On the second day of June, of the year 1999, eight gentlemen watched a vision come together and decided to declare that day the founding day of what would soon be the most respected and prestigious South Asian fraternity in the country. Abu Abraham, Ankur Kumar, Ankur Parikh, Ali Zhumkhawala, Roshan Patel, Ashish Nagdev, Samir Khandhar, and Hashu Datwani saw something that no other had seen, a bond that was
created and sought after by many but could only be accomplished by those that had it deep within their hearts. On that day they founded the path of the lion, which is now known to the public as Beta Chi Theta, consisting of over 10 chapters and colonies. These eight national founding fathers have seen this organization break through any and all barriers that was laid forth and now can proudly say that Beta Chi Theta is one of the largest South Asian organizations in the country with over 300+ brothers nationwide with a large collective alumni base, also making it one of few South Asian fraternities to extend to all three coasts of the United States. Beta Chi Theta is also the first South Asian Fraternity to gain admission to the prestigious Inter-Fraternity Council, first granted to our Alpha chapter at UCLA. Our chapters and colonies have grown through time and have produced men to represent the same visions our founders saw. They now wear our official fraternity colors: Black, White, and Silver, along with the Sigel and Rampant Lion, that lives within every brother of this grand organization and even those to come.
The eight founding fathers saw within their vision to find those like themselves, at some of the most prestigious schools, with some of the most intelligent and intuitive gentlemen, to help carry on what they had established. With the proper format and ideologies set forth they did just that by fostering Beta Chi Theta at the following schools: UCLA, Baylor University, Cal Poly Pomona University, Oklahoma University, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UT Austin, Vanderbilt University, and Purdue University.
In the past several years, our OU and UCLA chapters have each been recognized at least once as the highest fraternal GPA on campus, and the UT Austin chapter has won the best overall Recreational organization as well. Within all of Beta Chi Theta's accomplishments the host schools have developed 4 National Merit scholars along with some of the most decorated professionals who are employed in a wide range of industries from Investment Banking, Accounting, Engineering, Computer Science, Finance, Law, Medical Research, etc. By being introduced to the principles of Beta Chi Theta, our brothers have been able to take their academic and networking skills and allow themselves to create strong relationships with their employers and internship/co-operative education programs such as Inroads. Bottom-line: our brothers are well prepared to enter the professional world well before they graduate, which is a testament to the level of academic accomplishment that is instilled in all of our gentlemen.
It is unfortunate that we live in a world where underpriveleged people experience the hardships of everyday life. By seeing these situations around us, being a brother of Beta Chi Theta means that he is helping those in our community that can benefit from our services.
To this date Beta Chi Theta has 8500+ documented hours of community service all over the country. Beta Chi Theta has participated in some innovative service events such as Beating Heart Disease Week, Hoops 4 Hopes, Quarters Against Cancer, Boys and Girls Club, Convalescent homes, and many more. In addition, the Eta Chapter at UT Austin was featured recently in Marie Claire Magazine for VAV (Voices Against Violence) which spread awareness about domestic violence against women. Along with those thousands of hours of service, Beta Chi Theta has found time to raise $10,000+ last year for Aid organizations. As time progresses and brothers get more creative as service directors, our helping hand will be able to stretch farther then we can imagine.
