What if all you knew about fraternities and sororities you learned through films, television and through the news? Would you allow your son or daughter to join a Greek-Letter organization? I certainly wouldn’t. (“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son!”)
If you joined a fraternity or sorority knowing only what you saw or read, what would you expect from your experience? Would you expect wild parties, hazing, and a dumb as doorknobs group of friends? (“Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the varsity swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode.”)
If you joined a Greek-letter organization knowing only what you saw or read, would you even realize that there are standards and expectations about behavior, scholarship, community service and your role as a member of a college community? Would you know that you would always be wearing your letter whether they were on your chest or not? That every act of yours would reflect on your organization, whether it was a good action or a bad one?
I write this at the end of National Hazing Awareness Week (#NHAW14) when Greek-letter organizations and campuses across the country promote an awareness of hazing through social media and on-campus events. Speakers have been making the rounds talking about hazing and how to spot it and change the culture when it does exist. Banners are displayed, events take place, and members sign a written pledge not to haze. The vast majority of those members taking the pledge have never, nor will ever, haze. It feels, at least to me, that there is a lot of preaching to the choir going on.
And how ironic that during NHAW, the recently crowned Miss America had to respond to allegations that she hazed members and was dismissed from Alpha Phi because of it. Her response was something akin to she had hazed because she had been hazed, she made a joke which was misunderstood, and she missed a standards board meeting to discuss the situation. Forgive me if that story doesn’t make sense to me. I also found it amusing that she threw “crafting,” the hobby of making items with the sorority symbols and letters on them, into her explanation. (“More glitter, fewer feathers, enough with the puffy paint!!!)
If you didn’t know about the history of the Greek-letter organizations, what the organizations value and espouse, and what resources they put into keeping the organization healthy and viable for future generations, you would think that each and every one of them was run by a bunch of nit-wits.
Each organization is faced with the challenge of undergraduate chapters with a yearly turnover of members, a need for constant education regarding the GLO’s values, policies, and procedures, and the availability of committed and knowledgeable alumni/ae advisors. Those undergraduate members are the face of the organization on college campuses in the U.S. and Canada, although they are the member with the least knowledge of the organization.
Is hazing an issue in some GLOs? Probably. Is it an issue in most GLOs? Probably not. Making members aware that hazing has no part in any of our GLOs is a yearly activity and event because the membership changes every year, if not every semester. Constant education of values and expectations of membership is the key. And, I, too, like Skiouros, the Alpha Gamma Delta squirrel, think hazing is nuts.
My very favorite #NHAW14 poster. Alpha Gamma Delta’s symbol is the squirrel, thanks to AGD Founder, Emily Butterfield, an architect who liked to draw squirrels
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2014. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
