Magazine Covers Bring Representation

Senate initiative becomes a new movement

Emma Pollans
The Santa Clara
January 24, 2019

(Santa Clara University) Sophomores Lana Kaleel and Mai Sinada posed for the first of eight #BroncoPosimagazine covers that will be released throughout the quarter focused on minorities.

Posters of magazine covers have been popping up around campus this past week featuring students at Santa Clara.

These covers are part of a larger movement called #BroncoPosi that plans to display eight unique covers representing minority groups on campus.

Ciara Moezidis, a sophomore senator on Associated Student Government (ASG) created the #BroncoPosi movement as an ASG initiative last February.

The phrase #BroncoPosi was inspired by the BodyPosi online movement surrounding the idea of acceptance for all body types. Moezidis wanted to localize this idea.  

In September, the #BroncoPosi initiative became an established movement and the eight magazine covers were finalized.

The covers are currently located in places students frequent most, including residence halls, the Learning Commons and Malley Fitness and Recreation Center.

Supporters of the movement hope the covers are informative and help deconstruct stigmas and stereotypes surrounding those who identify with the covers’ identities.

“The purpose is for students to be able to see the covers in a lot of different places,” Moezidis said. “So as a result, that week they are encouraged to talk to other students. Either those that they see are on the covers or those that identify with that community as well.”

This project was inspired by Moezidis’s trip to the IgnatianQ Conference at Loyola University in February.

IgnationQ is a conference dedicated to bringing together members of the LGBTQ+ community at Jesuit universities.

Moezidis saw various magazine covers at Loyola University featuring students and messages of body positivity.

Moezidis hoped to be able to bring similar covers to Santa Clara with the goal that they would help students realize the presence of underrepresented groups on campus having difficulty being accepted.

Rodolfo Leon is a junior who will be featured on one of the covers.

He believes the #BroncoPosi movement is essential and it teaches students to be aware of minority groups on campus.

“[At] SCU, there are many minority groups that seldom have their voices heard,” Leon said. “It is easy to listen to the majority because they are so loud, [but] to establish a safe and welcoming atmosphere that SCU claims to strive for, we must too listen to the voices of the rest.”

To accompany the magazine covers, Moezidis and others will table outside Benson Memorial Center to educate students about the groups featured on the covers.

A Difficult Dialogue hosted by the Office for Multicultural Learning will take place during week eight.

Following this quarter’s display of the magazine covers, Moezidis hopes to expand the project next quarter and host a human library event where students of different identities and communities sit at a table and have an open dialogue with one another.

Mai Sinada, a sophomore featured on the Muslim cover, believes that movements like #BroncoPosi are significant because they bring students together.

“Initiatives like #BroncoPosi are important on campus because they aid in moving our peers away from ignorance and toward education, and eventually acceptance and respect,” Sinada said. “It is initiatives like these that allow us, members of the Santa Clara University community, to actively engage with the three Cs: competence, compassion and conscience.”

In addition to opening and building dialogues among students, Moezidis wants to see #BroncoPosi encourage students to develop a better understanding of each other regardless of background and remove stigmas around certain identities.

The hope is that they can be a stepping stone for students to become more knowledgeable about others on campus and lead them to stand in solidarity with one another.

Students that posed in covers for #BroncoPosi also see the initiative has an important effect on minority groups on campus.

Junior Catherine Moore is one student who posed for a #BroncoPosi cover.

Moore believes that having a tangible reminder to respect all cultures around campus greatly creates a space of confidence for minority groups.

“It takes a lot of courage and confidence for a minority group or individual to put themselves and their culture on a poster,” Moore said. “And that just means this campus is supportive of these groups.”

Contact Emma Pollans at epollans@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.

NewsEmma Pollans