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Sure, hazing brings pledge classes together, but why? It's not the humiliation and fear. It's the fact that the members overcame a very tough challenge together.
So how to get the good without the bad? Give the chapter positive, uplifting, difficult challenges.
Challenge members to double the chapter's philanthropy fundraising in one semester; to build an entire house for Habitat for Humanity in a single week; to rehearse till all hours for weeks on end and put on the best step show the campus has ever seen; to work out and practice every single day until the intramural teams could beat the school's varsity squads. Demand that every single member put blood, sweat, and tears into the project. This will accomplish every purported goal of hazing -- weeding out the guys who are just there to party, bonding the pledge class together, building trust among the members -- without any of the cruelty and pain and humiliation and danger of hazing. There's nothing good that can come of hazing that can't come about through better, safer, kinder, more brotherly means.
Ivy
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