NIC Blog
Join The Conversations to Prevent Hazing With #40answers
Tags: hazing prevention, #40answers, hazing, fraternity hazing, hazing awareness, bullying, HazingPrevention.org, Sigma Nu Fraternity
Meaningful conversations to prevent hazing are taking place in the #40answers campaign that is being led by Sigma Nu Fraternity and HazingPrevention.org on Twitter. This campaign takes place on Twitter from August 15-September 23, 2012. Click here for the PDF of this year's 40 excuses for hazing.
Day 1: New members have to earn their way into this group/team/organization.
The only way to "earn" fraternity membership is to live your Ritual - as new members, actives & alumni.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 15, 2012#40answers
Day 2: I don't think _______ is hazing.
Excuses and ignorance don't make it acceptable. RT
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 16, 2012@preventhazing: Day 2: I don’t think _________ is hazing.#40Answers
Day 3: This is just part of becoming a member of a team/organization/fraternity/sorority.
You don’t earn respect by disrespecting others.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 18, 2012#40answers@preventhazingDay 4: Other groups/teams/organizations/chapters won't respect us if we don't haze.
We should be most concerned with earning the respect of our founders by upholding their vision and values.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 18, 2012#40answersYou don’t earn respect by disrespecting others.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 18, 2012#40answers@preventhazingDay 5: Professional Sports Teams do the same thing. It's on ESPN and they never get in trouble. Why do we?
We’re called by our Ritual to live by higher standards.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 19, 2012#40answersDay 6: These are just fun activities. We aren't trying to hurt anyone.
You don’t always know what hurts someone. Build your members up, don’t tear them down.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 20, 2012#40answers@preventhazing
Hazing has no place in fraternity. All NIC Member Fraternities agree.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 20, 2012#40Answers@preventhazingDay 7: Hazing builds better members by breaking them down so we can build them up and make them stronger.
You can either build or break Brotherly Love, Friendship, Loyalty, Trust, and Honor. You can't do both.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 21, 2012#40answersDay 8: Hazing is just a word. No one really knows what it is so we can't be expected to prevent it.
Disrespect, bullying, mental/physical abuse, and assault are other names for hazing.
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 22, 2012@preventhazing#40answersDay 9: I had to go through it so the new mebmers/rookies need to do it, too.
The only shared experience is Ritual. RT
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 23, 2012@sigmanuhq: Day 9: "I had to go through it, so now the new members have to do it too."#40AnswersDay 10: We've always done it that way.
The only thing we've always done that way is what our Founders left us. RT
— The NIC (@nicfraternity) August 24, 2012@sigmanuhq: Day 10: "We've always done it that way."#40Answers
The Current Conversation on Twitter.
The 2016 Mindset List
Tags: Mindset List, Class of 2016, Fraternity Mindset, Trends
Mindset List is published each year by a pair of professors at Beloit College to provide a snapshot of how incoming college freshmen view the world.
The NIC shares this information each year as it is a valuable reference point of the new men that are joining fraternities across North-America, especially when being viewed by other generations.
The list for the Class of 2016:
Most students entering college for the first time this fall were born in 1994. For these students, Kurt Cobain, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon and John Wayne Gacy have always been dead.
1. They should keep their eyes open for Justin Bieber or Dakota Fanning at freshman orientation.
2. They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of "electronic narcotics."
3. The Biblical sources of terms such as "forbidden fruit," ''the writing on the wall," ''good Samaritan," and "the promised land" are unknown to most of them.
4. Michael Jackson's family, not the Kennedys, constitutes "American royalty."
5. If they miss The Daily Show, they can always get their news on YouTube.
6. Their lives have been measured in the fundamental particles of life: bits, bytes, and bauds.
7. Robert De Niro is thought of as Greg Focker's long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway.
8. Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge.
9. They have never seen an airplane "ticket."
10. On TV and in films, the ditzy dumb blonde female generally has been replaced by a couple of dumb and dumber males.
11. The paradox "too big to fail" has been for their generation what "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" was for their grandparents'.
12. For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman's job in the State Department.
13. They can't picture people actually carrying luggage through airports rather than rolling it.
14. There has always been football in Jacksonville but never in Los Angeles.
15. Having grown up with MP3s and iPods, they never listen to music on the car radio and really have no use for radio at all.
16. Since they've been born, the United States has measured progress by a 2 percent jump in unemployment and a 16-cent rise in the price of a first-class postage stamp.
17. Benjamin Braddock, having given up both a career in plastics and a relationship with Mrs. Robinson, could be their grandfather.
18. Their folks have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf.
19. The Green Bay Packers have always celebrated with the Lambeau Leap.
20. Exposed bra straps have always been a fashion statement, not a wardrobe malfunction to be corrected quietly by well-meaning friends.
21. A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss.
22. The Real World has always "stopped being polite and started getting real" on MTV.
23. Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles.
24. White House security has never felt it necessary to wear rubber gloves when gay groups have visited.
25. They have lived in an era of instant stardom and self-proclaimed celebrities, famous for being famous.
26. Having made the acquaintance of Furby at an early age, they have expected their toy friends to do ever more unpredictable things.
27. Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for "save," a telephone for "phone," and a snail-mail envelope for "mail" have oddly decorated their tablets and smartphone screens.
28. Star Wars has always been just a film, not a defense strategy.
29. They have had to incessantly remind their parents not to refer to their CDs and DVDs as "tapes."
30. There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones.
31. Along with online viewbooks, parents have always been able to check the crime stats for the colleges their kids have selected.
32. Newt Gingrich has always been a key figure in politics, trying to change the way America thinks about everything.
33. They have come to political consciousness during a time of increasing doubts about America's future.
34. Billy Graham is as familiar to them as Otto Graham was to their parents.
35. Probably the most tribal generation in history, they despise being separated from contact with their similar-aged friends.
36. Stephen Breyer has always been an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
37. Martin Lawrence has always been banned from hosting Saturday Night Live.
38. Slavery has always been unconstitutional in Mississippi, and Southern Baptists have always been apologizing for supporting it in the first place.
39. The Metropolitan Opera House in New York has always translated operas on seatback screens.
40. A bit of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, has always existed in space.
41. Good music programmers are rock stars to the women of this generation, just as guitar players were for their mothers.
42. Gene therapy has always been an available treatment.
43. They were too young to enjoy the 1994 World Series, but then no one else got to enjoy it either.
44. The folks have always been able to grab an Aleve when the kids started giving them a migraine.
45. While the iconic TV series for their older siblings was the sci-fi show Lost, for them it's Breaking Bad, a gritty crime story motivated by desperate economic circumstances.
46. Simba has always had trouble waiting to be king.
47. Before they buy an assigned textbook, they will check to see whether it's available for rent or purchase as an e-book.
48. They grew up, somehow, without the benefits of Romper Room.
49. There has always been a World Trade Organization.
50. L.L. Bean hunting shoes have always been known as just plain Bean Boots.
51. They have always been able to see Starz on Direct TV.
52. Ice-skating competitions have always been jumping matches.
53. There has always been a Santa Clause.
54. NBC has never shown "It's a Wonderful Life" more than twice during the holidays.
55. Mr. Burns has replaced J.R. Ewing as the most-shot-at man on American television.
56. They have always enjoyed school and summer camp memories with a digital yearbook.
57. Herr Schindler has always had a List; Mr. Spielberg has always had an Oscar.
58. Selena's fans have always been in mourning.
59. They know many established film stars by their voices on computer-animated blockbusters.
60. History has always had its own channel.
61. Thousands have always been gathering for "million-man" demonstrations in Washington, D.C.
62. Television and film dramas have always risked being pulled because the story line was too close to the headlines from which they were "ripped."
63. The Twilight Zone involves vampires, not Rod Serling.
64. Robert Osborne has always been introducing Hollywood history on TCM.
65. Little Caesar has always been proclaiming "Pizza Pizza."
66. They have no recollection of when Arianna Huffington was a conservative.
67. Chronic fatigue syndrome has always been officially recognized with clinical guidelines.
68. They watch television everywhere but on a television.
69. Pulp Fiction's meal of a "royale with cheese" and an "Amos and Andy milkshake" has little or no resonance with them.
70. Point-and-shoot cameras are soooooo last millennium.
71. Despite being preferred urban gathering places, two-thirds of the independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during their lifetimes.
72. Astronauts have always spent well over a year in a single space flight.
73. Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive baseball games played has never stood in their lifetimes.
74. Genomes of living things have always been sequenced.
75. The Sistine Chapel ceiling has always been brighter and cleaner.
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The Mindset List is published at: http://themindsetlist.com/lists/.
Why The NIC Doesn’t Rank Fraternities
Tags: fraternity ranking, the daily beast, value of fraternity membership
The North-American Interfraternity Conference does not rank its member fraternities. As the trade association for 75 international and national men's fraternities we advocate, collaborate and educate to create environments where fraternities can thrive. Ranking of our fraternities goes against the Conference's spirit of collaboration and, frankly, the concept of determining the "rank" is impossible to calculate.
In the College Rankings 2012 series, Newsweek and The Daily Beast formulated a list of the Top 25 Fraternities based on some combination of number of chapters, dollars from the foundation, number of presidents and congressmen. This data was pulled from public sources of information with varying degrees of accuracy. These subjective rankings frequently take place in the media, in online forums, and in campus coffee shops. The good news is that many of the readers see through the arbitrary rankings used by The Daily Beast throughout this series, based on their comments on the site and in discussions we have seen online. Some fraternity men are irritated, agitated and mad. Others are happy and proud of their ranking.
All fraternity men should be proud of their membership. Don't let the defining or ranking impact the value of your membership. Be the best fraternity man you can be. Work to build and improve your chapter so that each man is better as a result. We all need to keep sharing the real value of fraternity membership. A man should consider all components of the fraternity in order to find the best organization for his growth and development. Ultimately, the congruence of his values with those espoused by the fraternity should be the leading factor.
The Daily Beast Article: http://bit.ly/O4H2Sw
