Thinking About Disaffiliation

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by 7Silver17

To navane,

Thank you so much for your message. To clarify, when I was in undergrad, I DID NOT believe what I was doing was considered hazing. It wasn't until last semester when I went to my FSL office and asked my AD in person if activities XYZ were hazing and she flat out said yes. I then communicated to her that the activities are written on a national level, as in EVERYONE in EVERY chapter is expected to conduct basically the same activities in the same way. I asked a fellow sister if we could change things on a chapter level, but person X responded to me saying that our chapter would not be recognized if we did our own thing. The people are different in every chapter, but everything in our manual/book is meant for every chapter to perform such activities. It is also meant to be "read as if an administrator is reading it," as similarly quoted by another fellow sister who explained it to me. To me, hearing that sounded suspicious, which made me want to ask more questions.

So to also double clarify, I did not think what I was doing was hazing before I asked my AD a few questions last semester, which at the time, I was getting ready to go into the field of FSL. And, I believed that I needed to have my personal thoughts/feelings about the activities discussed as I need to know what is truly hazing or not as a newly rising professional.

Have you read the NPC Manual of Information (aka The Green Book) for that definition of hazing? If you are going to work in FSL you need to be very conversant with that book. I know that some other Councils don't consider some of the activities listed as hazing. One of them is scavenger hunts. You hardly ever see paddles any more with NPC groups just because of the "idea" of it relating to hazing. So perhaps what you need to do is to investigate what the other Councils say about hazing- NPC,IFC, NPHC, etc - and then make a determination. Also, if you know an attorney in your state, asking about the legal definition in your state might be helpful as well.