Working with any group of students on a college campus, be it a sports team, the French club, the jazz ensemble, or a Greek-letter organization, can be like the movie Groundhog Day. Each year the faces change, with a number of students graduating and another group joining the mix, but the same things need to be said again and again.
What if all one knew about fraternities and sororities was learned through films, television, and through the news? If that is all one knew of Greek-letter organizations, what would one expect from the experience? Would one expect wild parties, hazing, and a dumb-as-doorknobs group of friends?
If one joined a Greek-letter organization knowing only what was viewed and read, would one be ready for hazing or even desire to be hazed like the characters in a film? Would one even realize that there are standards and expectations about behavior, scholarship, community service and the member’s role in the college community? Would one know that letters are always being worn whether they were on one’s chest or not? Would one realize that every act would reflect on one’s organization, whether it was a good action or a bad one?
This begins National Hazing Awareness Week (#NHAW15) 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.
Is hazing something that might only occur in Greek-letter organizations? No, unfortunately it is not. This morning an article on hazing within bands, those musical groups which usually perform half-time shows during football games, came across my twitter feed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/07/28/are-college-marching-bands-hotbeds-hazing
Professional sports teams seem to delight in hazing rookie players and those actions don’t seem to bring the scorn that other hazing incidents do. The media’s tendency to glamorize those incidents is unfortunate. Hazing is hazing wherever it occurs.
Each GLO 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 members with the least knowledge of the organization. And every stupid thing they may do without thinking of the ramifications reflects poorly on the entire organization and GLO world. Our detractors do not know the Greek alphabet and to them we are all the same organization.
Hazing Prevention.org (hpo) was founded by Tracy Maxwell in 2007 and each year a concerted effort is made to bring awareness to hazing at the beginning of the academic year. To add a picture to the “These Hands Don’t Haze” mosaic, visit http://hazingprevention.org/home/prevention/these-hands-dont-haze/.
Hank Nuwer, the author of a number of books on hazing, was a founding board of directors member of hpo. He has written extensively about hazing, but he is also a novelist and a journalism professor. The list of GLO members who perished on September 11, 2001 which I published here, has its roots in a list he hosted on his website that sad day 14 years ago. He graciously allowed me to use it as a starting point for my list. I verified each name and gathered additional names. It would have been an almost impossible task, had it not been for the “as it was happening” list that he hosted on his website.
Hank Nuwer’s recent novel, a work of western and historical fiction.
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Last week I learned of the death of Peter D. Hannaford. David Pietrusza wrote this on the Calvin Coolidge Foundation website:
Coolidge scholar and key Reagan adviser Peter D. Hannaford died at age 82 at his Eureka, California home on September 5, 2015. His 2001 book, The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century, helped set the stage for the current renaissance in Coolidge scholarship and appreciation. (for the rest of the post see https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/in-memory-of-peter-hannaford/)
Hannaford was my late sister’s father-in-law. I met him at my sister’s wedding and at her funeral. Over lunch and dinner, while I was at my sister’s home packing up her clothing, I asked him about how when he met President Reagan and their working together.
My condolences to Irene, his wife of 61 years, sons Richard and Donald, and grandchildren Thomas and Patricia.
The book about Ronald Reagan’s formative years in Illinois was a gift from the author, my brother-in-law’s father. Ronald Reagan was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon chapter at Eureka College.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2015. 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/
