<p>As someone who once was a freshman in a marching band, I can say for sure that the newbies are quite pliable and easily influenced by the older kids. If the organization is strong from the top downward, and the student leaders buy into and propagate the ethical and pure mission established by the adult leaders, the young ones will assimilate this culture as well and will pass it down to the incoming students in the years afterward. It’s no different from organizations which are corrupt at the top-these attitudes are eventually assimilated by the youth.</p>
<p>So in the case of a marching band, clean house. It starts with the faculty and then the graduate assistants, on down to the drum majors and other student leaders. Eventually, you establish a new culture, which as long as it is guided by strong faculty leadership, will perpetuate itself. The same could happen with fraternities if their adult leadership would rid itself of some of the old notions of what constitutes the purpose of “pledgeship” and hold the senior members accountable for modeling and enforcing the new philosophy.</p>