<p>Second rule of successful negotiation - don’t tell people to “**** OFF” on the phone. They’ll probably teach you that in law school.</p>
<p>futurenyustudent - you may want to rethink your future profession. I don’t think most corporations would want their lawyers to have that kind of attitude. Most good lawyers are good negotiators.</p>
<p>What negotiation? I’m telling them I quit and to **** off. They have nothing I want so they don’t matter to me.</p>
<p>And would someone actually quit a frat and then still stick around long enough to be victimized by the eat vomit game? I’d be leaving that second. They try to block my exit, I whip out my cellphone and call the police on them for a host of things including false imprisonment and kidnapping. Of course I’d be sure to tell them they’re holding me against my will first.</p>
<p>“Oh, I wouldn’t want to ruin your fun, have your frat shut down and possibly ruin your life…oh wait, I don’t mind!” <em>calls the police department</em></p>
<p>Trust me, I think they’d let you leave…</p>
<p>You’ve built quite a fantasy out of this scenario. Maybe you should write a script and market it to Lifetime Television - fraternity initiation scenes of people eating vomit would fit right in with their programming. Throw in a couple of bulimic sorority girls and it’s sure to be a hit.</p>
<p>Bumping up this timely thread. See post #18 for good suggestions on how to
familiarize yourself with the frat/sorority your DS/DD is considering. Also, the
website hazing.cornell.edu (I wish all universities were as transparent as Cornell!)
My son said “Mom, if I thought you would be researching this, I wouldn’t have
told you about it!” It sounds like my son’s university- Syracuse- has strong anti-hazing
policies but I welcome all information.</p>
<p>The reality is that tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of men and women have been members of fraternities and sororities through the years, most of whom pledged in some fashion and many of whom were “hazed”. While any injury or death is incredibly tragic, the number of pledges over the years who have been injured or killed is relatively small. That said, plenty of students outside of the Greek system do find themselves tragically injured or killed each year due to drinking, drugs, pranks gone wrong, stupid choices, etc. </p>
<p>Depending on the school, hazing can include things that are as harmless-seeming as having to wear a pledge pin at all times, having to eat certain meals with fraternity/sorority members and having to memorize facts about the fraternity/sorority or the members. Plenty of fraternities/sororities also have their pledges engage in charitable and/or constructive projects, either for fundraising or building/painting something in or around a fraternity/sorority house. There are also plenty of fraternities/sororities that do require study hours as well. Finally, there are plenty of fraternities/sororities that sponsor events that include alcohol, blindfolding, seemingly stupid tasks and threats of things that never come to pass (I do remember often hearing “trust your sisters”). Honestly, if that kind of thing isn’t for you/your son/your daughter, then by all means do not pledge.</p>
<p>Taking all of that into consideration, I will say that some of my sorority sisters are among my best friends in the world to this day (and I graduated long enough ago to know that these are lasting friendships). I wouldn’t trade these friendships for anything, and I likely would not even have met many of these women if I had not pledged with them.</p>
<p>Similarly, my husband’s best friends in the world are mainly his fraternity brothers. We are blessed to have these men and women from our college days in our lives, and to know their spouses, their children and their extended families over the years. </p>
<p>Both my husband and I were hazed, went through our pledging semesters exhausted, and yet, we managed to get good grades and good jobs and to look back fondly at the time we spent in college.</p>
<p>Being in fraternities and sororities is hardly all bad for everyone involved.</p>
<p>I wonder if the hazing is rougher in the south? My brother was a member of a frat at a NE college (became an officer, etc.) and when I checked out that frat in the south—it had it’s charter pulled at one school because of the horrible, degrading stuff they did to pledges (Newsweek articles on it, etc.).</p>
<p>I know not all frats are bad (my bro had a great experience) but some of the stuff you hear is very scary and I wonder if it’s at all regional…</p>
<p>Sally, many sororities and frats do have good to offer.</p>
<p>What I would like done, is that the school require in order for a frat/sorority to stay recognized is that each active member must sign a letter recognizing what is unacceptable and what the consequences could be AND for each active member to have the same letter signed by a parent. Official recognition of a frat is a privilidge and not a right, and the schools should start working with all to reduce problems.</p>
<p>A friend of mine with a son at an Ivy said the hazing and time demands on the pledges were terrible. They all got completely drunk and dumped out of cars- IDs were lost, etc. </p>
<p>My kid actually started to pledge (later than most) and bailed. The time commitment was too intense and he had a job.</p>
<p>I think there is a lot of good and a lot of bad in the Greek system. I was in a sorority but got kicked out. :)</p>
<p>LOL, MOWC!! (re: the sorority experience…) :-)</p>
<p>My son pledged a frat last spring. The pledge period lasted 3 weeks. He said it took him maybe 1 - 2 hours a day. He had some chores to do and had to interview a bunch of the brothers. If there was anything else to it he didn’t tell me and didn’t complain. He wouldn’t tolerate being woken up in the middle of the night or anything like that.</p>
<p>His frat had 100% of their pledges become brothers. Another frat on campus had a 6 week pledge term with ridiculous pledging “requirements”. Half their pledges quit within 2 weeks.</p>
<p>Hazing & harmless should not be used in the same sentence. I find it hard to understand how anyone can condone hazing of any degree as a means to an end of making lifelong friends. I have many lifelong friends made in college and the basis of our ties did not require hazing. Why can’t Greek life be founded solely on good & positive principles of membership & participation? One death is one too many caused by the acceptance of hazing to join an organization in college that purports itself as altruistic. I also doubt one would feel so positive about an organization if by “relatively small” chance it were their own child that died at the hands of their fellow brothers & sisters.</p>
<p>I think there is – or was until recently – an underlying acceptance in our culture of the idea that hazing has benefits. After all, don’t the early stages of some of our highest-paying careers, such as those of lawyers and investment bankers, involve ludicrous numbers of hours of work per week? Didn’t young doctors also have to work insane hours until people figured out that having extremely sleep-deprived interns and residents care for patients was harming the patients? Don’t many of us still see the merit in the “boot camp” concept, not just for military recruits but also for young people who have gotten in trouble? Don’t the practices of some athletic coaches sometimes cross the line into hazing, instead of teaching the sport?</p>
<p>What I’m saying is that hazing in the fraternity/sorority environment is only one example of a general way of thinking about how young people who want something of value should be treated. The idea that they have to endure extreme hardship in order to obtain the thing of value (a certain career, membership in an organization, a starting spot on a sports team’s roster, etc.) is an old and still somewhat accepted one.</p>
<p>It’s going to take a major cultural shift to end hazing completely.</p>
<p>This is not to say that it can’t be done. We’ve had many cultural shifts in the past century – about the role of women in the workplace, for example, and about the acceptability of driving while intoxicated. We, as a society, can move beyond the hazing concept, too.</p>
<p>But it won’t be easy.</p>
<p>When do you cross the line from a “rite of passage” or “social ritual” to hazing? I think folks have different views on this. </p>
<p>Drilling pledges on the history of the organization. Making them clean the house on weekend mornings. Sending them on routine errands for the full members. Making them dress up in stupid hats. I see this behavior as harmless…perhaps not even hazing. </p>
<p>Forced drinking, crazy blindfolded “field trips”…now THAT sounds like hazing to me. And it’s downright dangerous too. </p>
<p>Bottom line, though, I don’t know how you really find out the details of what goes on in advance. There’s so much secrecy. And you can’t force your kid not to join. You just hope your kids have enough sense to walk away from something that’s really humiliating or dangerous. Unfortunately, the only parents who find out about this stuff seem to be those with kids who get in big trouble…or die. So sad…</p>
<p>I think it’s good that we’re talking about this and that we talk to our kids about it. All my son’s high school friends have joined fraternities and several of them have spoken about it, mentioning both the good and the bad. A friend at Alabama quit after being required to clean up after parties on several weeknights. Another mother told us her son flunked out of Elon “because of the time commitment required of his fraternity”. Another friend admitted that, had he known what he had to go through at Kentucky, he probably wouldn’t have joined a fraternity. But there are many more friends with positive stories about fraternities. My husband told me about the eating baked beans for several days straight and sleeping in the same room. I had to sing the “Little Teapot” song, as another poster mentioned and eat with chopsticks for a week. The worst sorority hazing back in my day was one sorority who wouldn’t let the girls shower for a week and their little “arrows” stuck to their greasy hair.</p>
<p>cornmuffin - I hate to be the bearer of bad news (and someone correct me if I’m wrong). Syracuse, I’m sure has some strong anti-hazing policies, but I think a lot of the frats get away with some significant degree of hazing. D1 graduated Syracuse last year, and was in a sorority. I was forever hearing stories of all the frats getting in trouble/on probation, etc. I’m not saying every frat on the campus is problematic, but don’t let supposedly strong anti-hazing policies fool you into thinking it doesn’t happen. </p>
<p>That being said, I did ask D whether or not the sororities at Syracuse hazed, and she said the worst thing they ever had to do was memorize and be quizzed on extensive chapter history; she said pretty much across the board, the sororites are pretty compliant. I do also remember her telling me that underage sorority pledges/members absolutely cannot drink during pledge period. There’s quite a bit of competition to get the best recruit class, so if one sorority member sees an underage pledge/member drinking, they absolutely will report it, in order that the other sorority will be reprimanded by the university.</p>
<p>I knew my D1 well enough that no one could make her do anything she didn’t want to do, so I was perfectly comfortable with her rushing. Two years later, it is still the best part of her experience at school. I have met many of her sorority sisters and fraternity friends, they are the kind of kids she would have been friends with anyway. I don’t think she would have joined if she couldn’t fit in, and the sorority also did not change her.</p>
<p>Those might be examples, but they are nothing but a way to justify those horrible actions. Military need boot camp or how else will they endure training and going to a war torn countries? That does not apply to Greek live at all. They’re not going to war or living in dangerous countries that require them to be in constant alert. Being a doctor or lawyer is you decision, you don’t have to face the decision of either taking cocaine or using a sex object like one case of hazing reported on a college campus. How will me drinking so much alcohol that I die or being beaten be right? OR neccessary? That is nothing like the examples that you mentioned and it shouldn’t be. </p>
<p>Let’s not justify it with that attitude as a cultural aspect that we endure. In fact, we should change that mindset by kicking those kids off the school and making them face prison time along with charging the Greek orgs. maybe then will they actually do something or do more and actually give a damn. Hazing is not right and it shouldn’t be. The schools should be fined, so that they do their jobs to keep students safe or where the hell is the money going? It doesn’t have to take a cultural shift as people are dying! What else do you need? Lawmakers should do the best they can to make a change; be aggressive and have excessive penalties so that people care and change their practices. Or maybe it takes an orientation to incoming students to inform them about hazing. Think about this way: what if that was your kid? Teach you child that hazing is not right. </p>
<p>How will hazing create bonds? If they were really your friend, they would never do that. I know I wouldn’t. I would walk through fire for them, not beat them to prove their loyalty. Do you beat your brother or make your sister drink until she vomits? No, then how is that acceptable for Greeks? Why should the rules not apply after all they’re your “sister” or “brother”. If you are hazed or in the middle of it GET HELP!!! What’s they are doing is not right and if the school does nothing, go to the police and alert the media. Hazing is not a right of passage, it is humilation and power.</p>
<p>Back in the stone ages when I was a university student,m pledging for our sorority was a mental issue more than physical. For the other frats & sororities on campus, I didn’t learn much about what they did but for the males, I believe it did involve wooden paddles & drinking.</p>
<p>I was summoned for a kangeroo court during finals week so dropped out instead. The sorority I had been pledging billed itself as the most liberal and “friendly” one. They got me so upset with the hazing that I skipped a calculus midterm and had to plead with the instructor for mercy (my mind was literally a blank after we had been ordered to serve the sorority sisters breakfast & entertain them & then got bawled out for not doing it well enough). The prof said she was disappointed that I was pledging but would give me a chance if I aced the final. Fortunately, I must have because I ended up the course with an A. I believe all my pledge “sisters” ended up on academic probation. The sorority was disbanded the next year–I believe more of the sorority members had academic problems. </p>
<p>My sisters & brothers (at same in-state flagship U) found their sororities & frat experiences much better (all my sibs pledged except my younger sister). One of my younger brothers also joined a business service group (co-ed), which he made a lot of friends in & I don’t believe there was any hazing. I don’t know all that much about Greek life, other than it DOES vary considerably among campuses and even between different orgs in the same U. I’d advise the student to CAREFULLY inquire thoroughly before thinking about pledging.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids nor any of their close friends pledged any sorority or frat, tho they know kids who did. Much depends on the individuals involved. </p>
<p>We do know a family whose S pledged a frat & loved it–so much that his grades dropped so low that he lost his merit scholarship & has had to withdraw from his dream U & is selling used cars–back home. We also know of another at the same U who is happy with the sorority she pledged & has just completed her master in engineering at her U.</p>
<p>I am surprised to hear about sorority hazing. Truly, there was none at any of the sororities on my campus, many years ago. During pledge period, we were required to attend study hall several nights a week at the chapter house, and actives brought snacks while we studied. We had the whole pledge period (10 weeks or so) to memorize the pledge manual (sorority founding information, chapter history, active names). I had friends in every other chapter on campus, and I never heard about any hazing.
I think it is sad that so many fraternities engage in this behavior. Our sisterhood was strong and we proved it by being nice to each other, not mean.</p>