Funny Things You've Done to Loosen Up Pledges..

[TriDeltaGal]

Originally posted by PM_Mama00

Another thing too, local or national or NPC or whatever... what if people outside the Greek system had been watching, not knowing it was a joke? Great way to pick up the anti-Greek reputation.

Thank you PM Mama, this was exactly what I was trying to stress.

[adpiucf]

Myth: It's difficult to determine whether or not a certain activity is hazing--it's such a gray area sometimes.

Fact: It's not difficult to decide if an activity is hazing if you use common sense and ask yourself the following questions:

Make the following inquiries of each activity to determine whether or not it is hazing.

1) Is alcohol involved?

2) Will active/current members of the group refuse to participate with the new
members and do exactly what they're being asked to do?

3) Does the activity risk emotional or physical abuse?

4) Is there risk of injury or a question of safety?

5) Do you have any reservation describing the activity to your parents, to a professor or University official?

6) Would you object to the activity being photographed for the school newspaper or filmed by the local TV news crew?

If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," the activity is probably hazing.

Adapted from Death By Hazing Sigma Alpha Epsilon. 1988.

[sairose]

Well why should you even need to "loosen up" your pledges??! Our pledge period is fun, and the girls love it. The only thing they get stressed about is the membership exam (a national requirement). All the other stuff we do is fun.

I can't even believe you would even CONSIDER doing that to your pledges. Scaring the crap out of girls you call sisters, and then laughing in their faces, doesn't sound very sisterly to me.

I'm just glad when I pledged SAI that my sisters respected me a little more than that.

[wishinhopin]

I'm trying to make one little point here, but I think it may need a bit of explanation. My main problem with that situation is that these girls had no choice as to whether they were involved in that situation.

In many situations that have been specifically identified as hazing, and many situations that are debatable (such as this one, obviously) there is still an element of free will that these girls didn't really have. Using the most common example, let's say a pledge is told to drink excess amounts of alcohol. Or screamed at by a pledgemaster type person. In these situations, those pledges could have presumably chosen to leave the organization then and there. I'm not saying that makes it ok for the organization to do, and I definitely think in many cases the pledges could be so psychologically and/or physically worn down that their thought process isn't what it would need to be to make a rational decision. But anyway, there's still an element of choosing to participate.

The girls in this example, however, did not ask or expect for that to happen to them. They didn't have a choice, and I'm sure that (most of them at least) didn't feel they had many options to get out of the situation. I personally would have pissed my pants and been absolutely furious that anyone would subject me to that- but I'm kinda sensitive and so I can see how someone else could get a laugh out of it.

So in some ways I guess, I feel like this is definitely an issue of hazing because it crosses a line that many other verified hazing incidents have not even crossed. I can see how a legal definition might exclude it (although I think it could qualify as causing mental pain), but I think that's something to consider.

[AlethiaSi]

i don't think what she did was wrong- considering that it was in the precence of the campus police... i think that it might of been a little overboard- but i know people that have done things a lot worse and they were hazing.... i think her joke was in fun...

we've loosened up pledges by just taking them to one of our houses or the house and watched movies- hung out- gone out and gotten stuff to eat with a big group of us- we had our 75th birthdya party in october and all of us were freaking out b/c like 500 alumni were there- after it was over we all went to my best friends house- climbed into any available beds and couches and passed out for a good 3 hours- that was some good therapy and then we got ice cream and junk food and pigged out- the pledges weren't just pledges- they were becoming sisters- that was a great afternoon

[Rudey]

So these people got mental suffering? How does the law detail what mental suffering is? Tons of people on Judge Judy always sue for suffering; none win.

-Rudey

[Lady Pi Phi]

Whether it's hazing or not (who really knows with some many rules nowadays) I think it's a bad way to de-stress your pledges.
How does scaring the crap out of your pledges loosen them up? If anything they were probably more tense aftwards and will ontinue to be tense because they don't know if and when you're going to pull another practical joke on them.

There have been a lot of good suggestions given in this thread for relaxation. I suggest that you use one of them instead of pulling practical jokes on your pledges.

[preciousjeni]

Regardless of our opinions of hazing laws, the fact stands that this is hazing according to the rules. It doesn't matter if the group is not affiliated with a national group since hazing laws are enforced everywhere (including workplaces, high schools, etc.) This really is just the thing a university needs to see to finally get rid of Greeks altogether. And if you think it hasn't happened in the past, you're living in Never Never Land!

[James]

It was a prank not an organized function, and you are talking in might-have-beens versus what actually happened.

The way that prank was set up and with the harmless results, its not going to incur a hazing charge.

Even its intent was not hazing.

Now if someone had stroked out, everyone would have been sued.

But let me assure you, you could be having a sleep over and if someone strokes out, law suits are going to rumble. Mostly because of the knee jerk attitudes and law-suit happy people on this thread.

Not everything that happens in the world requires litigiation. Despite what lawyers and wanna be lawyers (eeew thats even worse than a rat, a wanna be rat) tell us.

[PM_Mama00]

Originally posted by James
It was a prank not an organized function, and you are talking in might-have-beens versus what actually happened.

On my campus with one of the fraternities, pledge kidnapping is not an organized function (they don't do this anymore). Do you consider that not hazing?

[James]

Oh and how did some of you get so sensitized by life that you always look at the worst possible thing that can happen in any situation?

You are going to go absolutely batty when you are parents.

Some of you must be afraid to leave the house.

Do you have a thought process when you read accounts? Or do you guys just generally respond in an emotional fashion prompted by whatever PC buzzword is the fashion of the day?

I kind of an emotional sophistry where try to find small logical facts to justify a completely emotive reaction?

I see so little critical thinking in so many responses I begin to wonder if many of you are capable of detached analytical thinking and have fully formed criteria for judgement and decision making.

[James]

If they don't do it anymore its not hazing, and what do you mean pledge kidnapping not being an organized fucntion . . you mean every semester some brother would suddenly get a an impulse to kidnap a pledge on the spur of the moment?

IT depends on how they execute the project. I would imagine that going commando and putting a tied up blindfolded pledge in the trunk is hazing.

Having pledge brother number 1 sitting in mcdonalds eating while the others follow clues to come get him probbaly wouldn't be construed that way, unless there was a specific rule defining that as hazing. Kind of like making your pledges take an exam. Enforced memorization is defined as hazing.

Originally posted by PM_Mama00
On my campus with one of the fraternities, pledge kidnapping is not an organized function (they don't do this anymore). Do you consider that not hazing?

[aephi alum]

Kayla, I'm sure you were not expecting half of GC to jump down your throat!

The fact is, though, that what you did could be construed as hazing - whether or not you intended it to be. The definition of hazing has gotten very broad in recent years. Even relatively innocuous things like requiring pledges to wear pledge pins at all times can be considered hazing because it separates the pledges from the actives.

I'm just saying be careful... next time your pledges are stressed out, have a spa night or something instead of scaring the living cr@p out of them.

[shadokat]

There are certainly more positive ways to loosen up new members, and on most campuses, this would be considered hazing. Also, and this member of the campus police isn't that bright, their job could've been in jeopardy for taking part in a hazing incident. Hopefully folks will think twice....

[angelic1]

I think why so many people start thinking about the worst possible scenario is bc thats how you usually have to think in most chapters.

So many people are so quick to cry hazing bc of events in the past that there has almost become this effect where everyone basically tiptoes around all situations and have totally changed so many events to avoid this.

I think a lot of times guys consider said events differently. Most girls will not tolerate the same types of things that guys will and are very self conscience (sp?). They do not like getting scared or feeling like they are judged.

I know that in just my four years as an active I saw so many many things change in our sorority since the day I pledged.

as for the original post.. i dont think that this is a real effective way to loosen up your pledges.. scaring them which this Im sure did to many is hazing. I dont know why in the first place your pledges needed to be "loosened up" but if they do need something fun to cheer them up.. i know i would always go through a slump midsemester.. then have something fun as a chapter.