I attended the Novak Institute for Hazing
Prevention this summer. I feel as though my experience at the institute was
pretty unique compared to most of the people who went. I come from a chapter
that has recently gotten in trouble for hazing, so before last semester, hazing
prevention was not something that was even on my radar. I always equated hazing
to the stereotypical events such as forced alcohol consumption or paddling, but
beyond that I feel as though my definition of hazing was very narrow. Because
of this, the biggest thing I took away from the institute was a whole new
definition of hazing. I learned that hazing isn’t about the task you are being
made to do, but it is an attitude. The attitude stems from the hierarchical
structure that can be found in most our organizations, as well as that mindset
of dominance or power.
As an undergraduate student, I
can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve heard that “hazing is a grey
area.” When we think about our new member education plans, whether they are our
official or unofficial plans, we tend to look at each activity individually. For
some of the activities it’s simply hard to understand why OFSA thinks its
hazing. The institute taught that we need to take a step back and truly think
about the major goals of our member plans.
If we keep in mind “attitude” and then reflect on the member plan as a
whole, rather than trying to analyze each activity individually, much of the
“grey area” surrounding hazing is eliminated.
My chapter has been presented with
a difficult challenge, to stop hazing. One of the hardest parts has been
gaining universal chapter support. Hazing is part of our tradition as a
chapter, and it is fueled by the fact that hazing has been so normalized across
all of Greek life at Lehigh. It is hard to go from chapter that hazes, to one
that does nothing over night, but when it really came down to it last semester,
everyone chose to keep our charter over continuing with these traditions. I am
proud to tell you that physically, my chapter has stopped hazing, but mentally,
not all of our members have fully grasped it yet. They are willing to stop
hazing because they could see how critical our situation was, but it is hard to
understand why we are not just channeling our efforts into brainstorming better
and more clever ways to hide what we are doing from OFSA, because that would
definitely be easier.
I would say that the biggest thing
that has helped our chapter move forward has simply been to have a more open
dialog about hazing. I know that several members, as well as myself now feel
comfortable having these discussions with people in OFSA or conduct officers at
Lehigh. Furthermore, I learned that it only takes a couple of members who are
willing to lead their chapter to turn the attitude of hazing around. We now
have the unique opportunity to be an example for the other chapters on campus.
I think that we are on our way to proving that we can be just as close and have
just as much fun without hazing in our chapter.
-Erin Wildeman