Local group mocks Greek life

By Jaclyn Ruiz

Donning colorful matching sweatshirts, Santa Clara sorority girls prepared for winter recruitment back in the fall of 2002. Every Wednesday, these students would throw on their Greek hooded uniforms and spread out on campus in search of worthy new members.

The women of Delta Gamma and Alpha Phi strutted around campus showing off their festive sweatshirts. But the sweatshirt that got the most attention belonged to a mysterious new sorority. From a distance, all that was visible on their plain white sweatshirts was a single acronym: A.S.S.

A.S.S. stood for Alpha Sigma Sigma, a sorority that prided themselves on the slogan: "No Dues, Just Booze." It seemed that a few students found this a little more appealing than Delta Gamma's catch phase at the time: "These are the girls, these are the years, this is the house."

What was different about A.S.S. was that it wasn't much of a sorority at all. In fact, it was fake. The founding members of Alpha Sigma Sigma were both men and women, making the organization a co-ed "farority." A.S.S. doesn't really do all that much, but that's the point.

"It's a playful jab at the fraternity and sorority life on campus," Junior A.S.S. co-founder Nick "Papa" Figone said. "We just wanted to have fun together without worrying about all that Greek life entails."

A fake Greek system is nothing new to college campuses. Well-known universities from University of California, Santa Barbara, to Texas AandM have adopted Greek letters to represent their socially exclusive cliques.

Though the following of each fake group may vary, they all share a common dislike for the real Greek world, where certain students are honored with an invitation to pledge, and others are rejected.

"There is no discrimination here, we just drink beer," co-founder Laurie Cvengros said.

The crew started drinking beer without discrimination in the fall of 2002 on the fifth floor of Swig after a few residents got sick of hearing sorority girls boasting about their upcoming formals and other date events.

Taking matters into their own hands, seven students (including Nick "Papa" Figone, Laurie Cvengros and James "Hoop" Hooper) decided to form their own organization to poke fun at Greek life and create an exclusive group for having a good time. After brainstorming for weeks, they decided on the Greek lettering and came up with the slogan "No dues, just booze" to mock the monthly dues many fraternity and sorority members pay to be a part of the socially privileged.

A.S.S. debuted two weeks later at the Mexicalli Grill. This was the first official date event, when members decided it would be a good idea to recruit for the "brother and sisterhood." After deciding on a master design, ten members all piled into the Swig-Five lounge to decorate sweatshirts with the new emblem representing their new farority.

The white sweatshirts were purchased at Walgreen's, where a bargain allowed them to buy three for $10. Even though they were all irregular sizes, none of the Sigmas seemed to mind.

"We decided to make the "A" in alpha the Bass Ale symbol because frats and sororities try to incorporate their name into a brand name," Figone said. "It would be funny to use a brand of beer because we knew the Greeks on campus aren't allowed to do that."

Once the sweatshirts were finished it was only a matter of time before the Santa Clara campus was introduced to the A.S.S crew.

"Tons of freshman were coming up to us, asking if they could pledge," Figone said. "So we told them, 'Yeah, It's a bunch of fun.'"

Since one of the Sigmas was then employed at Planned Parenthood, they decided that it would be the perfect organization to help with their philanthropic work. In the spring of 2003, they held the first A.S.S. spring social, consisting of a keg and the members of A.S.S.

The Sigmas are now in the process of planning "A.S.S. Splash Back," which mocks the Delta Gamma fund-raiser Anchor Splash. The current shirt design features a large toilet.

Santa Clara was not the first campus to form fake fraternities and sororities. There are five fake fraternities and sororities at UC-Santa Barbara, the largest being Eta Schmegma Pi.

E.S.P., founded four years ago by Matt Weber, is currently headed by his younger brother, Nick Weber. According to Nick, a UCSB sophomore, Eta Schmegma Pi, "literally means a joke people play on real fraternity people."

E.S.P. has all the benefits of an official fraternity, without monthly dues or the worry over the next fraternity meeting.

"Too often college students are concerned with image and looking pretty," Weber said. "We try to break down those barriers. We accomplish just as much as the fraternities but have way more fun doing it."

Though they do not have an official house, a majority of the members live together and plan fraternity parties together. Last spring the boys of E.S.P. threw a "Magnum Booty" party, which Weber says, "really put us on the map. We gained a lot of street credit."

According to Texas AandM's school newspaper, The Batallion, fake fraternities and sororities also exist on their campus. Quite like the fraternity brothers at UCSB, fraternity members at Texas AandM are outraged that students would choose to identify themselves with made-up Greek names. The fraternity members at Texas AandM do not see the comedy in establishing a fake fraternity. In fact, they find it flat-out disrespectful.

"It is puzzling that the founders of these organizations on the Texas AandM campus have chosen Greek letters to represent themselves, when they possess an obvious dislike for established Greek letter organizations and what they believe them to represent," Kellen Zimmer, a fraternity member at Texas AandM, told The Batillion.

Fake members do not see the harm in their organizations. Many founded their groups because the Greek life on campus did allow them to do what they thought fraternities should.

"The great thing about having a fake frat is the ability to claim ownership over it," said Ryan Shipley, founding father of Phi Chi at Texas AandM. "The flexibility and freedom we have allows us to do so much more with it."

Fortunately for the members of Alpha Sigma Sigma, the real fraternity members on the Santa Clara campus find their stunt more humorous than hurtful.

"When I first saw the sweatshirts, I couldn't stop laughing," junior Pi Kappa Alpha member Ken Reidy said. "How could someone get upset about something so funny and creative? It doesn't bother me at all."