History of HAzing
 

This is interesting stuff I learned. How accurate is it, probably not 100%, but it is above 70%. From what I've learned from my regional work, HAzing first appeared after WWII. In the past, membership intake is in the form of bid, then you get initiated that night. So, there was no development in membership. ALso, back then, GLOs were a lot more secretive then they are today. Most doesn't even acknowledge they exist. It was something out of james bond.

This all change after WWII. Bascially you saw the rise of college enrollment by War veterans through the GI Bill. This also caused a shortage of housing on many campuses. This is where GLO come in. They provide housing alternative to dormitories. This saw the rise of membership of GLO. It fact, some houses saw membership in 200s. Since many of the current members were veterans, they all start implementing boot camp. It started out as a class prank. or a dare. Then within years, it started out to be compulsary. HAzing became dangerous around the 70s. This is where you saw a rise in incidence. Also the decline of membership. Then, many organization started to combat hazing, and again, membership rose in the 80s. Hazing was still prevelent. But it calm down.

The 90s saw many fraternity eliminating pledging altogether. Phi Sigma Kappa eliminated pledging and replaced it with something else. I can't remmember what it was. But perhap the program that is being imitated nationally is Sigma Phi Epsilon's Balanced Man. Many national now has zero tolerance in hazing. Which saw huge amount charter being revoked by the national org. What is the future? We'll find out in the next generation, the 2000-2010 generation. Sorry if this message was long.

I've been out of school now for 2 years. This Phi Sigma Kappa things must be new, because when I was in school, they still pledged. Just thought I'd throw that in there. That was a very interesting bit of information. Thank you for sharing it with us.



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Mikki Gates
Delta Zeta Alum
Kappa Mu Chapter
Sigma Alpha Iota Alum
Eta Tau Chapter

"I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special."

--Julia Roberts
(Steel Magnolias)

Visit me at:
http://homepages.go.com/~dzkm433/index.html
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This is a link to a history of Hazing. Its a good read.
http://www.kappasigma.org/ideabank/historyhazing.html


James

In Hank Nuwer's book Broken Pledges, he recounts some of the history of hazing, going back to the testimony of General Douglas MacArthur (then Cadet MacArthur) concerning hazing at West Point in 1900. Most experts seem to agree that hazing's origins lie in the military, and after WWII intensified. However, class hazing was a very common practice at many colleges and universities even during the 19th century. It was mostly done by sophomores against freshmen, and could sometimes be quite severe. I remember reading accounts of it at Rice University in Texas in the 1920s, and a story about hazing where 4 freshmen hid in the attic of their boarding house to escape a traditional hazing weekend, only to have the house (privately owned) virtually destroyed by the sophomores trying to reach them! I wish I could remember what school this was at!

Phi Sigma Kappa did away with pledging years ago, switching to an "associate" member program that was a shorter, more watered down version of pledging. This lasted quite a while, and I personally went through it in 1987-88. At Ball State where I attended, my "associate" member class went 13 weeks from bid night to initiation. Back then that was a very short time, since most other chapters didn't initiate for at least another four weeks. One guy from my dorm pledged another chapter at the same time(December) and wasn't initiated until the following September! Then about 1990 Phi Sigma Kappa brought out something new called "The Brotherhood Program", our chapter was made a pilot chapter. The whole program was to run in less than six weeks (preferably four) from bid night to initiation. Back then it was extremely radical. I believe they are modifying it again to be more like Sig Ep's "Balanced Man" program, which seems to be the model for everyone now days.

ok, i get it, maybe it was this program you were talking about. I don't know exactly how they did it, but if you say that it was a watered down version of pledging. . .That's what they did. The did call their guys associates, so I'm sure that I was wrong. Thanks for clearing that up!


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Mikki Gates
Delta Zeta Alum
Kappa Mu Chapter
Sigma Alpha Iota Alum
Eta Tau Chapter

"I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special."

--Julia Roberts
(Steel Magnolias)

Visit me at:
http://homepages.go.com/~dzkm433/index.html
and
http://www.calypso.com/dzkm433/welcomtomyworld.chtml

On the Lambda Chi Alpha Website, http://www.lambdachi.org under the timeline, it says, "The practice of hazing is roundly condemned by Lambda Chi Alpha at an NIC meeting." in 1928, so evidently it didn't just come around in WWII, maybe WWI though. Also, in 1972, The term “associate member” replaces the term “pledge” in Lambda Chi Alpha. When I went through the AM program in the fall of 98, we were not forced to do anything. We went through the history of the Fraternity, and of the chapter with our big brother. We didn't have to take any tests, do any "pledge projects" for the house, or do anything else for actives. In fact, if they told us to do ANYTHING, we could refuse, and face no repercussions, except maybe the guy griping about having to do it himself http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif Also, as I'm sure many other fraternities operate, in Lambda Chi Alpha, fraternity education doesn't end after the AM program. It lasts a lifetime.


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Steve Corbin
Lambda Chi Alpha
Theta Kappa Zeta Chapter
Ros-Hulman Inst. of Tech.

I recall an article in the LXA Cross and Crescent magazine some time ago (1993 or earlier) that also outlined the history of hazing, going as far back at 16th century associations in European colleges, that involved severe physical hazing, above and beyond what we see happening in many unfortunate instances today.

The common form of hazing, as all in this thread have posted, started after both WWI and WWII, with vets going to college in record numbers, and recreated the "boot camp" atmosphere they went through, in order to "control" pledges.

LXA banned hazing in their Constitution and Statutory Code as of 1928. I'm wondering if other organizations banned around the same time, or even before? Let me know.

Corbin - glad to hear you have had such a good experience, and that "you will be asked to do nothing a TRUE man should not or would not do" is live and well!

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Don't be your brother's keeper; rather, be your brother's Brother.

[This message has been edited by LXAAlum (edited June 28, 2000).]