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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!
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