Re: Seldom / rarely around?
 

Well, I could see two reasons:

1. if that 'seldom around' member does decide to get more active, no one will know who they are, which may lead them to not bothing to get active. This way newer members will have some idea who they are.

2. having pledges track them down just may inspire them to get more active.

I think it's fine to have to get signatures, at my school TTU, all the Frats have sig books and they have a blast with them and yes there probably is some hazing going on, but I honestly don't know of one frat that doesn't do any type of hazing, not saying that it is right. I was at a party and a brother was well intoxiated and before his brothers could get to him, he had already read like 10 to me and they were hilarious and fun, but it is good to make sure nothing too incriminating is written in them b/c I found out a few things that I probably shouldn't know:) .

at my school, and according to our national constitution/by-laws, both pledge books and scavenger hunts are hazing.
i personally think pledge books and getting signatures is just dumb and a waste of time, but thats just me. i can see interviewing brothers/sisters as constructive, in fact my friend's music service fraternity requires them. but as someone mentioned earlier, i can also see how they can lead to hazing.
i don't agree with scavenger hunts being considered hazing as long as the brothers/sisters participate with the pledges as well... like groups are mixed, not pledges vs. initiates... but obviously something happened in the past that was significant enough for most nat'l orgs to consider it hazing.
just my two cents.

I think the bottom line with hazing is that yes, scavenger hunts, pledge books, etc.. can be great.

However, they're against the rules.

That leaves about 919250912592109 other things that can be done. So go do those things!

When my husband was a pledge they had the interview thing. However, they were required to make up their own set of 25 questions to ask the initiated brother. He and I actually had fun doing this! We tried to be really creative and not get the 'usual questions'. There was a requirement on how many interviews they had to get, but they could be from ANY brother...not sure if that was just in their chapter. However, being in Houston, there were LOTS of alumni around, especially because their brand-new house was being built. A lot of times, the alum would invite a few of the guys out for lunch, and they'd do the interviews then. It was a great way to keep the guys involved, and good for new members to see how there's more to greek life after graduation!

aj

LXA's Idea of interaction is for the New Associates get to know the Active Brothers. Not by signing Associate Books but by being at the House or Dorm area where they live. Attending meetings, social events, and Charity events.

We are very aware that both N A and Actives many of whom have to work, or attend classes. If a member is not active, shame on them. With exceptions of course.

Forcing a new member to do something is totally verboten.:mad:

These things are some of the reasons that people just don't talk about what they do during pledge. Because of the fact that some idiots out there messed up something harmless, the entire activity is frowned upon. Even if you do it without involving hazing, it's frowned on. Is it any wonder why a lot of these activities go underground and raise the levels of possible risk any further??

-Rudey

Nope, it isn't. Some of the stuff that has been "defined" (or more aptly not defined well) as hazing are silly.

I think pretty much everyone agrees with that.

The other side of the coin, though, is that some people and chapters have taken innocent things and turned them into bad situations.

It's the old, "Give 'em an inch..." syndrome.

Unfortunately, if you take them underground and get caught, it's goodbye to your charter.

Yes and they're willing to take that risk. When do you change policies like this?

Yes, if they get an inch they'll want more. But you can try and communicate why things are wrong and right. You can tell them scav hunts are ok and this is what you get out of it, but beating your pledges gets you nothing. Hopefully they won't even want to do that.

-Rudey

Rudey, I totally agree. I think when you get too cautious and ban everything it just leads to people thinking "in for a buck, in for a quarter" and being so annoyed at not being able to do anything, that they do things they never would have done if they'd been able to do something.

yay for run-on sentences. :)

This may be a little off the subject but I'll say it anyways.

Its not so much what we see as hazing but what others see as hazing. See, even though we get permission from our pledges/ associates in the world of the greek you are guilty until proven innocent. And even though the associate tells your national that it was his idea, how do they know you arenlt forcing him to say that. In the question of hazing always assume the worst and try to isolate yourselves from any outside influences. My house has been shut down for hazing once. So when we rechartered, we instated a strict no hazing policy (I actually mean we don't haze). Some associates kinda want to be hazed a little (at least guys). Its very wierd. Then one night a freshamn asks us to tie him up and drop him off on DZ's front door and ring the doorbell. Little did we know he was really drunk. He puked all over the door and then they untied him and then called our nationals. He was passed out so he couldn;t tell them not to. As soon as the nationals heard about it we were screwed even though we didn;t do anything.

He got the idea to be tied up from a sophmore who did it just before him at a different house. He thought that was a good way to meet girls... (he was drunk) and wanted to do it too. It was very funny because I actually had a recording of him on my cell phone being carried over there to the house while he was telling us where to go. He was actually laughing on the recording. But we got screwed anyways. We got a fine and another X on our record.

Its really as if we need to live better than other organizations and actually be secretive to protect ourselves from outside perspectives, because no matter how much evidence or proof we have we'll still get screwed.

J

You are right. Greeks are living under the microscope and need to behave impeccably for a long long time to change that. We are still reading about awful things being done to new members and, although I do believe that hazing is significantly reduced compared to when I joined my GLO ('84), it's clearly still happening. Nobody is going to relax any rules as long as we're still hearing of hazing deaths, illnesses, and injuries in the news so frequently. The rules will only get more strict as people try to find ways around them.

I have pointed out before that new policies don't only affect the members on college campuses. We had an Alumnae Chapter that did an annual road rally with all the alum in the area from all the chapters used to be invited to. The Road Rally had to stop due to Risk Management issues. Bunches of women racing in cars all over town isn't safe. It's that simple! Road Rallies and Scavenger Hunts are very similar. Scavenger Hunts not only have potential for hazing, but are a big risk management problem also.

Dee

Sorry if this is a repeat.

If you want interviews and don't want to make it hazing. Stipulate that the actives must do an interactive interview with the pledges and schedule it in groups as much as possible.

They always have silly questions for eachother anyway so they can do a round robbin over some food and swap lies.

I honestly think fraternities need to stop looking at the problem as "how to stop hazing". It should be more of a how to reduce the risk problem.

The greek system should not exist at certain schools. I'm sorry but the risk increases. At other schools, greeks need to become much more selective. These ideas of expanding your fraternity get you what exactly?? Smaller houses can be monitored more easily. Fraternities that don't take on more risk by trying to set up new colonies and restart old ones can focus their energies on making sure the men they choose are brothers - consistently from chapter to chapter.

-Rudey

James, I don't think you get good results like that. Seriously I don't because I think when a brother and a pledge decide to go running, or to a store, or to just study together while they do this interview, more of a bond is created. If you do interviews in public, everything isn't said. If you do them in a group, you can't create individual bonds and you still might not say everything.

-Rudey
--That's the point of the interview.