"I wish I had been hazed."
 

After Thanksgiving dinner, an extended relative who is newly initiated into an NPC sorority mentioned that she wishes she had been hazed. A lot of thoughts came to mind, and I hope I handled it well, without sounding a thousand years old. I know that it's said that anything a New Member must do but an Active does not is considered hazing, but I throw out these thoughts for discussion:

-Many people will say that having to get a pledge book signed or "clean" scavenger hunts aren't really hazing. Are they?

-Are study hours hazing?

-How about alcohol consumption, ie Keg Stands?

These are simply jumping off points. Any thoughts?

I do think in our effort to be safe we have taken a lot of the fun "rights of passage" out of the process. I am never a fan of the slippery slope defense so I think NPC should set a bunch of rules to define hazing in a way that is both practical and safe. Alcohol in any pledge related situation? No. Requiring members to be able to name the founders? Why not? Pledge kidnap that doesn't involve missing classes? What's the harm? Phone duty helped is get to know the actives. Why is that bad?

Anything that forces a new member to drink alcohol is hazing in my book. I don't think doing things that has them get to know each other or the chapter is bad- for example we had a night where we did off-the-cuff skits that we performed for the active members. Now that is probably hazing. At the time it was a great way to get to know other members of our pledge class and the actives got to know us. We also had a night where we visited all the seniors in groups. We spent about 10 minutes at each of the stops. It was a great way to get to know them and them to know us. I think that is forbidden now as well.

We had to:

1. Memorize the actives names, hometowns, majors and grade. Boyfriend/fiancée if applicable.
2. Memorize the creed, motto, founders, greek alphabet and the pins/greek letters/colors and flower of every sorority on campus
3. Complete required proctored study hall hours
4. Do phone duty for about 5 hours in the evening during the first semester
5. Get a wooden dagger signed by all of the members prior to initiation. The members couldn't make us "do" anything for the signature, but we did have to go to ask them, which helped us meet those last few seniors we hadn't met during pledging.

This is now considered hazing, but it served a great purpose. We knew everyone's background/major early in the semester, we put in some significant quiet study hours and it really encouraged freshmen to spend time at the house, we got to know all of the members and spoke to them personally, and my dagger is still a beloved possession.

Alcohol and boy/fraternity/party requirements should still be considered hazing, but learning about members and glo history should still be required. As an advisor, working with members who couldn't recite our creed or purpose was just sad. Not every requirement is hazing and shouldn't be considered so. But then, I am a dinosaur.

I had to do the same things (well, a diamond, not a dagger), and was held up by our EO as an example of hazing. I also think that a 6-8 week New Member period is entirely too short, not properly allowing the New Member to really know the history or other significance of the sorority/fraternity.

Completely agree, and I tried to convey the same to the New Initiate!

Pledge book? Not hazing.
Clean scavenger hunts? Not hazing.
Know the sisters by name? Not hazing. But I'd probably limit it to one class in a chapter of 400 members. My chapter is now about 100; that's probably the limit for knowing by name or nickname. I did have to get signatures from all the sisters, but there were only about 20, and whether or not it was prohibited (I don't think it was *necessary*), was not required to do anything but as for the signature.

My favorite activity from my collegiate days was a big/little reveal where a pledge stepped off the elevator to find a tag with her name on it. Attached to that tag were yards and yards, perhaps hundreds of yards, of yarn/string/cord/twine, tangled in with others' strings, leading her to little clues and gifts, and eventually to her big in the chapter room. That's no longer done because "someone" "might" consider it hazing. No one was humiliated. No one was harmed. No one was forced into anything. Not hazing.

We've gone overboard.

I had a very similar pledgeship to Katmandu and Honeychile, except wooden crown. We also had to know fraternity pins and Greek letters of the fraternities on campus and their nicknames.

I didn't like the mass movement to shortened pledgeship and I still don't. I think it short changes the new member and the org. I wonder if it has anything to do with a rise in members dropping and I once again commend XO for not conforming with the rest of us.

A lot of the activities you all are mentioning are NOT hazing and I, too, am annoyed how we've watered down so much of our new member experience.

Do you want to talk about being REQUIRED to memorize stuff?? You don't even want to know about what I had to memorize for firefighter academy. :mad: I imagine that our GC military members, nurses, doctors, lawyers, etc had similarly heinous memorization tasks.

Being asked to learn and understand an organization's vision, history and members is not hazing. Throwing the baby out with the bath water......

It is a fine line.

I pledged a local and was required to do certain things that could be considered hazing. For example, the pledges (yup, pledges, not new members) had to do a pledge project, which was planning and preparing a meal - but we also got to join our sisters in eating the meal itself, rather than being just waitresses. Alcohol, OTOH, was a strict no-no - neither pledges nor actives were allowed to wear letters or any insignia anywhere alcohol could be consumed, even if we weren't actually consuming it, and a lot of my sisters didn't even drink. We were treated as "almost but not quite actives" from day one, and we were never made to do anything degrading or humiliating.

Once we became a colony of AEPhi, every member was required to pass a test before initiation. The test questions included the sorority's colors, flower, mascot, founders' names, things every member should know. NMs could take the test as often as necessary to pass (defined as a 100% score), and a sister would always sit the test with the NM class to avoid allegations of making the NMs do something the sisters didn't have to do. But a simple test of basic knowledge is not hazing in my book.

When I pledged in 2004, the (extremely fun!) things we did together as a pledge class which are now considered hazing include:
- We participated in a scavenger hunt around campus with questions to help us learn about the sorority. No items needed to be collected; we only answered questions and received a clue to find the next sister along the way
- We cooked a meal together, with the help of our Bigs, for the active sisters and our sweetheart
- We planned and put into action a (small) fundraiser
- We planned and participated in a philanthropic event (we volunteered at a dance for mentally challenged teenagers/young adults.. and had a blast doing it!)

The only thing that has survived is the New Member test, which sisters nationwide have to take and pass in order to be initiated.

In my opinion, the last two things on my list above should never be restricted or considered hazing. These things allowed us to work together as a pledge class, run our own business meetings in a more formal manner, hold positions to manage projects, and see what work the sorority would entail.

I was a full semester pledge. Had to do many of the same things as Katmandu. We had a pledge notebook instead of a dagger which each collegiate member had to sign. One of our first pledge tests was to name every member of our pledge class, the next week we had to name every collegiate member. Wasn't that hard at the time since the early '70's were not a good time for the Greek system. My pledge class only had 14 members and there were only 25 collegiate members. Learning the names of all 400 collegiates at some chapters today would be a very arduous task.

We had to also do a philanthropy project as a pledge class. We made coloring books for our National Philanthropy. Another requirement was to put on a party for the collegiate members. We needed money to do that so we stole the pillows of in-house girls and the car keys for the commuters. They had to buy them back. We also went around to all of the fraternities selling stale donuts that had been donated to us.

My best friend/pledge sister and I still laugh about the bonding that went on in our pledge class as we worked together.

DaffyKD

And it doesn't seem to be hurting XO one bit! I don't like the shortened pledgeship either. I proctored our New Member exam last time for the chapter I advise and there were so many NMs who had to be prompted, because they hadn't had time to learn/memorize and some that acted like it was a huge hassle/joke.

I can't remember all the stuff that happened when I was a (full semester!) pledge but I definitely remember being woken up at 5 am with the rest of my class to run down fraternity row and serenade all the fraternities one by one. We also had "fun" scavenger hunts and were "kidnapped" (also fun) and during Inspiration Week just before initiation, we had to carry around a number of items (our paddle, some candy, a few other things I can't remember) and if we were stopped by a sister, we had to produce them if requested. It was all in fun, I would never say any of this was hazing (well, maybe having to be seen with no makeup and bed head at 5 am by fraternity guys :o) but I guess it's considered hazing now.

I never felt that I was hazed. We were always treated respectfully, never demeaned, nor did I ever see any older sister haze anyone. There were never any alcohol-related demands/challenges, etc.

I think several of the things we had to do as a pledge class would now be considered hazing, because they were only required of pledges, or were just unwise. We had to complete an activity from each of our creed categories of Love, Labor, Learning, and Loyalty. We could choose from a recommended list. For Labor, I remember that we polished the silver one Saturday afternoon (as a chapter founded in 1882, we had a lot of silver!). For Loyalty, we did something as a pledge class that would promote bonding, so we tried to "steal" a composite from a fraternity (that was a Michigan tradition...if you can make off with a fraternity's composite, you call and tell them and they have to come serenade the sorority to get it back. If you get caught, the traditional punishment was getting thrown in the shower -- fully clothed, of course. That happened to me at Psi U...we were on our way out the front door when we got caught. This was not just for pledges -- this was popular for anyone.). I'm sure that would be considered hazing or inappropriate/unsafe for anyone now, because people were sneaking around like burglars.

FOR THE MANY TEACHERS OUT THERE!!!
 

When I was in sixth grade in SW PA, our history teacher was an LSU graduate. We had to learn the Greek Alphabet both forwards and backwards because, "Y'all are going need to know it in college!"

Imagine the look of shock on Bid Day, when the sisters started singing the Alphabet song, and I could keep up with them!

Mine was quite similar to many of the pledgeships in this thread. Get an interview with sister, have a coke date with sister (these ruled because they fed you for free) and the sister wrote a little welcome paragraph to you in your pledge book. Like DG Tess said, I would never expect pledges in a huge chapter to get everyone....maybe the pledge mom could divvy them up.

We had to achieve 25 points in each of our 4 aims (example: getting an A on a test - 2 pounts in the intellectual aim) and there were a lot of options to choose from. Many were tjings we were doing anyway.

We had to make something for the chapter room and put together the semesterly blind date party.

Along with the usual history stuff, we also had to interview the officers where they told us what all their position entailed. We also had to get 10 signatures from every fraternity and sorority on campus.

Pretty much every sorority on campus had a similar program, only difference was ummm...how hardcore you got. We were definitely on the easy side.

There is not a single thing in that list that I couldn't say had a reason behind it, everything was about learning about your sisters, your org and the campus Greek community, and the fact that any of it would be considered "hazing" is asinine.

It doesn't make sense...rush is all about clicking with other people and "pick the group you can see yourself in your pajamas with"...personal connections. Then the minute they get a bid, we flip the script and give them a sterile, cookie cutter program that has nothing to do with those women who were the main reason they joined. Doesn't make sense to me.

ETA: forcing someone to drink or do anything alcohol related is hazing. A dry pledgeship is also hazing. "All our pledges are underage" doesn't cut it if there are underage sisters who drink. The denial of drinking is because they're underage, not because they're pledges.

Re fraternities, we used to be required to go to mixers for at least half an hour. If you honestly are so misanthropic that you can't stand to socialize for half an hour, you are going to have a very difficult time in the work world.

My A Phi O pledgeship was WAY harder than my ASA pledgeship.