How to stop hazing in my fraternity?

[tmt87570]

I pledged my fraternity last semester, I was hazed, not as bad as the oldheads in my frat got it when they pledged, but we did many pushups, were yelled at, nothing I can't handle, but It really sucked at the time. I'm personally not convinced hazing is bad, I thought it brought me and my pledge brothers closer together, and after we got in we laughed about those times, and have great stories from it, but there are some problems with hazing.

Last semester, our frat got the "hazing hotline" called on us, and again it happened this semester. Last semester, when I was pledging, our fraternity decided to end the pledging process and considered us brothers, but this semester when it happened we decided to drop our pledges. Obviously we need to change our pledging process or we're going to continue to have problems with campus.

Problem is, we don't have an exact answer with 1) how to change the pledging process 2) what we're going to do with the pledges we had this semester that were dropped.


I'm not in a position of power in my frat, but the majority of us agree that we need to drastically change pledging so we stop getting in trouble, even though the majority believes our old pledging process was effective. If anyone has had personal experience with this, or even better could post a detailed outline of a pledging process that doesn't include violent hazing, I would appreciate it

TLDR; my frat's getting in trouble for hazing, any suggestions on how to change, and what to do with dropped pledges?

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by tmt87570

I pledged my fraternity last semester, I was hazed, not as bad as the oldheads in my frat got it when they pledged, but we did many pushups, were yelled at, nothing I can't handle, but It really sucked at the time. I'm personally not convinced hazing is bad, I thought it brought me and my pledge brothers closer together, and after we got in we laughed about those times, and have great stories from it, but there are some problems with hazing.

Last semester, our frat got the "hazing hotline" called on us, and again it happened this semester. Last semester, when I was pledging, our fraternity decided to end the pledging process and considered us brothers, but this semester when it happened we decided to drop our pledges. Obviously we need to change our pledging process or we're going to continue to have problems with campus.

Problem is, we don't have an exact answer with 1) how to change the pledging process 2) what we're going to do with the pledges we had this semester that were dropped.


I'm not in a position of power in my frat, but the majority of us agree that we need to drastically change pledging so we stop getting in trouble, even though the majority believes our old pledging process was effective. If anyone has had personal experience with this, or even better could post a detailed outline of a pledging process that doesn't include violent hazing, I would appreciate it

TLDR; my frat's getting in trouble for hazing, any suggestions on how to change, and what to do with dropped pledges?

If your organization has a "hazing hotline," I'm going to guess that this is a national. You should have national guidelines that outline how men are to be pledged. Use that instead of relying on the chapter's remix of the pledge program.

[tmt87570]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

If your organization has a "hazing hotline," I'm going to guess that this is a national. You should have national guidelines that outline how men are to be pledged. Use that instead of relying on the chapter's remix of the pledge program.

The hazing hotline is ran by campus, but you were right in guessing it's national, I didn't think of that, but i'll bring it up; thanks.

[excelblue]

Have you talked to anyone in a position of power in your fraternity? It may simply be a case that nobody has the guts to speak up about hazing. They can start the change.

If you're not sure how to replace the pledge program with a productive one, seek help from (inter)nationals. It's to their best interest to rescue a chapter instead of shutting it down, if at all possible.

[Elephant Walk]

Stop pledging the type of people who would call the hazing hotlime

[Ghostwriter]

Quit hazing. Bring it up in the next meeting and adopt a strict no hazing pledge period with penalties for such activities. You may lose some brothers but you are better off without them.

Please note that there is always a degree of incrementalism with hazing that slips in and eventually someone will cross the line and a pledge gets hurt. You will be shut down and may open yourselves up to a huge lawsuit or in a worse case scenario jail time if you continue. Your National should reorganize your chapter at the very least.

I shake my "old" head in disbelief.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Stop pledging the type of people who would call the hazing hotlime

Yeah, but you forget that their roommates, parents, girlfriends, etc. can call without their knowledge. There is no shame in reporting people who are abusing you or others. I know of multiple instances when the hotline was called by people who were not in the organization in question.

[Barbie's_Rush]

If they have been reported twice in such a short period of time and the results affected their pledge classes, wouldn't their national organization be well aware that there are hazing issues in this chapter? Why aren't they already stepping in to help change the culture? I find it hard to believe that in this anti-hazing climate that a school that has gone so far as to set up a hotline would not have involved the national organization at this point.

[DrPhil]

For the record, although these are collegiates in this instance, age doesn't imply immunity from hazing issues. Collegiate members across GLOs have always gotten their pledging and hazing ideas from the older members.

And (for GLOs that have alumnae/graduate/alumni chapters) there are much much much older members who haze at the graduate level.

Also, since people tend to respond to this topic with "how can you all do this" as though it's all common sense at this point, the difficulty with hazing has been discussed in GC threads. Some people have no issue with some of the physical aspects; and some people have no issue with the mental/emotional aspects. Even the OP said it's nothing he "can't handle." That doesn't make it any less illegal and against GLO and university policies, but it helps to explain why people don't come forward; and why some chapters risk their charters to continue it. A hazing hotline is a great thing but that would be largely underused at most schools and for most GLOs that have anti-hazing contact info that prospective members have access to.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

For the record, although these are collegiates in this instance, age doesn't imply immunity from hazing issues. Collegiate members across GLOs have always gotten their pledging and hazing ideas from the older members.

I wouldn't say that (that this is always the case, hence the bolding). There are times when collegians get hazing ideas from blabby members of other GLOs or stuff they did in HS, even if their GLO has been completely hazing-free up till that time. It's a misdirected attempt to fit in and meet what they think are social norms. This often happens when a large group pledges all at once and somewhat overwhelms the current members. That's why if this sort of thing happens to a chapter your HQ should be keeping a close eye on it - it can be a blessing to a struggling chapter but it can also be potentially hazardous.

[DrPhil]

My statement applies across GLOs (cultures). Even if XYZ got their ideas from ABC; and ABC got their ideas from DEF,** 99.9% of the time the general ideas originally came from somewhere and weren't just invented by the college students. People will say "'they' used to do this back when...I was told...." That also applies to alumnae/alumni and older members from other chapters who share ideas.

**Across GLOs (cultures), it is more common for XYZ to get ideas from other chapters of XYZ than for XYZ to get ideas from ABC.

I keep saying "across GLOs (cultures)" because grandiose and general statements are always made on GC that exclude what BGLO, LGLO, MCGLO, and AGLOs do. I'm making a grandiose and general statement that doesn't include every instance but often applies across councils and conferences in which there is a culture of sharing information from old to young members.

[dnall]

I went through similar hazing when I pledged way back in the day. It wasn't insane, but it wasn't wildly enjoyable either.

Like you, I'm not convinced hazing is a bad idea when done correctly. I've been through a lot of military training as well, a lot of things there were less constructive and more humiliating than anything I did as a pledge. But, the methods that work for training are equally effective regardless if you're talking about teaching a pet, pledges, or Army privates. Constructive, controlled, and well thought out application of physical and mental stress is (as far as I'm concerned) the quickest way to achieve training goals.

That said, it's illegal and has consequences. I look at it a lot like pot. I really don't think pot is really any worse than alcohol & I wouldn't much care either way if it were legal, but it isn't, and because it isn't I would go to war with my brothers to keep it out of my fraternity house, because the consequences of getting caught are too serious.

We got busted for hazing when I was an active & one of my best friends and I were the ones that re-wrote the pledge program from scratch.

Our basic premise was to make pledgeship just as hard if not harder, but with methods other than physical hazing. We scheduled their entire day from morning till night. If they weren't in class they were busy.

We still had house hours to clean, but it was just cleaning & actives helped rather than screw with them. They had an increased number of study hours. We stuck with a set schedule of hours in the evening, plus they had to sign into the library for an additional 6hrs a week during the days. We added an hr/wk bible study focused on the principles of our org so they would better understand ritual at the end of the process.

We added a program we called active practice. That was we took an active officer position & assigned it to each week. They would do a project for that position that week. A pledge was selected at the beginning to be in charge of each project so they could coordinate with the officer and work with the pledge class to plan what they were going to do. So, they had like a philanthropy wk where they planned a full up chapter philanthropy project from scratch just the way the chapter philanthropy chair would do it and with him as an advisor. They also did fundraiser, social, chaplain (brotherhood retreat that turned out to be their big brother wknd)... I don't know, 8wks worth of stuff with a new position/project each week. As long as you can keep the pledge class in control of the project rather the active officer treating it like he's got slave labor for a week, then it's very effective. We felt like it taught strong leadership and trained them to do many positions in the chapter that they might be able to hold in the next year or so. Anyway, if they weren't otherwise occupied during the day, they were supposed to be working on those projects.

They had a DD rotation pretty much every night. Pledge trainer made sure folks with tests the next day were off. They had an absolute curfew every night & if they broke it we at least scared them by bringing them to a vote at chapter or something like that. And pledgeship was absolutely dry all the time - cause they were on-call DDs the whole time. There were a couple exceptions to that. Their bid acceptance party, big brother, and the social they planned. Otherwise, no exceptions & actives took that seriously cause that's your brother's DD you're talking about.

That's most of what I can remember off hand. Point being, pledgeship was more time consuming and arguably harder than before, but was now legal and more productive. We went from busted for hazing and fighting for our charter one semester to getting national and campus awards for that program the next year.

It's going to be hard. You have to get buy in from your chapter, and a lot of them aren't going to want to do it. You need continuing education directed at moral leadership and self-discipline. You need strong chapter leaders, and send emerging mid-level leaders to something like leadershape so they can take the reins next.

If you don't already have a strong involved alumni advisory board, get with your nationals and get one going. I don't know how your national org does their chapter advisor/alumni board/or whatever, but I really like what we do. We have a board of folks with focused positions. So, you have one advisor focused on risk mgmt and judicial for instance. All he does is ensure a training level and oversee operation of the chapter officers doing those functions. So, rather than one chapter advisor trying to oversee everything, you have specialized focused experienced help for key operational areas. You don't want those guys micromanaging, but you do want them deeply set in key areas of the chapter.

You have some hard work ahead of you, but you will find it very rewarding to look back and know you were a big part of changing the chapter for the better in this way. Good luck!

[dnall]

Oh, I forgot to say... you need to look at all your traditions. Some of those likely involve hazing. For us that was big bother. So, we created a local big brother ceremony to replace that event. Nationals was never too happy with the addition of a local "ritual" but it was better than a rally & trading swats by a bonfire in the middle of no where. They're still doing that same ceremony. It's a little cheesy, but kind of cool.

You don't by any means have to create ceremonies or anything like that, but you do need to figure out key traditional events that involve hazing and create a substitute that's equally transformative & cool in the eyes of actives. Don't be scared to start new traditions. A year or two later they're engrained & just as loved as what you were doing before.

[exlurker]

Originally Posted by dnall

. . . We got busted for hazing when I was an active & one of my best friends and I were the ones that re-wrote the pledge program from scratch.

. . . We added an hr/wk bible study focused on the principles of our org so they would better understand ritual at the end of the process.

. . . We went from busted for hazing and fighting for our charter one semester to getting national and campus awards for that program the next year.

First of all, congrats on the awards / turnaround.
Second, maybe just a minor question, or maybe you can't answer because of ritual issues: was it hard to do a "bible study" focused on your org's principles without hitting the slippery slope of actual religious beliefs / theology, etc?

[Gusteau]

In terms of getting the chapter to agree to stop hazing, it usually just takes one person to speak up to find that most of the chapter agrees with him. A lot of people feel that they're the only ones uncomfortable with hazing because one else speaks up about it, and it is usually not the case.

For a new pledge program look to what your national HQ says you should be doing - they give you those resources for a reason. Personally, I feel that the most successful pledge programs prepare the new members to be successful, contributing members of the chapter. This means reading officer/chapter operations manuals, learning about leadership styles (Myers-Briggs for example, but there are many similar assessments), managing conflict and change, etc. If a new member is fully capable of taking a committee chair or minor chapter office upon initiation you have a successful program that doesn't need to include hazing to make up for a lack of content.

Again, go to the resources your HQ provides.