About Us

Kappa Kappa Psi is a student organization that operates as a service and leadership recognition society whose chief aim is to assist the Director of Bands in developing the leadership and enthusiasm that is required for the college or university band program. Partnered with our sister sorority, Tau Beta Sigma, our goals are to provide the band not only with organized and concentrated service activities, but to give our membership valid and wholesome experiences in organization, leadership and social contacts. The honorary nature of membership is based on our premise that “it is an honor to be selected to serve” this band and the cause of band music in the nation's colleges and universities.

Represented at the local, state, and national levels and operating out of over one hundred and sixty colleges and universities around the United States, the fraternity has involved over fifty thousand young musicians in its almost ninety year existence and continues to promote the best in the American band tradition. Noted fraternal alumni include John Philip Sousa, Karl King, Ray Charles, Lionel Richie, Neil Armstrong, Bill Clinton, and John Denver.

In the years following the First World War, a movement developed across college campuses in the United States, searching for some motivating force that would create greater interest in band music, a sense of goodwill among bands and their members, and promote the value of student leadership.

The result was the creation of Kappa Kappa Psi, National Honorary Band Fraternity on November 27, 1919 at the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, later Oklahoma University, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The ten original founding fathers of the fraternity were influenced by their own Director of Bands, Bohumil Mackovsky, a European immigrant, musician, and band leader who would become our fraternity’s “guiding spirit”.

The chapter of Lambda Delta was formally installed on July 11, 2003 by thirty-nine dedicated college musicians who wanted to bring the values and dreams of this original movement to the Shippensburg University campus.

Begun in December of 2002, as the largest colony in the history of Kappa Kappa Psi, the Shippensburg University colony advanced under the leadership of our big brother chapter of Omicron at West Virginia University.

The number of Lambda Delta alumni continues to grow with each graduating class. Today a total of over fifty make up the alumni of the young chapter. The formation of an official alumni association is in the works.