Just think about what you are saying " I need to beat this guy up so that he will be a good member of the fraternity" Where did this idea come from? Did your parents deck you when you didn't clean up your room in order to raise a good son or daughter? The fact is you may be creating people that stay with the fraternity but isn't that the same as the house wife who is beaten by her husband and then says she tripped down the stairs. Should you really have to tear a person down in order to build them up to be a strong leader? I sure don't think so. In my fraternity we create paddles as part of tradition. Hazing may have been a tradition in the past but when someone realizes a tradition is wrong it is there responsibility to change it. It was traditionally the man who has been the head of the household forever but now we share equal rights with women. This one example of breaking tradition. It really shouldn't be that hard to realize that beating these pledges isn't the true way to create a strong leader. I suggest every member of a greek lettered fraternity take a careful look at how they are running their pledge process and look how they could change it for the better.
Pi Kappa Phi
University of Oregon
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