In the spirit of National Hazing Prevention Week, I thought I’d write a little blog about the topic of the week…hazing. Specifically, this blog entry goes out to my fellow professionals.
What are we missing friends? We continue to talk about hazing, but yet the problem still shows its ugly face on our campuses and within our national organizations. This bothers me as I’m sure it bothers you. Thus, as my mind has been focused on hazing this week, I have really tried to think about what we are missing? What are we not doing? What can I do better?
Today, our staff had a great conversation with Kim Novak and that discussion helped solidify some of my thoughts that were always on the tip of my tongue but never had come out about this hazing issue. Here were some of the thoughts that resulted from that one conversation:
Reframe the Conversation – I never knew how to describe this before and I’m not sure why because it is pretty simple but I think we have to reframe the hazing conversation. Students today are very talented, smart, and capable of having some powerful discussions. Their capability to have meaningful discussions in my mind is so much higher than even when I was in school. Back in the day, students were hesitant to come to the table, but now I think the students are craving to the come to the table to discuss issues like hazing.
Yet, what I see as the current problem is that we frame hazing as such a “do NOT talk about” issue. Hazing has become one of those topics that is only discussed when a hazing allegation has occurred. Sure, there may be some proactive and progressive campuses/national orgs but outside of an allegation or National Hazing Prevention Week, how often do you talk about hazing prevention? Moreover, when we do bring up the topic of hazing with students, how often is the conversation surface level? How can we expect college age students to discuss one of the most important topics in a genuine fashion if we are speaking to them as if they are in high school or middle school? We need to make the topic of hazing something that can be discussed over lunch. We need to make it apparent that if students may be having an issue with hazing, that they can find comfort in coming to the Fraternity and Sorority Life office and discussing their concerns without fear of having their chapter closed. Lastly, if and when hazing prevention is discussed within the higher administration, national office, or next staff meeting, we need to make sure students are at the table. This leads me to my next point…
Students must buy in and be at the table – As I’ve read in various blogs and stories posted throughout this week and in the past few years, one thing has been consistent; change cannot be dictated and done right without the students at the table. Is this hard to do? Yes. Is it a pain to schedule a meeting with various students? Yes. Will they “get it” right from the start? Probably not but that is where our job comes into play. Beginning that conversation and opening up their eyes to the issue at hand.
Think about this for a moment. If the institution or national office you work for was going to making a cultural shift/new initiative for their students, of which would affect your Greek population, wouldn’t you want to be at the table? Sure you would because ultimately you’d be one the one to explain, advocate for, and instill the changes to your students. If you weren’t at the table, you’d be resentful, frustrated, and you probably wouldn’t have full buy-in to the changes that were made. You can see where I’m going with this, students feel the same way. How come when we create or implement new risk management policies or hazing initiatives, students aren’t at the table? They are going to be the ones that will truly implement the change. This leads me to the next point…
The discussion cannot be taken lightly and it cannot be dry– Once you have the students at the table, and you have figured out a way to reframe the conversation, make sure you attach importance to the issue at hand. Make it clear as to why you are meeting. Don’t meet just to meet. Have a purpose behind your meeting and make the conversation engaging. Don’t have a dry conversation about why hazing is bad. Bring pictures, local statistics, have the students bring an item that represents hazing in their eyes. Ask them to evaluate their Greek community as it pertains to hazing. If done right, you as the advisor or facilitator of the conversation should speak very little as the students will hopefully be engaged and starting to see that this issue is serious. Which leads to the following point..
There must be an educational component – Too often I see national hazing articles with a headline that states, “Chapter closed due to hazing.” What typically follows in the article is a synopsis of what happened, a few quotes from different people, and then the article is over.
While I am very much an advocate of closing more chapters that don’t espouse the values of our founders, I do question whether or not we are lacking the educational component when serious matters like hazing, sexual assault, or binge drinking occur. If a chapter does haze, how often do we immediately put them on suspension or close the chapter without any real “educational” moment. This may be occurring and I just don’t know about it but it’s just something to think about. I’m not saying keep a chapter open and have an educational program on why they shouldn’t haze but there has to be more of a middle ground when it comes to a chapter getting in trouble for hazing. My thought is that at the end of the day, if we suspend or close a chapter, we have stopped the practice as an organization but have not changed the mindset of the students who were engaging in those negative practices. A prime example of this that I can think of resides in our cultural organizations and this notion of “rogue members” and “paper initiates.” The hazing is still occurring regardless of whether or not the institution or national organization officially recognizes the chapter. Again, just my opinion which leads to my final point…
Do we truly understand hazing? - When you think of hazing, what comes to mind? I’d venture to say that 9 out 10 of you that read this blog will think of physical hazing. Yet, how often as professionals do we discuss emotional or psychological hazing? Would you know the signs of psychological hazing? What type of questioning do you offer to determine if someone is being emotionally hazed? I can’t stress it enough, I’m sure there are some of you who know how to respond to these questions but as a profession, do we all understand all types of hazing the way we should or do we focus more on physical hazing?
In conclusion, I want hazing to end as we all do. As always, these are just some of my thoughts and observations in the profession. My hopes are that this blog entry will have you reflect on how you frame your conversations about hazing with your students. Maybe, just maybe, it will make a difference and prevent a future hazing injury or death from occurring.
No comments:
Post a Comment