Cornell’s chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity established a new facility on campus that houses both a community hub and residence hall associated with the fraternity in October. Alpha Phi Alpha, the first Black Greek-letter organization in the U.S., was founded at Cornell in 1906 and comprises 90,000 current members.
The new facility, named the House of Alpha Leadership Institute, serves as a “destination for dialogue” and boasts a community that uplifts people of color, according to the Alpha Light Fund, an Ithaca-based nonprofit that manages the institute.
HoALI offers 13 resident rooms and a multi-purpose space used for educational events, according to the Alpha Light Fund website. HoALI’s events and programming center around the institute’s seven pillars, which encompass “issues facing emerging leaders,” such as healthcare and corporate inclusion.
Alpha Phi Alpha has also hosted events by Black Students United, Black Student Empowerment and other student organizations on campus.
“[The creation of HoALI] is a huge step in the right direction, and a very important step for the legacy of the fraternity and … for minorities and Black men on campus,” said Christian Flournoy ’27, president of Cornell’s Alpha Phi Alpha chapter, in an interview with The Sun.
The HoALI is the first of its kind for the fraternity and the entirety of the Divine Nine — a group of nine historically Black Greek-letter organizations, including Alpha Phi Alpha, that make up the National Pan-Hellenic Council.
Gavin Mosley, Cornell’s Alpha Phi Alpha chapter advisor, and Shawn Lee, leader of the Alpha Light Fund, emphasized the significance of HoALI in a joint statement to The Sun.
“It is creating a space where scholarship meets civic responsibility, where dialogue becomes action, and where young leaders are equipped with the tools to shape society,” wrote Mosely and Lee.
As the fraternity’s founding chapter, Alpha Phi Alpha at Cornell is called the “Alpha chapter.” Its members are informally called the “Alphas.”
Alpha Phi Alpha was founded at Cornell with the goal to “further brotherly love … to destroy all prejudices, [and] to preserve the sanctity of the home,” according to the fraternity’s constitution.
At the time of the chapter’s founding, Black students were excluded from fraternities, which hindered their involvement in on-campus student engagement, according to a 2019 research paper.
In response to this discrimination, seven Black Cornell students, called the fraternity’s Seven Jewels, founded Alpha Phi Alpha. Students have since founded over 680 Alpha Phi Alpha chapters at universities across the U.S. and the world.
These chapters “recognized the need to help correct the educational, economic, political, and social injustices faced by African Americans,” according to Alpha Phi Alpha’s website.
Many prominent civil rights and social justice activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Dubois and Thurgood Marshall, were members of Alpha Phi Alpha across the country.
“There [are] definitely too many Alphas to name that are very inspiring, and that are amazing that I want to take after,” Flournoy said about Alpha Phi Alpha’s alumni network.
Getting to meet Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-G.A.), who is an Alpha Phi Alpha alumnus, gave Flournoy a firsthand understanding of how the fraternity’s alumni make positive impacts. Flournoy’s observations of the alumni have shaped his campus involvements and goals of working in medicine, he said.
“[The alumni] have done work that has allowed people to put themselves in better positions, and that is the type of philosophy that I carry with me … whether it’s medicine [or] just leadership within the fraternity, in all aspects,” Flournoy said. “[Members are able to] be role models, not only for other Black men or other minorities on campus, but honestly for anyone.”
Flournoy first became interested in Alpha Phi Alpha when he organized a Black History Month assembly during his senior year of high school, presenting on the legacies of historically Black colleges and universities and the Divine Nine.
Learning about the fraternity’s origins at Cornell, then coming to campus and joining Alpha Phi Alpha as a freshman, Flournoy said he experienced “the importance and weight … [of] being a Black man on this campus and having the opportunity to be part of this chapter.”
Alpha Phi Alpha also had a significant impact on Mosley’s personal development, Mosley wrote in an email statement to The Sun.
“I would not be where I am without Alpha Phi Alpha, I owe much of who I am to it,” Mosley wrote. “The qualities Alpha instilled in me - to be well rounded, to be tenacious, to stand up for those who cannot stand and to speak up for those who have no voice are precepts that I contemplate often.”
Flournoy emphasized how the Alpha Phi Alpha community is one of the most important aspects of HoALI.
“It's not just the house and the leadership institute as itself,” Flournoy said. “It's also the people that live within it.”
Mosley also emphasized that the institute is designed as a campus resource for all Cornellians. He added that he hopes all students will take advantage of the space, as it is rooted in community.
“This Black History Month, I'm excited about the road taken to get here but I'm even more excited about what HoALI will represent for generations of Cornellians and Ithacans to come,” Mosley wrote.
Inga Wooten-Forman is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a contributor for the News department and can be reached at irw7@cornell.edu.
