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Blindfolding, enforced silence and anything separating new members from initiated members that is not in your chapter and executive headquarters-approved new member planning outline can be regarded as hazing by your sorority, NPC, university, state and federal guidelines.
Recommended new members-only activities:
- Education sessions in which they learn about the history and structure of the sorority
- Overnight retreat with getting-to-know you games, crafts and bonding.
- All chapter education sessions about hazing, friendship, life skills like self-defense, resume writing and nutrition
- Learn sorority songs
- Ice cream social with the new members of the other sororities on campus.
Your new members may be called "pledges," but they are also fellow students and young adults. They deserve to be treated like adults.
Adults do not blindfold other adults or enforce silence among adults in the name of "group togetherness." This same cohesiveness can be developed through university-sponsored ropes courses, an open dialogue about what it means to be a good friend and monitoring big-little relations to make sure your new member feels empowered about her decision to join and inspired to represent her letters like a mature adult.
If you set an example of childish behavior by making your new members engage in childish games, you are setting a very poor tone for the rest of their collegiate membership and for future poor decision making.
This is not about "not acknowledging" that hazing exists. It does. It is only though open and honest communication that we can eradicate this unnecessary behavior from young adult activities. Hazing is not a rite of passage. Virtually every state in the USA has a law against hazing. These laws exist because hazing violates personal rights. Hazing can hurt people physically and psychologically. Hazing can and does cause rifts and divisions within a team.
Every university honor code, NPC sorority and campus Panhellenic have rules and penatlies for hazing. Hazing, yes, it does exist. It also needs to be eradicated through education and awareness training, and through good communication, as has been acknowledged by government and the Greek and university systems nationwide.
"Change is not always for the better," you assert. An organization that does not evolve and change is bound to die. The world is constantly evolving. So must we all.
Treat your members as you would want to be treated. You can't honestly tell me you want to be hazed. If you do, you are no leader.
Last edited by adpiucf; 10-04-2004 at 04:01 PM.
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