Greek Row combats stereotypes

By: Amy Reid

For Ashley Lindberg, it’s the typical story.

She’s at her job waiting tables when her boss gathers the staff and tells them, “We got a party coming in. It’s a fraternity banquet.”

One of her coworkers groans and turns to Lindberg to complain.

“I hate frat guys,” he says.

Frat. The first red flag and the first sign that she is about to encounter one of the many people who harbor stereotypes toward Greeks, and — as a Kappa Delta and member of the Greek community — she has to face these people daily.

“Some people aren’t willing to give any kind of shot, and they aren’t willing to listen to anything that would change their opinion,” said Lindberg, the vice president of public relations for the Kappa Delta sorority.

She said she does her best to address the stereotypes when they come up. For instance, when her coworker complained to her, she asked him what he thought about Greeks.

“He was like, ‘Well, I think they’re all stupid, they’re all this, they’re all that,'” she said. “So I asked him, ‘What do you think about sorority girls?’ and he said, ‘Well, they’re all sluts.'”

When she told him she is a sorority girl, she said his mind was blown. This girl that shared a ward, classes and honor society meetings with him was in a sorority.

“All these things that he never would have expected changed, and I think that changed his opinion for the better,” she said.

While she is able to reach through to some, she still encounters this stereotyping throughout her day — on social media,around campus while wearing her letters and even in class.

“I’ve even had professors on campus be like, ‘Oh, you’re a sorority girl, you’re stupid,'” she said. “And I’ve proved that wrong, and I’ve had them in later classes say, she’s the one that proved this wrong, which is cool for me, but the fact that just saying I’m in a sorority means I have to fight that from the beginning.”

The “dumb sorority girl” is just the beginning. Both sororities and fraternities have multiple stereotypes attached to them.

The one Greeks said they hear the most is partying.

“The biggest one, of course lately, is we’re full of a bunch of people that like to get drunk, party, rape and sexually assault girls,” said Conner Gery, the sergeant-at-arms at Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

He said about half of the new members went to Pi Kappa Alpha President Alex Souvall’s office asking why they were called the rape house.

This affects not just Pi Kappa Alpha, but the whole Greek community.

“The hardest thing for us to combat lately is, it is one individual and not a whole chapter,” said Lindberg. “Normally we have to say it’s one chapter, not the whole community, but one or two individuals have given the whole Greek community a bad name.”

Some fraternities at USU are dry this year, meaning they will not allow alcohol outside of private rooms, in an attempt to clean up their reputation and further emphasize that there is more to it than partying.

Chris Roberts, the assistant recruitment vice president for Sigma Chi, said this was enough to keep some potential members from joining.

“We said, ‘Just so you know, we’re not having any parties this year,’ and I’d say maybe 10 or 15 kids just walked out,” said Roberts. “But we’re a leadership organization. We’re here to build leaders, not to party.”

Gery said while partying still happens, it is only a small part of Greek life.

In order to better the image of the Greek community, Connor Maloney, the president of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity, created a five-year vision that includes the goals of getting the cumulative GPA of the Greek community higher than the campus average, 40 hours minimum of service per member, $100,000 donated to charity annually and 50 percent less liquor law violations than the school’s average, all by 2020.

He has applied similar goals to Delta Sigma Phi and has had success.

“It’s working really well,” Maloney said.

He hopes to apply his vision to the entire Greek community through the Inter-Fraternal Council, a leadership group comprised of elected members from the various fraternities at Utah State.

Maloney hopes this also helps combat the stereotypes surrounding Greeks. However, there are some that couldn’t be covered by policy or have already been outlawed.

Another common stereotype is the concept of Greeks paying for friends, Lindberg said.

“Our money goes to a lot more than just us,” she said. “We donate to a lot of outside organizations.”

Fraternity and sorority dues go toward their respective philanthropies and back to the organization to bring speakers to share about things like leadership and networking.

“We need to bring to light what the money is used for and how the brotherhood works,” Maloney said. It’s an investment in themselves, he said.

But it is hard to tell from the outside, which is why members encourage those that are curious to go to the houses and learn more.

“You don’t know unless you go through rush,” Gery said.

However, many might be nervous because of the stereotype surrounding Greek houses participating in hazing.

“We are an anti-hazing fraternity. We don’t believe it. We don’t support it. And everything we do is based on our ritual that has been approved by our nationals,” Gery said of Pi Kappa Alpha.

Lindberg said the same principle is in place at both Alpha Chi Omega and Kappa Delta sororities.

“There is an absolute no-hazing policy, both from our nationals and from National Panhellenic,” she said.

When Greeks are faced with these stereotypes, many said they try to fix them with conversation.

“I try to bring up the positives of Pike when I talk to people,” Gery said.

But sometimes, talking isn’t enough.

“We can talk, talk, talk, say that’s not true, that’s not true, that’s not true,” he said. “But it’s only when we bring people into our organizations that they realize that they aren’t true and there’s more to gain from joining a fraternity than there is to lose.”

— reid.al73@gmail.com
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