NIC Blog
Responding To The Fraternity Call To Action
Tags: National Hazing Prevention Week, Fraternity Call To Action, Hazing, Fraternity Ritual, Fraternity, Fraternity Leadership
Last week, the NIC issued a Call to Action for fraternities. If you missed it, the video is posted here for your reference. This post, however, is about the response we've received. It is about the people that are answering the call to action. It is about the fraternity men and sorority women that are confronting these issues on campus. While we've received lots of stories and feedback, I want to share stories from Michael, Steve and Mike.
Michael Zeiter - University of Missouri | Interfraternity Council President
"My hazing story starts when I was a pledge myself. My pledge class was hazed in the stereotypical sense of the word. We had to scrub the bathrooms on our hands and knees, do push-ups and wall sits, and dressed up in togas for our pledge dad ceremony which included copious amounts of alcohol. During my sophomore year, we were caught for that same ceremony and received many sanctions. However, we decided that it had to be that way because otherwise we couldn't strengthen our new members. Over the summer before my junior year, I was the recruitment chair and attended UIFI in Indiana. I was still under the impression that hazing wasn't a bad thing. Over the week my thoughts began to change, and I finally realized what needed to be done. In one hazing presentation, someone said, "20 years from now, if fraternities are still around, there won't be hazing, just look how much has changed in the past 20 years. So if your chapter still hazes, you have two options. You can get caught and kicked off, and a new group of people will replace your chapter, or you can stop it yourself." That is when I realized that our chapter needed to fix our pledge program. It has been three semesters since then and our pledge program has continued to improve. We had to battle a lot of older members trying to go back to the old ways, but eventually they gave up. Do we have the perfect pledge program? No, but we have a program that develops our new members and helps them transition into becoming better students, leaders, and gentlemen."
Steve Szumanski - Eastern Michigan University | Interfraternity Council Vice-President of Internal Affairs
"We are a community under fire. And we prove yet again through our stupidity that we are a community deservedly under fire. If the members were living up to their values and holding one another accountable than we would not be having this correspondence right now. Maybe this part is more for myself but leadership... character... values... and ritual are all what we do. They are our lifestyle, day in and day out. We must refuse to just perform Ritual and instead start living ritual. We say we are about one thing yet we continue to do the other. We continue to allow ourselves to be a community under fire. I will be the one responsible for elevating the community. I MUST be the one responsible for elevating the community. Or the future will have no community to elevate."
Mike Rodmaker - University of Cincinnati | Interfraternity Council VP of Recruitment
"I hold onto Fraternity and advocate for it because of my personal experience with it. Joining Beta Theta Pi my freshmen year has done nothing but push me to be better. I know what Fraternity can do for a young man. I know what it feels like to put your whole heart into an organization and get that much more out of it. I know how it feels to act better than I would normally because I don't want to disgrace my brothers or the name of my fraternity or Greek Life. I believe in Fraternity if it is done right. And I know it's worth our time and efforts to make them better and to try our very best to inspire members to understand the same."
Thank you to the fraternity headquarters that have shared this message and provide resources to address these issues. Thanks to the fraternity/sorority advisors on campus that help students and chapters address these challenges. Thanks to anyone that cares enough about their fraternity or sorority to volunteer as a chapter advisor - because you make a tremendous impact. And finally, thanks to the students - like the ones mentioned above - who represent what it truly means to be a part of the values-based organizations that we call fraternity. And a special thanks for those of you that have participated in National Hazing Prevention Week.
