In my line of work, I get to spend a lot of time having
frank, open and honest conversations with chapter leaders about what really
goes on in their chapters. In fact, my experience has taught me that bringing
in someone from the outside to have confidential conversations with chapter
leaders is money incredibly well-spent, because it provides opportunities to
cut through the BS and discuss the things really going on in a chapter. Campus
visits that offer these types of conversations are often my most productive. In
order to get students to think differently about what might be going on in
their chapters, it helps to provide them with a safe space to have open, honest
conversations about what is actually going on.
I have also written previously of the “regression to the mean” that happens within a given campus context. Over time, fraternity new
member programs on any given campus come to generally resemble one another, and
a salient campus culture emerges for what a “normal” new member program looks
like. Organizations who deviate from this campus culture initially (i.e. a new
chapter that begins doing things the right way immediately after colonization)
will be pulled towards it over time. Variance within these systems is not rewarded.
Fraternity new members hear these myths and are generally aware of the norm
when they join a fraternity on campus – they hear stories from their friends in
high school and come into an organization expecting a certain amount of hazing,
depending on the cultural norms on the campus in question. Sometimes the hazing
will be worse than they expected, and sometimes it won’t be quite as bad as
they had expected.
Sometimes a chapter will decide, for various reasons (it
gets into trouble, it elects a conscientious president, it gets new chapter
advisors, etc.), to try to address its hazing culture and deviate in some way
from the campus norm. The chapter will choose some of the most dangerous or
high risk activities in which it engages and eliminate them from the new member
education program. In doing so, they
often make a critical mistake – they fail to replace those high risk activities
with other meaningful new member activities. They eliminate hazing, but they
put nothing meaningful back in its place. This mistake is the most common one
that I see chapters make when they try to address hazing, and it has very
predictable consequences.
I recently met with a group of chapter leaders who had made
this mistake – they had gotten into trouble two years ago for hazing and had
cleaned a few things up in their new member program. They took some bad things
away, but they put nothing back in place of those things. The results of this
were both typical and predictable – they felt the pledges didn’t come together
and didn’t really get much out of the new member period. And they stated to me
what many chapter leaders over the years have stated to me after trying to
deviate from the campus hazing norm:
“The pledges told us they were disappointed that they
weren’t hazed. They wanted us to haze them more.”
My guess is that I am not the only person working in the
fraternity/sorority industry who has ever heard a statement like this. I
suspect this type of mentality is fairly common.
So how do I respond when I hear this logic?
“When your pledges tell you that they wish they had been
hazed more, what they really mean is that they wish their new member experience
had been more meaningful.”
Much has been written about adolescent men and their need
for meaningful rites of passage. They seek meaning and a deep sense of
connection in their experiences. They seek to bond with others in powerful ways.
They seek challenge and accomplishment. One of the primary reasons that hazing
not only persists but is often glorified as a positive experience is because,
in the short term, it provides these feelings of meaning and accomplishment. Take a group of 20-30 young men and put them
through Hell for 12 weeks and they will take a sense of pride and
accomplishment out of that experience. They will feel closer to one another
because of that experience. They will derive meaning from that experience.
But there are other ways to create a meaningful experience
that do not involve hazing. There are ways to facilitate authentic, meaningful
conversations that will build trust and connectivity within a group. There are
ways to facilitate a sense of accomplishment that do not involve physical or
mental abuse. It takes time, energy and creativity to develop and implement
these activities. That’s another reason that hazing is so prevalent – it is
much easier to implement. Any idiot can scream at a group of pledges who don’t
perform well on a pledge test. It takes a little more creativity to facilitate
a conversation or activity that facilitates meaningful bonding.
We have failed our fraternities by completely decentralizing
the new member education experience and expecting 19-21 year old men to come up
with constructive programs on their own. Most chapters simply have not spent
the time and energy required to develop meaningful new member education
activities. They take the simplest path to creating meaning within their new
member programs – they haze. I can offer a brief, bulleted list of what the
fraternity new member process looks like in 90 percent of fraternity chapters
across America:
- Bid night – get shitfaced.
- Have pledges memorize things from the national new member book. Give them a weekly test. If they fail the test, yell at them and make them do calisthenics.
- Run errands for older members in the name of “getting to know the older members.” This may or may not involve getting signatures in book or soliciting interviews with these older members while performing menial tasks for them.
- Big brother night – get shitfaced again.
- Lots of cleaning.
- Hell Week! Lots of yelling and calisthenics and cleaning and getting shitfaced.
- Initiation. Welcome to the frat, brother. Now let’s get shitfaced!
We have failed to change this pattern because we have failed
to help our fraternity chapters develop more meaningful ways to bring a group
together. The formula above is prevalent because it is the easiest, simplest
way to bring a group of new members together and foster a sense of
accomplishment. It requires zero effort, zero creativity, and zero initiative.
If you are a campus-based advisor, here is how you can make
a difference: Set a meeting with every fraternity executive board on your
campus. Block off two hours for each chapter. Begin the meeting by asking them
about the purpose of their new member education program. After hearing their
thoughts, provide them with an alternative framework – that the new member
education process is about building good members of the chapter. Once they buy
into this concept (they will), ask them to make a bulleted list of 8-10
characteristics to describe the ideal chapter member (if we agree that the
pledge process is about building good members, it helps to define what a good
member looks like). Some chapters will struggle with this, some will not. Push
them. Get them to think both in terms of tangible behaviors (i.e. shows up to
things, pays his dues) and intangible values (a man of integrity, an honest
person, etc.). Once they come up with that list of ideal member qualities, help
them brainstorm 3-4 activities for each of those qualities on that list that
would either teach that quality to new members or give new members an
opportunity to demonstrate or practice that quality. You’ll be amazed at the
things that they come up with. So will they. They will amaze themselves at the
meaningful activities that they are able to come up with in just a few short
hours of brainstorming.
At the end of this exercise, each chapter will have a list
of 30-40 MEANINGFUL new member activities that they can use to replace some of
the stupid things they are doing that really have no point or purpose. It will
make the new member programs on your campus better, and it will reduce the
likelihood of hazing creeping back in to the chapter, because everyone,
including the new members, will see and understand the benefits of a meaningful
and purposeful new member program.
New members don’t want to be hazed, and I suspect that 90
percent of chapter members don’t want to engage in hazing (10 percent of
society has sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies…). Chapters haze because it is
the only way they know how to create a meaningful experience for their new
members. We need to spend time and energy showing them a better way. We need to
invest resources in helping them come up with better ways to provide meaningful
experiences in ways that will work towards constructive ends and that are not
dangerous, demeaning or degrading.
We need to be better at our jobs. This is a good place to
start.
