"I wish I had been hazed."

[ForeverRoses]

Anything that forces a new member to drink alcohol is hazing in my book. I don't think doing things that has them get to know each other or the chapter is bad- for example we had a night where we did off-the-cuff skits that we performed for the active members. Now that is probably hazing. At the time it was a great way to get to know other members of our pledge class and the actives got to know us. We also had a night where we visited all the seniors in groups. We spent about 10 minutes at each of the stops. It was a great way to get to know them and them to know us. I think that is forbidden now as well.

[Katmandu]

We had to:

1. Memorize the actives names, hometowns, majors and grade. Boyfriend/fiancée if applicable.
2. Memorize the creed, motto, founders, greek alphabet and the pins/greek letters/colors and flower of every sorority on campus
3. Complete required proctored study hall hours
4. Do phone duty for about 5 hours in the evening during the first semester
5. Get a wooden dagger signed by all of the members prior to initiation. The members couldn't make us "do" anything for the signature, but we did have to go to ask them, which helped us meet those last few seniors we hadn't met during pledging.

This is now considered hazing, but it served a great purpose. We knew everyone's background/major early in the semester, we put in some significant quiet study hours and it really encouraged freshmen to spend time at the house, we got to know all of the members and spoke to them personally, and my dagger is still a beloved possession.

Alcohol and boy/fraternity/party requirements should still be considered hazing, but learning about members and glo history should still be required. As an advisor, working with members who couldn't recite our creed or purpose was just sad. Not every requirement is hazing and shouldn't be considered so. But then, I am a dinosaur.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by Katmandu

We had to:

1. Memorize the actives names, hometowns, majors and grade. Boyfriend/fiancée if applicable.
2. Memorize the creed, motto, founders, greek alphabet and the pins/greek letters/colors and flower of every sorority on campus
3. Complete required proctored study hall hours
4. Do phone duty for about 5 hours in the evening during the first semester
5. Get a wooden dagger signed by all of the members prior to initiation. The members couldn't make us "do" anything for the signature, but we did have to go to ask them, which helped us meet those last few seniors we hadn't met during pledging.

This is now considered hazing, but it served a great purpose. We knew everyone's background/major early in the semester, we put in some significant quiet study hours and it really encouraged freshmen to spend time at the house, we got to know all of the members and spoke to them personally, and my dagger is still a beloved possession.

I had to do the same things (well, a diamond, not a dagger), and was held up by our EO as an example of hazing. I also think that a 6-8 week New Member period is entirely too short, not properly allowing the New Member to really know the history or other significance of the sorority/fraternity.

Alcohol and boy/fraternity/party requirements should still be considered hazing, but learning about members and glo history should still be required. As an advisor, working with members who couldn't recite our creed or purpose was just sad. Not every requirement is hazing and shouldn't be considered so. But then, I am a dinosaur.

Completely agree, and I tried to convey the same to the New Initiate!

[DaffyKD]

Originally Posted by Katmandu

We had to:

1. Memorize the actives names, hometowns, majors and grade. Boyfriend/fiancée if applicable.
2. Memorize the creed, motto, founders, greek alphabet and the pins/greek letters/colors and flower of every sorority on campus
3. Complete required proctored study hall hours
4. Do phone duty for about 5 hours in the evening during the first semester
5. Get a wooden dagger signed by all of the members prior to initiation. The members couldn't make us "do" anything for the signature, but we did have to go to ask them, which helped us meet those last few seniors we hadn't met during pledging.

This is now considered hazing, but it served a great purpose. We knew everyone's background/major early in the semester, we put in some significant quiet study hours and it really encouraged freshmen to spend time at the house, we got to know all of the members and spoke to them personally, and my dagger is still a beloved possession.

Alcohol and boy/fraternity/party requirements should still be considered hazing, but learning about members and glo history should still be required. As an advisor, working with members who couldn't recite our creed or purpose was just sad. Not every requirement is hazing and shouldn't be considered so. But then, I am a dinosaur.

I was a full semester pledge. Had to do many of the same things as Katmandu. We had a pledge notebook instead of a dagger which each collegiate member had to sign. One of our first pledge tests was to name every member of our pledge class, the next week we had to name every collegiate member. Wasn't that hard at the time since the early '70's were not a good time for the Greek system. My pledge class only had 14 members and there were only 25 collegiate members. Learning the names of all 400 collegiates at some chapters today would be a very arduous task.

We had to also do a philanthropy project as a pledge class. We made coloring books for our National Philanthropy. Another requirement was to put on a party for the collegiate members. We needed money to do that so we stole the pillows of in-house girls and the car keys for the commuters. They had to buy them back. We also went around to all of the fraternities selling stale donuts that had been donated to us.

My best friend/pledge sister and I still laugh about the bonding that went on in our pledge class as we worked together.

DaffyKD