Laura Pezzini
lpezzini@mustangdaily.net
Classrooms and hallways across campus are strewn with clusters of black and white posters.
These are neither advertisements nor event posters, which are typically displayed on campus message boards. Instead, they are part of the “Break the Stereotype” campaign put on by the Interfraternity Council (IFC) in an effort to change any negative connotations that may be associated with fraternities.
“They are portrayed by the popular media as disrespectful and unaware of their surroundings, but that is very much not the case,” Coordinator of Greek Life Diego Silva said. “That’s why we’re launching ‘Break the Stereotype.’”
The posters are identical in design, each displaying the names of two different members of IFC fraternities along with their major, year and whatever sets them apart from the stereotypes.
Each IFC fraternity is represented, with the exception of the newly-recognized Kappa Sigma. As it was an IFC initiative, the campaign does not include Panhellenic sororities or United Sorority and Fraternity Council organizations.
“The sole purpose of it is to show people that there’s another side to greek life,” IFC president Jason Colombini said. “Granted, there are some people in greek life who live up to that image, but there are lots of people, as many if not more, who break that stereotype, and these are a few examples of it.”
The campaign was initiated by Colombini himself in November, when he was director of public relations for the IFC. He said the idea came from personal experience.
“My freshman year I had all those stereotypes in my head and I wanted nothing to do with greek life,” Colombini said. “Once I actually experienced it for myself it turned out to be one of the greatest things that I’ve ever been a part of.”
Colombini said he hopes the campaign will encourage others to make the same change of heart he did.
“There’s probably other kids out there that have those stereotypes, and if only we can break those stereotypes and they go out and try it for themselves, maybe they won’t like it, but if they try it and they do then the whole campaign was worth it,” he said.
After bringing up the initial idea to the IFC, Colombini left it to the individual fraternity presidents to select someone from their chapter who might go against traditional fraternity stereotypes.
The posters themselves are meant to refute a variety of stereotypes that may be associated with fraternities.
“A lot of people have different ideas of the stereotypes, so we tried to address each one of those,” Colombini said. “Some people think fraternities are just a lot of drinking and partying, for instance, so there’s a few for that. Some people think that fraternity men just get their way paid through campus and don’t have to work at all, and we have one in there who’s paying for his own education. So each one in there should address some person’s stereotype that they have in their head and show them that there’s people in there who aren’t like that.”
A lot of consideration went into the design of the posters. The IFC wanted something that was “simple, yet something that would stand out,” Colombini said. He said they toyed with the idea of showing each person’s picture, but decided they needed to better balance the “everyman” aspect of the project.
Colombini said they did this by leaving out photos and following a simplistic design, but personalizing them by including the representative’s name, major and year.
“It doesn’t really mean anything until you see that this is an actual student here at Cal Poly — there’s their name, there’s their year, there’s their major,” Colombini said. “It kind of adds that more personal touch to it.”
The IFC did not, however, feel it was necessary to disclose each person’s chapter.
“It’s an Interfraternity Council campaign, it’s not supposed to highlight or target any (fraternity) in particular,” Colombini said.
The response has been difficult to measure, but it is clear students are noticing the posters.
“There’s been a lot of people asking what this is about and who is putting this together,” Silva said.
Fraternity members support the campaign whether or not they are called out on the posters.
“I think it’s a great way to have people learn that we’re not all the same,” computer science junior Ian Sellar said. “I’m a computer science major myself, so I’m not exactly the typical frat guy.”
Anyone who opposes the campaign has not been outspoken about it, but there have been several incidents of people removing the posters.
“It’s just unfortunate, if someone is taking these down, that they feel that something like this needs to be taken down,” Colombini said.
The IFC plans on promoting the campaign for a period of two weeks, but after that it is up to the student population to decide for themselves what their view of fraternity life is.
“If they even affect a few people, then in my opinion, it was worth it,” Colombini said. “There’s a niche in every fraternity for every kind of person, I believe.”