Quote:
Originally posted by PiKA2001
Heather, I'm sorry you joined some half-ass sorority that couldn't do anything right, but just because your org f*cked up all these programs doesnt mean the rest of us have. Some chapters have been doing these things for years with out any incident of hazing what so ever.
|
You're making the assumption that my beliefs stem only from my personal associating experience. THEY DO NOT. I have observed COUNTLESS chapters and student activities groups, some in my sorority and many not, including fraternities and non GLOs. I have talked with people on campuses across the US. And through volunteering and my master's studies I have read about and studied student development, campus culture, hazing and Greek life extensively. Combined, they have helped to give me an educated and reality based perspective on this topic.
Unfortunately, as I have said before, I have seen too many instances where if you give an inch, people will take a mile.
My local was a pretty exceptional group of women and we did most things very well. What I regret was that the women who led my group (as did all the sororities on my campus), fell victim to trying to keep up with the boys by creating an associating program that mirrored the fraternities' in many aspects and that they took the easy way out. In my case, I truly believe they did not know any better--they simply thought this was what it meant to "be Greek". But times have changed since then--and we need a new definition of what it means to be Greek.
I truly believe we will not survive if we do not become more relevant to students' development while in college (because colleges and universities won't want us); if we do not walk the walk, and talk the talk so to speak. We say we value brother/sisterhood but we treat our new members as less than ourselves. Hazing, or even making people jump through hoops to join our groups, is not living with integrity, intellect, and high moral character.
Keep doing your interviews, collecting signatures and playing your games because they are not the problem--its a lot bigger than that. And some of us have been fighting it for a LONG time.