Smith defends the fraternal experience, citing his experiences in Sigma Chi as examples for how membership can benefit students. “I think fraternities don’t get the greatest rap in society,” he said. “I recommend it to people, and it was an excellent experience. Joining a fraternity is not for everyone, but Sigma Chi is a great place to do that and there’s a lot of good that comes from that.”
“You get to meet good people, stand-up guys. We were all good gentlemen and guys you want to be around, people who contribute to society. At Maryland, the guys who were there before me, they set a great precedent for what it meant to be a Sigma Chi and what it means to share your experience.”
Those examples occurred in college and beyond. “When I was in college, our biggest donor was Mike Luzio ’98. He was very generous with his support. We had a printer that was broken, and needed to replace some chairs and it was great having an alumnus who would give to the chapter so we didn’t have to worry about that. I would like to be able to give that same feeling to people in the future.”
Smith recently needed advice and contacted Nicholas Freda ’22. “I reached out to him a little bit ago because he also works in the commercial real estate business. He was giving me professional advice, but we also talked about life. He talked about how it was important to not be afraid of hearing ‘no’ because you have to put yourself out there in business and in life.”
Sigma Chi connections were not just for business for Smith, though. He made friends with older members in the chapter and those connections are still strong today. “The spring class before my pledge class, Spring 2021, they were the same age but had been in the fraternity longer,” Smith said. “They weren’t in my pledge class, but we got to know them well. They are lifelong friends and they made the experience worthwhile of being in a fraternity. We go on trips and get together now.”
Memories of college life highlighted good times along with meaningful action by the chapter, according to Smith.
“We lived at 14 Fraternity Row and I loved the basement,” Smith said. “The basement was where we had chapter meetings and our meals. We would hang out there after the day and share stories. It was my favorite place to hang out because you never knew who was going to drop by — Brothers in the house, Brothers who didn’t live in the house — anyone might come by.
“I also enjoyed my room, the ‘Penthouse,’ as we called it. I lived with Cole Musser and we had a big TV and X-box and people would play games and hang out.”
His time in Sigma Chi had an effect on Smith and prepared him for life after graduation. “The impact came from the Brotherhood and the people I met and got to experience all of college with,” he said. “From a connection standpoint, having all of those friends and being able to communicate with them and then you all move to different places and get ‘big boy jobs.’ You have to be able to meet people, get to know them, learn from different cultures, go outside of your comfort zone, go to a different event, engage with people and get them to buy into what you were doing, like when we would have philanthropy events.
“Derby Days was fun just in general,” he said. “We would have chapter and social events, but we weren’t always all at one event and working together all the time. With Derby Days, we were all working on one thing and had one goal. At the end, it was great to see how much money we raised. It was the peak of Sigma Chi because we were all working towards one goal and doing that through our Brotherhood.”