Before marketing senior Marc Hess became San Diego State’s Interfraternity Council President, he moved from South Africa to the U.S. to Australia to the U.S. to Australia and back again.
In the beginning, moving so often was difficult for Hess. But he’s come to appreciate living in so many different countries.
“It was an experience and an education I am very grateful for,” Hess said.
Living with different cultures has taught Hess how to connect with people more easily. In many cases, he can compare one of his many experiences with those of others.
“Growing up in a (developing) country, you experience some pretty crazy stuff,” he said. “So when someone experiences hard times, I can understand them better.”
Even so, Hess always wanted to go to college in the U.S. When he got to SDSU he joined Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and he has been active in Greek life since then. This year he served as IFC president.
The IFC oversees and works with SDSU’s 13 fraternities. As president, Hess runs the 12-member IFC executive board, chairs IFC meetings, serves as liaison between the SDSU administration and the fraternities, and oversees fraternity constitutions, by-laws and protocols. In a less official capacity, he fosters relations between SDSU’s fraternities and represents the fraternities to other on-campus organizations.
“It is a pretty complicated job to explain,” Hess said.
Hess discussed his role as IFC President during and after SDSU’s Take Back the Night incident, where fraternity members harassed people demonstrating against sexual assault.
In response, the IFC canceled all social activities so members could be educated about sexual assault.
“I served as the representative of our community in order to address the situation and work with administrators to educate our members about the issue,” Hess said.
He helped organize Join Us: A Sexual Assault Violence Prevention and Awareness Series. The series was made up of six programs over eight days which included lectures, discussions, films and other things to teach students about sexual violence. He also worked on the presentation How We Can All Prevent Sexual Violence at SDSU.
Despite the issues, Hess thinks that SDSU’s fraternities do a lot of good. It’s the reason he does his job.
“I am amazed by what individual student and organizations do,” he said. “From Phi Kappa Theta raising a record number of community service hours to individuals being involved in the Boys & Girls Clubs. A day doesn’t go by that I’m not surprised and honored to represent the community because of what members do.”
After he graduates, Hess wants to work in marketing at a creative independent agency.
“Looking forward, one thing I love doing is connecting with people and hearing their stories,” Hess said.
He believes being IFC President has helped him prepare for his future career.
“Working with my team has been the highlight of my SDSU career,” he said. “It taught me how to organize a team. I also learned how to think about problems and deal with them in a straightforward way.”
IFC Vice President and public relations junior Kyle Murphy was one of Hess’ team members. He explained that Hess worked hard to communicate with the IFC community and other leaders, improving upon the IFC presidency from previous years.
“I really think people should know Marc has taken IFC to a level it hasn’t been before,” Murphy said.
“For a long time, IFC President has been seen as a stepping stone position to other things. Marc is doing it because he loves to do it. It isn’t fun stuff that he deals with. He just has a passion for it and wants to make the community better.”
