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  #1  
Old 02-17-2008, 07:01 PM
greekone87 greekone87 is offline
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How do you reposition your fraternity?

So I joined a South Asian Fraternity in my sophomore spring semester. When I joined, the guys were pretty cool (it was still run by the founding fathers who were mostly seniors) and the alpha class was an okay group of guys followed by the betas- my pledge class...most of whom might not be your typical frat guys, but they were pretty chill aside from two or three complete social misfits.

Now, I don't want to sound superficial in this post...but whether you like it or not reputation is part of a fraternity and determines whether it will survive.

Lately, all we've been getting is entire classes of fobs and nerds. When I say fob, I'm not saying they don't know how to dress- I'm talking about accent like Apu's from the Simpson's. I have no problem with these guys. They're all really nice and I'm sure they'd have my back. However, I can't see myself going to the bar with these guys and picking up girls.

The past two classes we've had have turned out like this, and now it's just overwhelming. We now have about sixty percent of our chapter dominated by fobs and as bad as I feel saying it, it's kind of killing my motivation of being in the fraternity as well as a lot of the older brothers' because our image right now is the fat/fob/nerdy fraternity. How do I wear letters and still be proud even if I didn't care what anybody thought? Stereotypes have a certain truth to them and these stereotypes are mainly true about our brothers. I grew up in the states so I'm not as cultural as these guys and I have a huge mix of friends from all different backgrounds- but they're all very Americanized unlike a lot of my brothers in the fraternity.

I was Rush Pub this semester and attempted a repositioning. But I used the COB method which just caused our fobs to bring more fob friends in. How do I reposition the fraternity or do I just forget about it and send my superficial ass home?
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  #2  
Old 02-17-2008, 10:35 PM
nittanyalum nittanyalum is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by greekone87 View Post
I joined a South Asian fraternity
And now you don't like that your brothers are... South Asian?

Nice.
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  #3  
Old 02-18-2008, 12:48 AM
techzbt techzbt is offline
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Do you have any sort of new member education? Stress the important of getting involved in campus with things that don't involve video games and speaking english like a normal person.
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  #4  
Old 12-04-2008, 09:30 AM
lovelydovely01 lovelydovely01 is offline
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Unhappy

Quote:
Originally Posted by techzbt View Post
Do you have any sort of new member education? Stress the important of getting involved in campus with things that don't involve video games and speaking english like a normal person.

....

you mean like an American? Right?

-LD01
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  #5  
Old 02-18-2008, 01:23 AM
LatinaAlumna LatinaAlumna is offline
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Quote:
yeah i've been told that
i dont care though
i love my life
it's absolutely wonderful
(except for the whole what-i-want-to-do-in-the-future thing (i'm considering changing majors again.. for the 2nd time this month))

and know that i go to a school where it's like 95% white people.
Wow. You are something else. *smh*
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  #6  
Old 02-18-2008, 01:31 AM
ktbug10474 ktbug10474 is offline
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oooooh ok.

i was like WHOA HOLD UP! that's all.
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  #7  
Old 02-18-2008, 01:40 AM
ktbug10474 ktbug10474 is offline
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i said i was just wondering and then i commented after you commented and was like ooooo ok.

sorry ok.
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  #8  
Old 02-18-2008, 02:04 AM
nittanyalum nittanyalum is offline
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Originally Posted by SECdomination View Post
C'mon, y'all. Lay off the poor girl, she hasn't said anything that should be considered offensive.
Oh, SEC, don't start. We're done here and you're just trying to stir the pot.
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  #9  
Old 02-18-2008, 12:45 PM
greekone87 greekone87 is offline
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Okay, I've been reading all the posts and...

1) Already admitted I'm sort of superficial.

2) I have plenty an idea of what brotherhood means. I've driven 50 miles at 3am to help out a brother who was stranded in the middle of no where with no money and a busted car.

3) I clearly have my bro's backs, whether they act like me or not. I'm sure they do too...well maybe not in a fight...but else wise. I would never let anyone seriously disrespect any of them.

4) The question posed was how do you reposition a fraternity's reputation. We're being talked about on campus as the fat fobby nerdy fraternity. And when you look at some of our brothers you see that's true. However, we also have some really sharp, motivated, sociable, athletic brothers in the fraternity, albeit a few. However, when you have a majority of the bros not really presenting themselves as well as they could, what do you do to turn around the image of the fraternity and appeal during rush to the not so fat/fobby/nerdy kids.

5) Look- I don't need anyone's validation on if I'm a non-racist or not. I know I'm not and that's all that matters. I have no problem with people with accents, fat people, or smart people. But you're not being true to yourself if you say that reputation doesn't matter when it comes to a fraternity doing well on campus. You know damn well it does.
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  #10  
Old 02-18-2008, 01:17 PM
banditone banditone is offline
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greekone, first you have to take most of what is said on GC with a grain of salt. Many think this is a good place to position themselves as faultless/perfection. When we all know that's not true.

Second, it is VERY hard for a fraternity to change their image. Mainly, you will need a lot more members then just you to agree that a change is needed. Which, may be impossible (especially if a majority of the house is already made up of the type that you are trying to change from

The guys you usually hang out with in the house, what do they think of the house makeup? Perhaps this group should go out for some beers and discuss this. See if you all even have common ideas. They may be fine with it as is, and like the diversity.

What is sounds like to me is you should have probably joined one of the traditional national GLO's
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  #11  
Old 02-18-2008, 02:00 PM
SOPi_Jawbreaker SOPi_Jawbreaker is offline
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Are you the only South Asian Fraternity on campus or are there other South Asian Fraternities on campus (i.e. recruiting from the same pool of students)?

I went to a very large school with a very large Greek community, and we only had one South Asian Fraternity. We also had one South Asian sorority, two Asian-interest fraternities, and two Asian-interest sororities.

From my experience, the girls that came to college already knowing about sororities were the ones who were looking for a NPC sorority experience. And therefore, my sorority wouldn't have been right for them. So the pool of students we were recruiting from were the girls that either didn't know what sororities were or girls who had only heard the stereotypes. As such, recruitment for us can sometimes be much more of an uphill battle than for the NPC sororities.

I imagine that South Asian fraternities may face similar difficulties too. And if there are other South Asian fraternities, then there is the added challenge of differentiating your org from the others. "Unfortunately" , since you are probably recruiting from a pool of students that doesn't know that much about what fraternities are, you are going to have a higher percentage of "fobs" than the IFC/NIC fraternities.

The South Asian fraternity on my campus was pretty well respected. They had some guys that spoke with accents but they still had a good reputation (and did well with recruitment) because they exemplified what Greek Life should be about. They won awards at Greek Oscars. They did a lot of community service. They did well academically. They had brothers on MGC exec board. They made an effort to have events with other orgs in MGC (not just socials but also community service projects).

Another thing that they did that was impressive was their dances. Every year, there is an Asian Awakenings show (different Asian orgs perform dances, songs, or skits). The guys in the South Asian fraternity always put on an awesome performance every year.
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  #12  
Old 02-18-2008, 02:44 PM
violetpretty violetpretty is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by greekone87 View Post
So I joined a South Asian Fraternity in my sophomore spring semester. When I joined, the guys were pretty cool (it was still run by the founding fathers who were mostly seniors) and the alpha class was an okay group of guys followed by the betas- my pledge class...most of whom might not be your typical frat guys, but they were pretty chill aside from two or three complete social misfits.

Now, I don't want to sound superficial in this post...but whether you like it or not reputation is part of a fraternity and determines whether it will survive.

Lately, all we've been getting is entire classes of fobs and nerds. When I say fob, I'm not saying they don't know how to dress- I'm talking about accent like Apu's from the Simpson's. I have no problem with these guys. They're all really nice and I'm sure they'd have my back. However, I can't see myself going to the bar with these guys and picking up girls.

The past two classes we've had have turned out like this, and now it's just overwhelming. We now have about sixty percent of our chapter dominated by fobs and as bad as I feel saying it, it's kind of killing my motivation of being in the fraternity as well as a lot of the older brothers' because our image right now is the fat/fob/nerdy fraternity. How do I wear letters and still be proud even if I didn't care what anybody thought? Stereotypes have a certain truth to them and these stereotypes are mainly true about our brothers. I grew up in the states so I'm not as cultural as these guys and I have a huge mix of friends from all different backgrounds- but they're all very Americanized unlike a lot of my brothers in the fraternity.

I was Rush Pub this semester and attempted a repositioning. But I used the COB method which just caused our fobs to bring more fob friends in. How do I reposition the fraternity or do I just forget about it and send my superficial ass home?
What attracted you to the idea of joining a South Asian fraternity? If you describe yourself as not very cultural (which I presume to mean that you don't identify strongly with your South Asian background), why did you join a culturally based fraternity? Figure out what brought you there and try to perpetuate that.

Have you discussed as a chapter what you are looking for in new brothers? Are you in the minority of wanting more brothers with better social skills? Is there a sharp divide in the chapter? If you want to find men with good social skills, you need to think about where you would find them. Leaders student government, members of performing groups (comedy groups, a capella groups etc), leaders of cultural groups, RAs, will generally have good social skills. Also, ask female friends if they know any men that would make good members, since women can be a good judge of social skills.

What is your purpose as a chapter? You can embrace the diversity within your chapter, as the "fobs" and the "Americanized" brothers have different things to offer each other. Perhaps you can help the "fobs" with their social skills and in turn the "fobs" can help you become more acquainted with your South Asian background.

ETA: Also, are you having events to make yourself visible to the Greek community and the rest of the campus? Share your culture with the community! This will help develop social skills and in turn, help you meet potential members, not to mention, you might have a good time too.
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Last edited by violetpretty; 02-18-2008 at 05:49 PM.
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  #13  
Old 02-19-2008, 05:37 PM
33girl 33girl is offline
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SOPi_Jawbreaker,

What's the difference between a South Asian fraternity and an Asian-interest fraternity? You know I went to school/was brought up in hick heaven and this is all new to me.

Quote:
Originally Posted by greekone87 View Post
I was Rush Pub this semester and attempted a repositioning. But I used the COB method which just caused our fobs to bring more fob friends in.
We used to have the same problem with one of our sisters continually asking her weird (I tried to think of a nicer word, but there really isn't one - we were pretty open minded, and these chicks were even weird to us) friends to our open bid parties. The best way is to make all parties invite only and tell the guys they need to give you the names and addresses of anyone to invite. If they keep inviting guys that the rest of the brothers do NOT want to bid, just tell them "hey, these guys aren't going to get bids, it isn't fair to keep getting their hopes up."

Unless, of course, the rest of the fraternity DOES want to bid these guys. Then you're kind of stuck.
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  #14  
Old 02-19-2008, 05:55 PM
SOPi_Jawbreaker SOPi_Jawbreaker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 33girl View Post
SOPi_Jawbreaker,

What's the difference between a South Asian fraternity and an Asian-interest fraternity? You know I went to school/was brought up in hick heaven and this is all new to me.
Well, I probably should have been typing South Asian-interest all along to be truly correct but I was being lazy. But anyways, from what I've seen at PSU, the South Asian-interest GLO's are largely composed of students from South Asia (India and other countries in that region) whereas the Asian-interest GLO's are largely composed of students from East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, etc.). Of course, all the GLO's are open to students of all ethnic/cultural backgrounds. However, the programs/workshops, philanthropies, and community services of the South Asian-interest GLO's may differ from those of the Asian-interest GLO's to better service the South Asian community more specifically.
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  #15  
Old 02-20-2008, 01:13 AM
shadowyi shadowyi is offline
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And truly, these guys you're pledging haven't really spent time learning about American pop culture and the way of life here. Heck, back home they'd be the cool ones and you'd be that weird ABC (fyi for those who're scratching heads, American Born Chinese). If you don't like the image your fraternity has, why don't you organize some high profile bonding activities - such as pick up game of football on a lawn or something similar? You'd be bonding the fraternity together, perhaps teaching this American sport to some who'd never heard of it before, and publicity if you're wearing your letter. Maybe it's not so much the guys when they first join, but what they do after they've been in the fraternity for a while.

I'll bet we were all fob's (for lack of better word) to some degree when we first entered college, and changed as the years went on. Feel good that you have the opportunity to welcome your brothers to another culture. =)
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