<p>I just read up on Bryn Mawr, and I think I understand why my mother hated it! (She left after one semester.)</p>
<p>Yes Barrons, I think it’s most definitely a boy thing! Yet hazing goes on just as much in sororities, but that’s another thread. </p>
<p>In my experience the male bonding is always with the pledge class. My theory is that all of the guys pledging at the same time bond so strongly because they have seen each other at their most vulnerable.</p>
<p>“The Marine Corps is about excellence, not elitism.”</p>
<p>Have to respectfully disagree with this statement. All military branches tout their excellence AND that not everyone possesses the right stuff to be a part of it. There’s your elitism. </p>
<p>How many of us have heard, “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.” It’s on the first page of the Marine Corps website. </p>
<p>I live just north of the Air Force Academy. I know many graduates as well as kids going there now - there most definitely is a “hazing” element and intense pride and bonding with your squadron when you all make it through training at Jack’s Valley.</p>
<p>Deaths occur in colleges from other things than fraternity hazing, they just are not publicized as widely. </p>
<p>My oldest son, a senior in college, has had two friends from his high school die while in college from drinking/drugs, NEITHER was in a fraternity, they were both bookish boys from a private all boy’s highschool who would never think of joining a fraternity. </p>
<p>Their parents never believed in a million years that they would be holed up in a dorm room drinking themselves to death with friends. </p>
<p>Noone is 100% immune, and just because a kid steers clear of greek life does not guarantee he/she will not be touched by tragedy.</p>
<p>
And there’s nothing secret about it, is there?</p>
<p>No the hazing is right out there in the open. You can go on Youtube and find military hazing videos left and right, kids getting blindfolded and duct taped, etc.</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t know if any of it is secret or not. </p>
<p>My point is that there are a lot of folks who want to rail on frats as being the ONLY place where elitism and hazing exist, where that clearly isn’t the case. We repeat this same thread twice a year.</p>
<p>(How did this get out of order? I’m responding to Hunt’s question below me. Weird.)</p>
<p>This thread is bringing back memories of Dartmouth and U.Mass that I’d rather forget,and I was just visiting. Makes me sick.</p>
<p>
As bad as I still think some of that is, at least the kids go into it with their eyes open. I mean, until they are blindfolded. You know what I mean.</p>
<p>If your son is in a national fraternity, nationals probably has strict anti-hazing regulations, which is chapter is violating. :(</p>
<p>A friend of mine pledged a state university frat and during initiation, he was blindfolded, driven to a desolate wooded area at night, dropped off, and left there with his fellow initiates. They found their way to the Pa. Turnpike and were walking along the berm with when a state policeman stopped and arrested them for walking along the pike. A misdemeanor, sure, but nonetheless it became part of his permanent record. Nice frat.</p>
<p>Back to the OP - If I were paying thousands of dollars for my student to attend a college and get an education, and he was being sleep-deprived for long periods of time, I’d be mad as heck.</p>
<p>My husband was in a frat back in the day. He went thru some hazing but it was more in the form of doing chores and occasional mildly embarrassing things. DS has said he’s not interested in joining a frat - I hope he sticks to that plan. DD thinks she might want to join a sorority when she goes to college, but I think that’s from watching “Greek” on TV, despite my repeated statements that “Greek” bears absolutely no resemblance to real college life. When she does leave for college, we’ll have a long talk about hazing, why someone would want to join a group that would do that to its members, and maintaining her personal standards in the face of peer pressure.</p>
<p>Some of my son’s “hazing” included:
- a weekend trip to NYC to deliver buffalo wings from Ithaca to alumni frat members in Manhattan. It was a great road trip for a bunch of college freshmen … and a good way to network with older brothers and see what life was like after college.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a weekend trip to Canada and Niagara Falls - another great road trip</p></li>
<li><p>a trip to the brother frat house at Syracuse University</p></li>
<li><p>putting a complex jig saw puzzle together over the course of a weekend</p></li>
<li><p>rebuilding a patio at the frat house</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I looked forward to the excited phone calls that I would get from him on weekends with the “guess where we are now” opening line. The only time I got any sense of trepidation from him about the pledge process was on the final weekend. He was lead to believe that things could get pretty “dicey” and was noticeably concerned about it. Afterwards, when I asked him about it he said the whole thing was a ruse to make them afraid and in reality it was no big deal.</p>
<p>A few weeks later at parent’s weekend, it was great to see how he and his pledge brothers had bonded during the experience and it was obvious that they would have memories to share perhaps for the rest of their lives. Based on my son’s experience I would recommend that kids should give pledging a consideration. It can be a very worthwhile endeavor.</p>
<p>I see those examples as fun, interesting initiation rites, but I wouldn’t assume that they are examples of hazing. I don’t see the humiliation or physical risk.</p>
<p>My daughter loved pledging her sorority. She got daily presents (small things, such as mugs of candy or tchotzes with the sorority name on them) from her big sis, and was served dinner at the weekly dinner meetings. It was a bit of a letdown after initiation when she didn’t get daily treats, and had to load up her own plate.</p>
<p>When she was a freshman one of the kids from her high school class was pledging a frat at a University across town. He was on some sort of scavenger hunt, and needed something from a sorority at the rival school. She was kind enough to give him a house tour, and let him take a picture. He, and his pledge team, were in heaven. Apparently that was worth big points.</p>
<p>My friend is at a sorority at UCLA. She absolutely loves it, and her sorority was one that did not allow or encourage hazing. However, she does say that hazing for the frats are crazy and intense.</p>
<p>Re: Dave’s post above: “A friend of mine pledged a state university frat and during initiation, he was blindfolded, driven to a desolate wooded area at night, dropped off, and left there with his fellow initiates.”</p>
<p>H. had the same experience, but, in addition to being blindfolded and driven who-knows-where in the middle of the night:
they were drunk (after a ‘lineup’)
they were naked
each was dropped off alone
he was on crutches
the weather was freezing</p>
<p>Now he looks back and laughs. Wouldn’t have been funny if someone had been arrested or hurt.</p>
<p>Overheard a young woman recently describing her male friend’s experience-- pledges had to keep chugging vodka until they vomited. If they refused or quit, they had to eat a handful of someone else’s vomit. Her sorority experience (different school) was tame by comparison: remain cross-legged on the floor for 8 hours singing a particular song, with sisters taking turns checking on her. Also know of pledges elsewhere who were told to put their sweatshirts on backwards and chug vodka until they vomited-- into their hoods of course. Unbelievable.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are frats that don’t haze, and that do wonderful things, but as for secrecy-- even within a particular school, some frats (and sports teams, yes) will be much tougher on their pledges than others. Do the kids know ahead of time what they’re getting into? As adults, we (hopefully) have the knowledge to know when a situation becomes stupid or dangerous, but a teen (esp. a drunk teen) facing peer pressure to tough it out and show the brothers he can handle it is a kid in a very dangerous situation.</p>
<p>
Well, I either never learned it. Or I am so old, I have forgotten it. I was inducted, but did I fail to learn the secret because I never went to a meeting after that?</p>
<p>… Back to your regularly scheduled debate. Although, my point is… having a secret handshake is not akin, in any way imo, to the secrecy “enforced” about dangerous hazing activities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with this. But where do you draw the line? I would hate to have to tell everyone our initation ceremony – NOT because we do anything I would be ashamed of, but there are some suprises (good kinds) that I wouldn’t want to ruin for the pledges. But, then, I’m sure there are are some initation ceremonies that involve some kind of hazing at other Greeks. </p>
<p>Of course, if we just had to make it avalible to some higher ups at the school, that would be fine. A little sad, but fine. But wouldn’t the ones that haze lie anyway? And I guess that’s the problem with trying to crack down on any of this. My chapter would happily tell the school what we do with our pledges, but that’s because we’re not the ones the school has to worry about.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He bothered to show up? What a pushover. I would have blocked the number on my caller ID and told them to **** off on the phone. And I would have said “**** OFF”, not “I have to keep my grades up.” It’s none of their business-presume what they like, but they’re not going to lobby on my behalf if I don’t get into law school because I did badly that semester or whatever. Probably on the FIRST night. They start yelling, I’ll yell “Fine, I quit” into my cellphone, hang up and stop answering their calls. But I’m horrible and mean to people who are horrible and mean to me. You want your kitchen floor cleaned, hire a maid. I’m a student first and foremost and school comes first.</p>
<p>They harass me, the next time they’ll hear from me is on a restraining order.</p>
<p>First rule of successful negotiation: DO NOT appear desperate. By appearing desperate you hand all leverage you had on a silver platter over to the other party.</p>