whatwhat?

Even the service acadamy people are being forced to give up hazing their underclassmen.

Sports teams and marching bands are being punished for hazing.

Boot camp isn't a shadow of what it once was. (Although I'm sure it's still not pleasant -- it used to be brutal)

There are better ways of doing things.

Edited to add just one more of many cases in point:

TCU fraternity gets probation for hazing

Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at Texas Christian University has been placed on probation after a weeklong investigation determined that members were involved in hazing.

School and fraternity officials would not comment on specifics of the incident, other than to say that it occurred on the TCU campus Sept. 25.

A condition of the probation is that the fraternity may not hold social events involving alcohol. One possible punishment for hazing is expulsion from the campus.

Zerek Travis, chapter president of the fraternity, said he accepts the outcome of the investigation. The sanctions "could have been a lot worse," he said.

Well we did stop forcing ladies to wear skirts to meetings and not have men in their bedrooms...lots of things have changed since then!

hehe... techically our chapter still has the no men in the bedroom rule... not like we followed it ;)

hmm.. my 2 cents... i wasn't hazed, but we did start to "haze" the newer girls-- stupid things like scavenger hunts, road trips, etc. Not real hazing like beatings and making the girls drink, but things national would probably consider hazing. I wish we got to do the things we made the newer girls did-- it definitely brought those pledge classes closer together than mine was. We were really fractured, and a bunch of girls eventually dropped. Maybe if we had to do more team building activities like a scavenger hunt in NYC (the girls said that was the best new member activity!), then things would have been different.

I am not a proponent of beating, circling the fat, line ups, etc... I wouldnt want to be in a chapter that yelled at me and embarassed me all the time.

Rissa

Let this message serve as valuable advice to all members of national organizations posting on this thread...

If you are a member of a national organization, it's not fair to the members of your organization that don't haze to associate your letters with hazing. Even worse to point out which chapter you belong to.

I'd advise you to edit/delete your posts accordingly, national offices do read these boards.

I had to drink a bottle vodka straight and smoke a pound of weed, while having drug tests a few weeks later. And that was the easy stuff.















Thank god my letters aren't associated with my name.

Pound of weed how long did that take you to smoke?

4 days, nonstop smoking. I think I was throwing up all week long between the night of drinking straight vodka and smoking so much. It was rough in a sense. Everytime I'd go to eat, they wouldn't let me. I remember being so freaking hungry. I tried to cheat and secretly order a pizza through a few of the brothers I already knew. I've never smoked dirty weed or drank Stolichnaya Vanilla since.

We are so lucky you had the constitution to ward off starvation and poison consumption and are here to share your thoughts with us and offer us your advice.

I'm impressed.

Doesn't take much for a Louisiana girl, does it?

cashmoney are you sure you arent a Sachsen?

SirHorny,

Ya mama!

Cashmoney, you better lay off my fellow Macon Magnolia member. She may be lady enough not to kick your ass, but I'm not.


Y'all have a charming day.

Well actually lol. . . many people have at least partially abusive relationships with their SOs and their family. A lot of it looks like hazing or at least emotional abuse . . . but it does seem to bond the people closer together.

Funny, I was thinking the same thing.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that men and women bond differently.

Most men would not willingly go through a sororities idea of a new member program. They might consider that kind of bonding to be uhm . . . haxing lol ;) Or at least anti-masculine.

For example: A lot of sororities seem to emphasize Crafts? Like making small little cute gifts for their littles and others.

That would be an unusual guy thing lol.

I think there is stuff that women would automatically think was hazing, that men would consider just normal.

Someone help me out with an example?

Well. Again it depends. Can we use examples of actions?

Scene 1: Drunk at a party.
Interior night

Agressive buzzed brother: (in a drill sarjeant voice)Pledge Nimrod front and center. Do you want to be a member of my beloved fraternity?

Pledge Nimrod: Sir yes Sir. (or Yes Brother Buzzed)

Agressive buzzed brother: Then get me a beer now! Move Move Move!

Pledge Nimrod scurries into the kitchen and returns promptly with a brew

Agressive buzzed brother: Well done. (Turning to other watching brothers) I love this kid.

Ok is that hazing? That is, I believe, a realistic drunken scene at a party.

Thats not hazing come on how can you consider something that couldnt possibly hurt someone hazing i hope no one out there would consider that hazing.

That would be considered hazing as you forced him to do personal service as a price of getting in. Most GLOs do not allow members to demain personal service of their pledges.

Hazing! Da F**king Morons!

Have read in a weeks time of 2 LXA Chapters about 1 getting a Charter Taken back and another who is an Old line Chapter being investigated.

"WOW, I am really Proud of My Brothers who if it is true being My Brothers?:(

gart, and a few others, you are all morons!! See how many Chapters have been disinchartered! Who does that help?

Diner is burning, but this is very important to me! Period! I do not like to see a Fraternity Taken off Of Campus for being stupid!:

Get it together and learn! :rolleyes:

If you aint there, you anint in the game!:eek:

Technically, that is hazing.

ALTHOUGH....

I agree with James that men and women bond differently. On my campus one fraternity forbids their pledges from talking to women for a week.

The women -- primarily sorority women, actually -- take RUTHLESS advantage of this. All week long they find the pleges in the courtyard, sit in their laps, coo to them, offer to flash them "if only you ask us!", ask them on dates....

and there are more pledges in that courtyard during that one week than any other.

They certainly seem to bond -- with each other AND with the brothers -- over this. While I know it's hazing and shouldn't be supported... at the same time, I think I see more brotherhood that week between the guys than I do at any other time.

My fraternity would view that restriction as hazing, as any rules that limit pledge's social activities are considered hazing.

So what do your pledges have to do? Take a test, give you some money and you say welcome in :-\

In my opinion, thats a bunch of bull$hit.

actually no, they work their asses off doing service projects.

Nope. They have pledge requirements:

Do service hours.
Attend pledge meetings to learn materials & get tested on that.
Attend chapter meetings.
Plan and carry out their own service project.
Meeting the brothers.
Wear their pledge pin (within reason).
etc.

The details will very from chapter to chapter. But putting restrictions on their behavior is considered by our Fraternity (and others I think) as hazing.

Umm yessss. I think you'll find that the victims generally become attracted to the perps when they're being pleasant. The darker side coming out later, their having "bonded" already. Otherwise it'd be easier for them to leave.

Common greek question. That's not what people are saying. I commented on the same issue in the Zeta Phi beta forum around a week ago.

Perhaps a Louisiana girl would be impressed. But I live in Los Angeles.

Why spend time and money recruiting quality members, only to beat them down and belittle them, operating under the belief that this abuse will make them life-loyal members?

Jump into the fray, if you must, as people will continue to support hazing. It is illegal by every ethics code at colleges and universities, and in many states, it has been declared illegal. Every NIC and NPC has set forth policies supporting these anti-hazing laws. Why jeopardize the parent organization and the memberships of every brother/sister in the sole interests of having a pledge push M&Ms down the street with his nose? Hazing is selfish, and anyone who participates in hazing has no care or concern for his GLO.

Well, thats one opinion.

I think that there is a major problem that is poisoning discussion.

The first and most important thing is that hazing has become a buzzword. ITs a word that has a lot of vague and negative connotations as well as a lot of knee-jerk reactions.

Which means, its hard to talk about it. Hazing is wrong. Ok we got it. Most of us agre with it.

We bog down on whether we consider individual actions or scenarios to be hazing.

It might help us to give examples during discussion.

So for example lol, it is considered hazing to require pledges or NM to memorize/learn your history, symbols, poems, songs, and ideals.

When I am reading this post I am simply amazed by the sorority women that are posting in denounciation of hazing while they are in full knowledge that their chapters haze. Thats not even mentioning required library hours, or meeting times.

How can you ladies reconcile your rampant hazing of NM with the rhetoric you post on here?

rock on James.

also, as far as the 2 guys here who are getting their isht jumped on for saying "yeah, we haze", they haven't said what they do. It could be the same as Beavis and Butt-Head saying they got some when all they did was accidentally touch a girl's butt. :) The more upset you get about a word - and that's all it is, a word - the cooler you make them feel.

yes James, study hours, tests, being made to wear a pledge pin can all be construed as hazing. But if you go back and read the first post of this thread, you'll see that the discussion was not about tests. I know that cashmoney said he was hazed like that by lifeguards, but physical and psychological hazing from GLOs is what the topic quickly meandered to. And then most of the fraternity men quickly supported such hazing. I understand what you're saying though, a lot of us are taking the stance of "we do things that are considered hazing, but they're not bad. you're bad because you do things that are considered hazing that are bad."

I guess there's really no easy answer. A chapter will most likely not get their charter revoked for having study hours, however I'm pretty sure if the university or GLO headquarters found out about being forced to smoke a pound of weed and drink a bottle of vodka for 4 days straight with no food, that charter would be pulled faster than you could say "lawsuit."

I drank the bottle of Vodka in 24 hours, it was the weed that took me 4 days.

It really is just a word. Unfortunatley its' definition varries so widely, due to non-specific rules and laws, that it is really hard to argue.

So, in the end, things that are important -- learning history, interviews, etc. -- become hazing due to the stupidity of people who won't take the time to really identify the real problems and attack them head on.

The bottom line still is that hazing is illegal, though.

This is starting to sound like Alice in Wonderland - "When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean."

That's the problem I have with people using hot-button words/phrases like hazing, binge drinking, date rape, racism, add your own. Everyone has a different definition and is convinced theirs is the right one.

Starting to sound???

That's been pretty much the problem with this whole general topic.

There is a body of activities that most people accept as hazing. Most organizations have quantified these in their policies.

But it seems that many people/orgs seem to have gone too far in including a lot of activities as 'hazing'. Its what constitues this 'gray area' that seems to generate the most discussion.

James, by state law, university policy, NPC code and individual sororities within NPC, hazing is not allowed. Sorority HQ's have a hierarchy in place to ensure that each chapter is functioning with accordance to the sorority policies, and even send out leadership consultants a couple times a year to ensure that these policies are being followed.

However, sometimes, chapters slip through the cracks and support hazing activities, unbenownst to the national group. Why? These chapters lack strong leadership and understanding of the values of their parent group. Many times, it is also due to a lack of alumnae advisers and alumnae support. Mostly, it is a lack of consistency of those three core principles: mature leadership, alumnae advisory support and understanding of the org's values & vision.

You know that saying, "It's all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out?" Quite literally, this is when the whistle blows-- when someone gets hurt, recognizes the problem, complains, etc. We've all read "Lord of the Flies." As much as young adults wish to be treated as and act as adults, many students of college age are learning life skills, time management, ethics and leadership for the first time. They will make errors and learn from those mistakes; they will try out new ideas and be elated at their successes. Greek leadership is an excellent training ground for learning how to be mature, work with people, take direction and criticism, etc. Without an advisory hand to guide them, however, these young leaders can unintentionally take the name of their national group and turn their local chapter into its own operation; and over time, the national policies and values deteriorate until the chapter is hardly recognizable as a member of the national group, except for the letters they wear.

It is not considered hazing to have the entire chapter participate in activities equally, including events for learning chapter songs, policies and history. In Alpha Delta Pi, for example, the new member period consists of 4-6 weeks, during which time new members meet for 30 minute pre-scheduled education meetings where they learn about the sorority and Greek life, according to lesson plans that have been approved by the sorority chapter executive board and the regional alumnae directors. These lessons culminate in a final "exam" that every member must take each year she is actively involved as a collegiate member. All members are on study hours, and members with less-than-the-required GPA are carefully monitored. The first priority of a collegiate Greek is her school work. If she is not making grades, the sorority is not helping her achieve her longterm goals.

It becomes hazing when those education sessions are sprung on the new members without warning, or at 2 AM, forced to line up and recite things, etc. It becomes hazing when the new members are the ones who are being taken advantage of, or are treated as though they are inferior to the initiated members. A new member is still a member, and is not supposed to be having to prove herself worthy of membership-- that is what recruitment week and bid matching are for. The new member period is rather like a 90-day trial period at most workplaces where both employee and employer/team can assess the relationship once the person is hired, and give that new person an opportunity to become acclimated to the company's functions and policies and learn their job well. The same is true of the new member period-- if at the end of the new member education, it is not really for them, or they have broken every sorority policy in the book, it is time for them to consider the value of their membership in that org, and for the org to consider keeping this member "employed" (for lack of a better term) and representing the org.

Hazing is any activity that separates one group of members from another group of members that is not outlined in the approved new member education plans. Using common sense and maturity, something that chapters do have a tendancy to lack when there is little alumnae presence, hazing can become a non-issue. If a person feels hazing made her a stronger, life-loyal member, that is your idea and your decision. But it is not a policy supported by institutions of higher learning, most of the states in the US, nor the national/international sororities and fraternities. You are welcome to your opinion, but it is a disconnect to the teachings of your parent org and your university.

You completely missed James' point.

I've never seen it stated that way...people say that ANYTHING that separates the pledges and actives is hazing. Think of it in geometry proof form.

A. Hazing = anything that separates NMs and sisters - given

B. NMs are required to learn history etc etc - given

C. NMs have separate meetings to learn history - given

D. Making NMs learn history is hazing - substitution

As I mentioned before, we (briefly) had a NM who pointed out that the anti-hazing workshop was hazing. According to this definition, she was right. It was mandatory, and actives didn't have to attend it.

We'll never come to a solution with this until everyone sits down and SPELLS OUT what is and what isn't, and WHY it is hazing. The FIPG definitiion and most groups' definitions right now have far too much "wiggle room."

Exactly.

Unfortunately, then we'll have to convince all of the state legislatures to change their equally undefined laws.