Greeks Work to Shed Hazing Stigma

Managing Editor

   When first-year students arrive at college, they start thinking about what organizations to join on campus. Some of those students may choose to join a Greek organization, and some may not due to the stigma of hazing.

The Law and the Student Handbook

   Arkansas classifies hazing as a class B misdemeanor.  

   According to the student handbook, the University of Arkansas at Monticello prohibits hazing and prescribes punishment for those convicted of hazing. Arkansas Act 75 of 1983 defines hazing as: 

• Any acts committed, on or off campus, by students to threaten others with social disgrace and making the student submit to acts that may shame him or herself in front of other students.

• Playing abusive or truculent tricks, on or off campus, to frighten or scare another student.

• Forcing a student to commit acts that may humble the pride, stifle the ambition or impair the courage of the student attacked. In addition, any acts that lead to the attacked student leaving the university.

• Any physical evidence whatsoever, whether committed on campus or off.

   Examples of hazing, according to the student handbook, include acts that produce mental or physical discomfort, paddling in any form, creation of excessive fatigues, physical and psychological shocks, scavenger hunt, engaging in public stunts and any form of verbal harassment.

   The handbook says any student convicted of hazing will be expelled from school.

More than Just Parties

   Greek organizations at UAM do more than party and haze their members.

   After the tornado devastated Dumas last year, Greek Council collected items for tornado victims. They also participate in various community service projects. According to the Greek organizations’ national Web sites and information from the organizations' members, the following organizations support these community service projects:

• Alpha Sigma Alpha supports the Special Olympics and the S. June Smith Center, which helps infants and children with developmental disabilities.

• Alpha Sigma Tau Foundation supports charitable contributions.

• Alpha Phi Alpha supports the March of Dimes, Boy Scout’s of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

• Delta Sigma Theta helped establish Mary Help of the Sick Mission Hospital, a maternity hospital in Kenya, Africa.

• Zeta Phi Beta supports its service initiative, Zeta’s Helping Other People Excel. 

• The Kappa Alpha Psi Foundation supports many service projects, including Habitat for Humanity.

• Sigma Sigma Sigma supports their national philanthropy, Sigma Serves Children, which provides play therapy wings for terminally ill children at the University of North Carolina and Dallas Children’s Hospital.

• Tau Kappa Epsilon holds a Toy for Tots drive during December.
  
• Phi Beta Sigma supports The American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, National Marrow Donor Program and the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
  

• Phi Lambda Chi supports St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and holds a Toy for Tots drive during December.

• Omega Psi Phi’s Omega Charities Inc. recently supported a leadership conference for young men around the country and helped Hurricane Katrina victims. 

No Hazing

   Kyndall Carder, Alpha Sigma Tau member, said Alpha Sigma Tau sorority does not encourage hazing their new members.

   “Not only do we not believe in (hazing), we are watched very closely by our national staff and our new members,” Carder said. “We inform our new members on hazing and let them know if they feel uncomfortable at any time, let us know.”

   Carder said she did not feel like hazing earned respect for new members.

   “We do encourage earning respect for our current members because it helps when current members and newly-initiated members work together,” Carder said. “We do not degrade the new members because they are respected also.”

   Buford Lamb, a member of Phi Lambda Chi fraternity, said hazing does not make a person any more of a brother.

   “There is absolutely no excuse for hazing,“ Lamb said.

   Lamb went on to say hazing new members is degrading and the fraternity educates its members about the dangers of hazing.

   “We have seminars every year that we are required to go to about hazing, what it entails and how to recognize it,” Lamb said.  

   Hazing continues to be portrayed as part of Greek life due in large part to the media. “National Lampoon’s Animal House” paints a not-so-pretty picture of Greeks, in the '70s. According to the Internet Movie Database, the movie depicts a fraternity full of underachieving men, who worry more about how full the keg is than the quality of their membership.

   Members of the Greek community constantly fight to disprove the reputation hazing gives fraternities and sororities.

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