By Kamryn Anthis | Staff Writer
More than 30 years separate Kappa Chi Alpha founder Suzy Eisenberg and current president Kassidy Robinson, but both women found the same thing in the Baylor sorority: a Christian community that extends beyond college.
Chartered in 1990, Kappa Chi Alpha is a faith-based, non-Panhellenic sorority that combines traditional Greek life activities and service to the Waco community. Without a national association, KXA focuses its outreach on local organizations.
“With it being just a Baylor org, and just a Waco org, we wanted to kind of turn around and give back directly,” Robinson, a senior from Waco, said. “A lot of stuff that we do is with Mission Waco. KXA has no intention of going to the national level or being some sort of national org, and so we very intentionally try to partner with things that are nearby.”
For Robinson, KXA offered the opportunity to find a Christian community within Baylor’s larger student body while still experiencing the social opportunities of a sorority.
“I wanted something with a specifically Christian focus,” Robinson said. “I knew that being at Baylor, anywhere I went, I would be able to find Christian community. But I wanted something that specifically was going to be a girls group that was bigger than a life group, that would offer me the same social opportunities and community and that would be outside of my church”
Fourth-generation Baylor alumna Eisenberg said she helped establish KXA in 1990 to meet the need for an affordable, faith-centered alternative to traditional Greek life.
“I’d say we probably had about 25 every year,” Eisenberg said. “So 25 charter, 25 each year after. It grew real fast. I mean, there was a real need for it. It was inexpensive, it was Christian and we had the retreats, and the dances and for service. It was just like a sorority, but for way less money.”
The day-to-day proceedings of KXA, Robinson said, include many of the same traditions as other sororities on campus, with a larger emphasis on faith.
“Since we classify ourselves as a sorority, we do sorority things,” Robinson said. “So we do formal, we do semi-formal. We do recruitment like normal. We’ll do take-a-dates. But then, with it being more Christian-focused, we also do large-group devotionals every week and small-group devotionals and Bible studies together. We have our big sisterhood retreat.”
KXA typically brings in smaller class sizes than the national Panhellenic sororities on campus. With approximately 60 to 80 members in each recruitment class, Robinson said KXA offers a community where she can get to know each woman personally.
“I know everyone’s name, I know what they’re doing and I know what’s going on in their lives,” Robinson said. “I’ve always really enjoyed the fact it can be that community [where] if I see someone on campus, I know they’re in my org because I’ve talked to them.”
Eisenberg said finding community outside traditional Greek life could be difficult at Baylor. KXA provided an opportunity to build friendships while participating in social events and service projects.
“Baylor can be a hard place if you’re not Greek; at least it was back then,” Eisenberg said. “So I think I realized pretty early that if I didn’t join something, my inclination was to go to the library and study and not be social. So I think I just jumped on this opportunity to be forced to do stuff.”
More than three decades later, Robinson said she also struggled to find her place at Baylor before joining KXA, saying it is where she is “meant to be.”
“My biggest blessing in college has been joining this org,” Robinson said. “I came into college, and I know a lot of girls that are in Greek life feel this way, just struggling to find community, and I didn’t really know who my people were.”
Robinson said the relationships she has formed through KXA are ones she expects to maintain long after graduation.
For Eisenberg, those lasting friendships have already become a reality. She said she stays in touch with women she met through KXA, supporting one another through life’s challenges more than 30 years after the sorority’s founding.
“It’s a really solid group of women that are there for you all the way through [with] a lot of prayer support,” Eisenberg said.
