Mac, Hazing is defined as:

Any action taken or situation created intentionally, whether on or off fraternity premises, to produce mental or physical discomfort, embarrassment, harassment or ridicule.

There are ways to promote group bonding and ritualistic rites of passage without deviating from your organization's approved methods of membership education. Part of any GLO's membership education should include a workshop on hazing. Members should be secure enough in their decisions to extend bids to potential new members without resorting to putting their new members through unnecessary tests of their loyalty. There are other ways to promote all-chapter unity and to foster a sense of belonging.

If GLO's want to be taken seriously, they should not perpetuate stereotypes by hazing their members.

Hazing has no place in recruitment or within any organization. There are more constructive ways to foster unity.

Networking exists everywhere. You could have gotten those letters from non-Greeks, and you can network within any social outlet. Your GLO did not get you the job-- the network you cultivated has helped you get your foot in the door and YOU got yourself those jobs/opportunities because the employer was impressed by you. You'd have the same opportunities had you been active in Young Republicans, a pre-professional society, Student Alumni Ambassadors, etc. There's no mystery network within the Greek world-- people connecting people happens on all levels in all social organizations.

Mental discomfort? I get hazed every year by my law school during examinations by this definition. If we and our policies ever want to be taken seriously, we need to tighten down those definitions a little better.

When did I say anything we do caused mental, emotional, physical discomfort? Maybe you should check again. I experience mental discomfort watching Texas play college football. Maybe we should do away with the NCAA due to hazing national viewers. If you think that teaching our pledges to be accountable, loyal, and gentlemanly figures is unnecessary, then so be it. There is nothing wrong with the things that I have listed that we do...and I don't think anyone else on here is disagreeing with me either.

Our GLO's absolutely help us get jobs and increase our connections far more than other student activities.....this is a fact.....so, naturally, I disagree with your networking statement. I am also in College Republicans...it doesn't do a whole lot.

Sometimes GLO membership is very much like "The Skulls" and CAN carry you through a great deal of your life. It depends on where you are and who you know.

If you can't relate and it isn't that serious to you, that's fine, but what you drink doesn't have to make everyone else piss.

Hazing and rush is a boring topic which is why we've deviated from it.

I like this.

I'd recommend starting a thread covering a less boring topic then.

We already have the new discussion going, thanks.

I agree. I split the rest of the 'on topic' posts off of this into another thread and renamed this one. Enjoy.

This doesn't mean, however, that the fraternity is "good" because it hazes.

For instance, drowning rates increase in the summer months. Ice cream sales increase during the summer months. Therefore, ice cream must cause/contribute to drowning.

Just because a "top tier" fraternity hazes isn't what makes the fraternity "top tier". Chances are, said successful fraternity would be successful regardless of whether or not it hazes its pledges.

The fraternity is hard to get into because it has a good reputation. Since it has a good reputation, it has plenty of members. Since it has plenty of members, it attracts more aspirants than its less-successful counterparts. Since it attracts more aspirants, and since it has more members, it is therefore more difficult to get into than its less-successful counterparts. It doesn't follow that it is more difficult to get into due to hazing. If it does, I've missed something along the way somewhere.

So, I'd have to say that hazing is bad (just because that's my opinion, not because of anything I've actually posted confirming that belief), and doesn't make a "good" chapter good.

The right type of hazing absolutely makes your chapter better when what you are doing helps foster and bring about the things that I have mentioned.

If I were active in an org that hazed, and I thought that our org was better BECAUSE of the hazing, I'd wonder what's wrong with my org. Seriously.

I think I can understand where you're coming from, but it sounds like you're selling your fraternity short. If the fact that you haze improves your fraternity, then your fraternity needs some help. By that, I don't mean you need help in learning how to phase out hazing; I mean, you need help in selecting the right men, in cultivating the ideals shared by your founders, in building bonds based on mutual respect (and not on things like how well you clean the bathroom), etc...

Maybe I'm misreading your posts, but if I were a pledge in your org, and saw that you believed that because you can haze me our org is better than others, I'd think you wanted to be in a group only to exert your power over others instead of wanting to be there because of the friendships, networking, etc., involved.

I don't think females need hazing, so it would be hard for ya'll to understand what mac is talking about. The right type of hazing absolutely makes a better chapter. Don't listen to the garbage your GLO has been stuffing down your throat. How do you people know it doesn't work, if you weren't in a chapter that did it, or did it correctly?

I agree that everyone - males AND females - needs pledging.

Hazing is another story.