One of the kids I'm rushing has actaully asked me about hazing, and he's interested to see how much of a constitution he has to take it. I've seen people quit because they were not hazed hard enough.

Yes, be proud that you're recruiting someone who has so little respect for themselves they will allow you take the easy way out by denegrating them and treating them poorly in an effort to gain your acceptance.

Sorry, that was pretty harsh, but hazing is too easy. There are some great ways to accomplish team building and bonding without hazing. Yes, they take more planning and involvement by the whole chapter to execute, but it can be done. It's unfortunate that there are still chapters out there that think putting new members down is the only way to learn to respect one another and build a bond. You have to give respect to get respect.

If it were me, I would be looking for the person that already knows how to respect others and build positive bonds with people because it ensures a stronger brother/sisterhood for the future...

or did they leave due to the hazing? perhaps they are smarter than you believe.

I've said this before on GC, but I firmly believe that, for many if not most guys, at least, hazing it about much more and goes to something much deeper than "team building and bonding."

Don't get wrong -- to avoid any confusion, I think hazing is wrong and I support my fraternity's policies on hazing.

But I think any "alternative" to hazing may be less than successful if it doesn't meet what I would call the primal need to prove one's self by ordeal -- the same primal urge that symbolically underlies many, many fraternal and masonic-type initiation rituals.

Just my $0.02.

This was a blog post by one of the creators of Phiredup.com. Just thought I'd throw it on here.

What HURTS Recruitment Results?
by: Matt Mattson

You want recruitment results, right? What do you think is one of the major concerns/fears of potential new members? Yep, you guessed it… they don’t want to get hazed. They assume that joining a fraternity or sorority requires at least a week, if not a full semester, of humiliation, hard work, embarrassment, alcohol abuse, illegalities, and other things that they’re not interested in.

So, they don’t join.

I’m not talking about a few people on your campus that aren’t joining because of a fear of hazing. I’m suggesting that on most of your campuses there is about 80-90% of the campus that isn’t Greek. I’m suggesting that most of them are smarter than to put themselves in a position where hazing MIGHT happen.

You’re saying, “our chapter is different, we don’t haze.” Great! It is important to understand however, that your potential members don’t know that. And they aren’t joining because other chapters on your campus, in your inter/national organization, around your state, and around the country DO HAZE. They haze and you pay the price — the vast majority of your campus is afraid of what you MIGHT do to them.

Are you angry yet? You should be. I know I am. I know that many of you don’t haze, would never allow yourself to be hazed, and think that chapters that do haze are just stupid — never mind the “it’s against our values” stuff. You know, just like I do that they’re missing out on the best guys on campus (who avoid them altogether), and they lose many of their best members during their new member period (because they’re smart enough to get out during pledging).

Anytime I think or talk about hazing a couple of memories come up for me…

The first is a new member education exercise I did when I pledged to Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity at Grand Valley State University back in 1996. One day during our new member ed meeting, the pledge educator took the whole 12-man class outside onto the lawn of the house. He put us in a circle and did a version of the “crossing the line” exercise.

During that exercise members were asked to step forward if they could relate to a statement. The statements started with benign things like, “I am a college student,” or “I am a republican.” As the statements continued, they became more and more challenging and personal, like “I have been angry at someone in this circle,” or “I’ve cheated in school before.” By the time we got toward the end of the exercise, the statements were very personal and very revealing. They included statements like:

“I have lost a loved one recently” (several of my brothers stepped forward)

“I have done hard drugs” (a couple of my brothers stepped forward)

“I have been very depressed” (a couple of my brothers stepped forward)

“I have been abused” (several of my brothers stepped forward)

“I have considered or attempted suicide” (3 of my pledge brother stepped forward)

“I have been sexually abused” (2 of my pledge brothers stepped forward)

“I have been raped…” (one of my pledge brothers stepped forward)

Very few experiences in my life have given me as much insight into the reality that all of us — even the ones you least expect — have had experiences in our life that have hurt deeply. If I am to be their brothers, and if I am to educate my interfraternal brothers and sisters to be the best members they can be — then I can not stand for us hurting one another (even if it is based on a joke or some “bonding” experience). Because even a light-hearted, seemingly harmless prank can bring back the pain of those past experiences and losses.

I can’t imagine how painful it would be for my pledge brothers (especially those that had been abused, sexually molested, suicidal, and/or recently grieving a lost loved one) to have been paddled, forced into dark rooms or blindfolds, forced to drink, to have had demeaning things shouted at them, etc.

New members join us often in one of the most vulnerable times in their lives. They have moved away from their friends and families, they are trying to establish their own personal identity, and they are vulnerable. We can’t abuse that. We have to nurture our brothers and sisters especially during their first few months as a member. That is what true brotherhood and sisterhood is.

The other memory that arises for me comes from when I was the president of my chapter. After one of our Pledge Ceremonies (an initial ritual for new members) in which the candidates were blindfolded, I had one of the new members come to my room at about 2 a.m. in tears. Now, I wasn’t used to having another guy come talk to me crying, so I was a little freaked out. He explained to me that he suffered from severe anxiety disorder, and the fact that we drove him around in a car for 30 minutes blindfolded (which we thought was harmless) was deathly terrifying for him.

Two thoughts come out of this scenario for me. First, it amazes me that he let us do that to him. But that just confirms how vulnerable we are when we’re new members. Secondly, I now do some work in the field of mental health and better understand the level of terror that he must have been experiencing. I also know that somewhere around 1 in 5 of us (yes, your chapter too) live with a serious mental illness (and you hardly ever know who we are). A good brother/sister wouldn’t kick their members while they’re down, and they certainly wouldn’t terrorize them on purpose.

Am I saying that “blindfolds are hazing.” No. I’m saying we need to be aware of the reality of what our brothers and sisters have gone through or are going through, and be sensitive to that. When they’re new members, often they’re afraid to tell you about these things, so we have to create environments that are extra safe for them — so that they feel safe and want to stick around.

My recommendation is to assume that somewhere in your new member class there is a person who has been abused, who has a mental illness, who has an eating disorder, who is an alcoholic, who can’t read, who was molested, or… who is suicidal right now. Build a new member education program based on those assumptions — because they’re probably TRUE.

Bottom line: If we’re helping you revolutionize your chapter by using Dynamic Recruitment to recruit a higher quantity of higher quality members, don’t haze them because if they really are higher quality members, they’ll quit, and all of our/your hard work will have been wasted.

Hazing hurts. It hurts recruitment results. It hurts people.

According to the NHPW website, since 1970 at least one person has died from a hazing related event each year. Let’s stop that.

One person can make the difference. Your opportunity is now here.

^^^^^wow. very interesting and thought provoking. perhaps thread moderator should stick this to the top of section.

This is perhaps the most powerful statement I have read regarding hazing. With proper credit to the author, I agree that this should be stickied.

I understand what you're saying--and I probably don't get it because I am missing certain parts. But we're talking about joining a fraternity here, and what, in that, includes the need to prove your primal manhood? Where, in any fraternity's values, does it say that we value being primal? I see things about being a gentleman and respecting each other, but I don't recall anything about being Neanderthal-like.

I am being somewhat facetious but it's only to prove the point that sometimes the values we as members claim don't line up with the excuses to haze.

I think you are missing the point (and certain parts :D).

First, primal doesn't mean Neanderthal. It means fundamental or deep-seated -- way down in and integral to our psychological make-up.

Second, because our culture doesn't offer standard "initiation rites" that mark the transition from childhood to adulthood for men (not sure it does for women either), a vacuum is created that groups like fraternities step in to fill.

Third, I think most fraternities, in some way or another, say they are about making better men -- not just gentlemen, but better men. So there is built into the fraternal experience the idea of being the best man you can be. And in some ways on a deep psychological level, being the best man you can be requires proving yourself -- to yourself and to those whom you hope to have accept you as a peer. There is more than a grammatical difference in "joining" a fraternity, as you put it, and "being accepted" into a fraternity.

I'll readily agree that doesn't necessarily line up with excuses to haze. I'll also agree that there is hazing and then there is hazing. My point is, though, that I think hazing started because of this inborn need to prove one's self through some kind of ordeal. We can never successfully get rid of hazing unless we understand the psychology that underlies it and find other, more appropriate, ways to meet that need.

So... in order for you to "be accepted" into a fraternity you have to prove yourself by drinking too much, bowing down to brothers, and being humiliated?

That makes sense.

And what are these "initiation rites" you speak of? I didn't realize I had to be physically and emotionally harassed in order to grow up.

Did I say anything about drinking too much, bowing down to brothers, being humiliated or being physically and emotionally harassed? No. (Well, actually I did when I said just a few posts back that I think hazing is wrong and that I support my fraternity's policies on hazing.)

You're reading things into what I said that aren't there.

Read the post to which I linked a few posts back in this thread and you'll see the kind of thing I'm talking about.

As for the initiation rites, take an anthropology class or read up on the Greek mysteries. Or you might read up on vision quests. ;)

(Actually, my fraternity's manual for probationary members has a very good section on ritual and initiation rites/rites of passage. I don't have my copy handy, but when my copy and I are in the same place, I'll take a look at it and see if there's anything worth posting here.)

Well stated. :) But unfortunately, the average college male doesn't think this way.... still, a good discussion point on what it will take to deal with hazing.

Ok, I'm a DU like Mystic, and seriously, there is a reason that Nationally DU sucks...but there is also a reason why my chapter doesn't, we have a pedgeship that is difficult. Every fraternity has rules agaisnt hazing that is broken in some form or another. Hazing for hazing sake is stupid, but doing it for a reason does make sense.

LPIdelta, I don't care what you think. It does work, get over it.

Same goes for you AST.

I'm going to refer to about 10 posts ago, when I put up that long blog entry. Read it if you haven't already, and read it again if you have. You don't know you you're recruiting. You meet people, you make small talk with them, you have a couple weeks (if that) to get to know them, and then you start hazing them. You don't know intimate details about their lives, you don't truly know what kind of person they are, and you don't know if even the smallest thing you do can affect them.

People who support hazing say that if a person can't handle the pressure and hard work, then they're not worth being in the fraternity/sorority. That's kind of sad. What you're essentially saying, is that if Joe Schmoe received a bid, started your new member program, even if he has impressive grades, is on the baseball team, is involved with student government, and volunteers twice a week at a soup kitchen, you won't think twice about turning him away from your organization because he doesn't want to be hazed and "can't handle it"?

Does that make sense?