Hazing Hurts:
Hazing Hurts: What you Probably Haven’t Considered Developed by Travis Apgar Adapted by HazingPrevention.Org
Problem Solving Model (social ecological model): Interpersonal Group/community Target Audience: Fraternity and Sorority Communities, Athletic groups, Band, Honor Societies, others Learning Objectives: 1. To understand what hazing is and what might qualify an activity as hazing. 2. To understand the detrimental impact hazing can have on a student’s academic life, and their physical and metal well-being. Technical Requirements: Flip Chart and Markers Handouts: What is Hazing? Hazing Hurts: Hazing Spectrum Worksheet Time Needed: 45 - 60 Minutes Group Size: The module is best facilitated with smaller groups of 10-15 and should consist of various age groups from first-year students to seniors and various leadership positions within the organization. Physical Setting: A meeting room that is private and allows for a comfortable discussion would be best for this activity and should be done early in the year or when new students join the organization. Seats should be set in a circle or group setting with everyone at an even level and the facilitator in the front or center. Preparation: Planning for this activity, the facilitator should recruit three other members to act as readers. These members should also be well spoken and respected. If they can be from various membership years, that could help send the right message across membership classes and help prepare younger members to be leaders in the fight against hazing. Look up the university policies and state hazing laws and add them to the What is Hazing? handout to create a handout that includes all three rules. Be sure to review these in advance to gain a clear understanding of any differences between them. Also, look up your organization’s values for the local and national level.
INTRODUCTION (5 minutes) The facilitator(s) should introduce themselves, welcome and thank everyone for attending the session. Purpose (facilitator 1): The purpose of this session is to bring our organization together in a safe, open-minded environment to discuss the negative impact hazing can, and often does, have on students. Desired Outcomes (facilitator 2): The information we discuss today will give us a better understanding of what constitutes hazing and how it can disrupt, and even paralyze a student’s academic career, change their life, or worse. INFORMATION (35 minutes)
In Preparation:
Two individuals who are well spoken and well respected by the membership will facilitate this module best. Look up the university policies and state hazing laws. Put them on the ‘What is Hazing’ handout for participants to keep. State hazing laws can be found on www.stophazing.org, or other organizational affiliated website. Do not print or read the entire law, just summarize to create a clear understanding.
While we should know and understand these policies and laws, we should also recognize that hazing simply violates the standards of the organization. Yes, hazing is against the law and policy, but it is also against what we commit to be as members of this organization. How Well Do We Know Our Members? (Facilitator 1) Long ago, there were individuals who wanted to create something unique and special. Not only that, but there were people who came before them that wanted to see something happen that would bind and unite individuals for a common purpose, cause, and community. Each year, we bring in new members into this group with the hope that they carry on our legacy, values, goals and friendships. Our relationship is built through friendships and should have a strong foundation of trust. Just like you have to trust a teammate, coach, sister, brother, teacher or mentor. While some of our strongest and longest-lasting friendships will undoubtedly be formed with each other, we do not always know each other as well as we think. (Facilitator 2) What we might not know is that today more than ever, students are coming to college campuses, like ours, having already been exposed to mental health concerns and could experience an onset of a disorder during their time in college. Statistically, we need to know that it is likely that some of us, our members and new members, are among those who may struggle with a mental health issue. Even though we think we know each other well, this could be a topic that is not openly discussed and therefore we do not know what is in each other’s past. Hazing Defined and Discussed (Reader 1) Our organization does not condone any from of hazing by any alumni members, current members, or new members. Such activities do not match the ideals and traditions of our organizaiton and relfect negatively on us. What is our standard of excellence? Are we teaching our new members what our values are and how we pass them along? We need to make sure our activities in no way demean, embarrass or endagner a member or new member.
How do you define hazing? (Take answers from 4-5 people before reading definition below)
Hazing has been defined by experts as “… any activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades abuses or endangers them regardless of a person’s willingness to participate.” It is important to know that hazing occurs whether someone agrees to participate or not, and the level of seriousness varies greatly. Most do not think of activities as wearing a silly article of clothing in public as hazing, rather as s a joke or prank. It is however, a form of hazing. Hazing takes many forms and encompasses various levels of severity. The Hazing Spectrum
Note to the facilitator:
Draw the spectrum on a flip chart. List examples under the appropriate category. Ask the participants to identify a few low, moderate and higher risk/hazing practices based on perceptions. After participants form small groups, distribute the Hazing Spectrum Worksheet. Give the groups five minutes to complete it. Students may also think that if it is not on a list, it is not hazing. Explain that this does not mean it is not a hazing activity. Simply explain they have not found a loophole to the list, they have simply added to it.
(Reader 2) On one end, which may be considered lower risk hazing, we may see activities such as the one described of wearing silly clothing in public, or doing favors for members to get something in return. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the activities may include high-risk behaviors such as forced alcohol consumption, simulated or real sexual acts, and severe mental distress that may entail name calling, degrading and abusive verbal attacks, or even ridicule around body image.
Low Risk
Moderate Risk
High Risk
Many Students may agree that higher risk behaviors qualify as hazing, but most do not realize that even the lower risk activities can be harmful, and are certainly a form of hazing. We will now break into smaller groups, please count off to (whatever number you decide upon, group should be no larger than 10). You will now separate into your groups (be sure to direct them to specific areas of the room). (Facilitator 1) I will now provide your small group with a list of activities. Discuss with your small group and decide what category each activity may fall into on the hazing spectrum. Keep in mind that it is possible for them to fall inbetween categories, or to qualify for more than one category. You will share your thougths with the larger group when you are done. Be preared to talk about why your group chose the category and how each activity may be physically or mentally harmful to the individual or to our group.
Four Corners Activity: While students are completing the worksheet in their small groups, put four signs up around the room, one in each corner that read: Agree, Strongly Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree. For each activity chosen, have students choose a corner and then ask 2-3 from different corners why they chose the position they did. Try to call on different people and not always on those who are most eager to talk. Individual’s Tolerance to Stress
(Reader 3) Each individual deal with stress in his or her own way. Likewise, each person has a limit to the amount of stress he or she can cope with before having some form of metal breakdown. For some, the breakdown can be a good cry, some display avoidance behaviors, and for others it can be catastrophic. If the person has a pre-existing mental health issue they have been managing, it may send them into a relapse that requires serious professional intervention to recover. For others, it may trigger a memory of a trumatic life experience, or the stress overload could trigger the onset of a mental health disorder the perosn could have a predisposition to. We may not have considered before that hazing, a very stressful experience for some, can turn a persons’ life up-side-down. Please consider the following: (Readers 1 and 2 will take turns reading the following bullet points to the members. Facilitator will ask the processing questions following the statistics). 1 out of every 5 young people suffers from some form of diagnosable mental illness. An estimated 5 million young women suffer from eating disorders every year and eating disorders are the deadliest mental illness claiming more lives than any other. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students. 44% of American College Students report feeling symptoms of depression. 15-20% of college women experience sexual assult and some studies suggest it is even higher, close to 1 in 4! It is likely that someone you know has or will expereince sexual assult. 48% of high school students who belong to a student group report being hazed. Processing Questions What do you make of these statistics? Which of them surprises you? How does this make you feel about hazing a student you do not know very well? ALTERNATIVE METHODS (15 minutes) (Facilitator 2) Because we do no know the “baggage” people carry with them when they come to us, and we have no way to gauge an individual’s tolerance for stress, we must strive to prevent hazing from being a part of our group experience and negatively impacting our member’s lives. We need to find ways to make the educational expereince meaningful, memorable, special and hazing-free. Because we as college students have a desire to expereince a rite of passage, or “earn our way in,” we do need to consider how we can make our process challenging, positive and built on a true foundation of trust. The most vital element in any relationship is trust. We must ensure that we are acting in ways that show what we stand for as individuals and as a grou,p and that we can count on each other in good times and bad.
What are some of our values as a group? (“Why am I a ________?” HPO program would be a great tool to use to develop group values.
Of these values, let’s choose three that stand out to all of us. Since these values are important to instill in our new members, let’s think of an activity or two that would help us show these values and teach them to our members.
Get back in a small group and brainstorm some ideas you have. Develop a basic concept or two for activites that would use to teach these values. Be sure to remember, these are to be new activities, not something we have done in the past. Step outside the box and have fun. These actvities should be fun and make us stronger as a team. Have someone take notes and be prepared to discuss with the group. (Give members 10 minutes to brainstorm).
What activites have you come up with? How would these activities look within the whole group?
So in a matter of about 10 minutes we have come up with some fun alternatives that will help us shape members into who we want them to be. We have elevated our standards of excellence to show our values to members. Hazing tears away at the foundation of what we should stand for – friendship. These hazing-free activities would instill a real sense of our values and what it means to be a member in this organzation. We should commit to a hazing free expereince and challenge ourselves to be creative and resoucesful in teaching our members what we’re about.
How can we start these new activites or some like them? What action steps can we take to ensure this will be a lasting tradition in our organization?
CLOSING (5 minutes) We hope that you have a better understanding of what hazing is and the negative effects it could have on members. We do not know the past of an individual. An activity that brings up painful memories or a personal issue will not achieve the outcome you are looking for by folliowing through with a hazing activity. If you are uncomfortable bringing up hazing that is happening in your organization, there are people and resources to help. You can contact your advisor on campus, a national organization if appropriate, or call an anonymous hotline for hazing (1-800-NOT-HAZE), or discuss the issues with a member of the organization you trust. You have the power to create your own expereince in this organization. Make sure you are getting what you want and not what is being passed down to you. Tradition can often get in the way of progress and your progress and growth is what we want to accomplish.
For more hazing prevention resources, including buttons, brochures, resource guides, magnets, stickers and doorhangers, please visit the HPOnline Store at http://missionmade.com/hazingprevention/.
Used with permission of
Hazing Hurts: Hazing Specturm Worksheet As a group, please place the following list of activities along the hazing spectrum based on the level of physical and mental health risk for each.
Lower Risk
Moderate Risk
Higher Risk
Wearing inappropriate, conspicuous and/or embarrassing clothing
L
M
H
Forced (implicit or explicit) alcohol consumption
L
M
H
Verbal abuse, yelling or screaming at a member
L
M
H
Performing favors for members, such as running errands or cleaning a room
L
M
H
Mandatory for new member to greet older members in public in a certain way
L
M
H
Kidnapping a member, even for fun
L
M
H
Humiliation of new members (body image, dress, etc.)
L
M
H
Forced calisthenics
L
M
H
Forcing new members to perform simulated or real sexual acts
L
M
H
Bar crawls
L
M
H
Driving members to and from locations at all hours (being on call)
L
M
H
Requiring new members to interview or get signatures from senior members
L
M
H
Restricting members from talking to certain people outside of the group
L
M
H
Shaving someone’s head or otherwise altering their appearance
L
M
H
Singing sexually explicit songs to members of the opposite sex
L
M
H
Problem Solving Model (social ecological model): Interpersonal Group/community Target Audience: Fraternity and Sorority Communities, Athletic groups, Band, Honor Societies, others Learning Objectives: 1. To understand what hazing is and what might qualify an activity as hazing. 2. To understand the detrimental impact hazing can have on a student’s academic life, and their physical and metal well-being. Technical Requirements: Flip Chart and Markers Handouts: What is Hazing? Hazing Hurts: Hazing Spectrum Worksheet Time Needed: 45 - 60 Minutes Group Size: The module is best facilitated with smaller groups of 10-15 and should consist of various age groups from first-year students to seniors and various leadership positions within the organization. Physical Setting: A meeting room that is private and allows for a comfortable discussion would be best for this activity and should be done early in the year or when new students join the organization. Seats should be set in a circle or group setting with everyone at an even level and the facilitator in the front or center. Preparation: Planning for this activity, the facilitator should recruit three other members to act as readers. These members should also be well spoken and respected. If they can be from various membership years, that could help send the right message across membership classes and help prepare younger members to be leaders in the fight against hazing. Look up the university policies and state hazing laws and add them to the What is Hazing? handout to create a handout that includes all three rules. Be sure to review these in advance to gain a clear understanding of any differences between them. Also, look up your organization’s values for the local and national level.
INTRODUCTION (5 minutes) The facilitator(s) should introduce themselves, welcome and thank everyone for attending the session. Purpose (facilitator 1): The purpose of this session is to bring our organization together in a safe, open-minded environment to discuss the negative impact hazing can, and often does, have on students. Desired Outcomes (facilitator 2): The information we discuss today will give us a better understanding of what constitutes hazing and how it can disrupt, and even paralyze a student’s academic career, change their life, or worse. INFORMATION (35 minutes)
In Preparation:
Two individuals who are well spoken and well respected by the membership will facilitate this module best. Look up the university policies and state hazing laws. Put them on the ‘What is Hazing’ handout for participants to keep. State hazing laws can be found on www.stophazing.org, or other organizational affiliated website. Do not print or read the entire law, just summarize to create a clear understanding.
While we should know and understand these policies and laws, we should also recognize that hazing simply violates the standards of the organization. Yes, hazing is against the law and policy, but it is also against what we commit to be as members of this organization. How Well Do We Know Our Members? (Facilitator 1) Long ago, there were individuals who wanted to create something unique and special. Not only that, but there were people who came before them that wanted to see something happen that would bind and unite individuals for a common purpose, cause, and community. Each year, we bring in new members into this group with the hope that they carry on our legacy, values, goals and friendships. Our relationship is built through friendships and should have a strong foundation of trust. Just like you have to trust a teammate, coach, sister, brother, teacher or mentor. While some of our strongest and longest-lasting friendships will undoubtedly be formed with each other, we do not always know each other as well as we think. (Facilitator 2) What we might not know is that today more than ever, students are coming to college campuses, like ours, having already been exposed to mental health concerns and could experience an onset of a disorder during their time in college. Statistically, we need to know that it is likely that some of us, our members and new members, are among those who may struggle with a mental health issue. Even though we think we know each other well, this could be a topic that is not openly discussed and therefore we do not know what is in each other’s past. Hazing Defined and Discussed (Reader 1) Our organization does not condone any from of hazing by any alumni members, current members, or new members. Such activities do not match the ideals and traditions of our organizaiton and relfect negatively on us. What is our standard of excellence? Are we teaching our new members what our values are and how we pass them along? We need to make sure our activities in no way demean, embarrass or endagner a member or new member.
How do you define hazing? (Take answers from 4-5 people before reading definition below)
Hazing has been defined by experts as “… any activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades abuses or endangers them regardless of a person’s willingness to participate.” It is important to know that hazing occurs whether someone agrees to participate or not, and the level of seriousness varies greatly. Most do not think of activities as wearing a silly article of clothing in public as hazing, rather as s a joke or prank. It is however, a form of hazing. Hazing takes many forms and encompasses various levels of severity. The Hazing Spectrum
Note to the facilitator:
Draw the spectrum on a flip chart. List examples under the appropriate category. Ask the participants to identify a few low, moderate and higher risk/hazing practices based on perceptions. After participants form small groups, distribute the Hazing Spectrum Worksheet. Give the groups five minutes to complete it. Students may also think that if it is not on a list, it is not hazing. Explain that this does not mean it is not a hazing activity. Simply explain they have not found a loophole to the list, they have simply added to it.
(Reader 2) On one end, which may be considered lower risk hazing, we may see activities such as the one described of wearing silly clothing in public, or doing favors for members to get something in return. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the activities may include high-risk behaviors such as forced alcohol consumption, simulated or real sexual acts, and severe mental distress that may entail name calling, degrading and abusive verbal attacks, or even ridicule around body image.
Low Risk
Moderate Risk
High Risk
Many Students may agree that higher risk behaviors qualify as hazing, but most do not realize that even the lower risk activities can be harmful, and are certainly a form of hazing. We will now break into smaller groups, please count off to (whatever number you decide upon, group should be no larger than 10). You will now separate into your groups (be sure to direct them to specific areas of the room). (Facilitator 1) I will now provide your small group with a list of activities. Discuss with your small group and decide what category each activity may fall into on the hazing spectrum. Keep in mind that it is possible for them to fall inbetween categories, or to qualify for more than one category. You will share your thougths with the larger group when you are done. Be preared to talk about why your group chose the category and how each activity may be physically or mentally harmful to the individual or to our group.
Four Corners Activity: While students are completing the worksheet in their small groups, put four signs up around the room, one in each corner that read: Agree, Strongly Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree. For each activity chosen, have students choose a corner and then ask 2-3 from different corners why they chose the position they did. Try to call on different people and not always on those who are most eager to talk. Individual’s Tolerance to Stress
(Reader 3) Each individual deal with stress in his or her own way. Likewise, each person has a limit to the amount of stress he or she can cope with before having some form of metal breakdown. For some, the breakdown can be a good cry, some display avoidance behaviors, and for others it can be catastrophic. If the person has a pre-existing mental health issue they have been managing, it may send them into a relapse that requires serious professional intervention to recover. For others, it may trigger a memory of a trumatic life experience, or the stress overload could trigger the onset of a mental health disorder the perosn could have a predisposition to. We may not have considered before that hazing, a very stressful experience for some, can turn a persons’ life up-side-down. Please consider the following: (Readers 1 and 2 will take turns reading the following bullet points to the members. Facilitator will ask the processing questions following the statistics). 1 out of every 5 young people suffers from some form of diagnosable mental illness. An estimated 5 million young women suffer from eating disorders every year and eating disorders are the deadliest mental illness claiming more lives than any other. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students. 44% of American College Students report feeling symptoms of depression. 15-20% of college women experience sexual assult and some studies suggest it is even higher, close to 1 in 4! It is likely that someone you know has or will expereince sexual assult. 48% of high school students who belong to a student group report being hazed. Processing Questions What do you make of these statistics? Which of them surprises you? How does this make you feel about hazing a student you do not know very well? ALTERNATIVE METHODS (15 minutes) (Facilitator 2) Because we do no know the “baggage” people carry with them when they come to us, and we have no way to gauge an individual’s tolerance for stress, we must strive to prevent hazing from being a part of our group experience and negatively impacting our member’s lives. We need to find ways to make the educational expereince meaningful, memorable, special and hazing-free. Because we as college students have a desire to expereince a rite of passage, or “earn our way in,” we do need to consider how we can make our process challenging, positive and built on a true foundation of trust. The most vital element in any relationship is trust. We must ensure that we are acting in ways that show what we stand for as individuals and as a grou,p and that we can count on each other in good times and bad.
What are some of our values as a group? (“Why am I a ________?” HPO program would be a great tool to use to develop group values.
Of these values, let’s choose three that stand out to all of us. Since these values are important to instill in our new members, let’s think of an activity or two that would help us show these values and teach them to our members.
Get back in a small group and brainstorm some ideas you have. Develop a basic concept or two for activites that would use to teach these values. Be sure to remember, these are to be new activities, not something we have done in the past. Step outside the box and have fun. These actvities should be fun and make us stronger as a team. Have someone take notes and be prepared to discuss with the group. (Give members 10 minutes to brainstorm).
What activites have you come up with? How would these activities look within the whole group?
So in a matter of about 10 minutes we have come up with some fun alternatives that will help us shape members into who we want them to be. We have elevated our standards of excellence to show our values to members. Hazing tears away at the foundation of what we should stand for – friendship. These hazing-free activities would instill a real sense of our values and what it means to be a member in this organzation. We should commit to a hazing free expereince and challenge ourselves to be creative and resoucesful in teaching our members what we’re about.
How can we start these new activites or some like them? What action steps can we take to ensure this will be a lasting tradition in our organization?
CLOSING (5 minutes) We hope that you have a better understanding of what hazing is and the negative effects it could have on members. We do not know the past of an individual. An activity that brings up painful memories or a personal issue will not achieve the outcome you are looking for by folliowing through with a hazing activity. If you are uncomfortable bringing up hazing that is happening in your organization, there are people and resources to help. You can contact your advisor on campus, a national organization if appropriate, or call an anonymous hotline for hazing (1-800-NOT-HAZE), or discuss the issues with a member of the organization you trust. You have the power to create your own expereince in this organization. Make sure you are getting what you want and not what is being passed down to you. Tradition can often get in the way of progress and your progress and growth is what we want to accomplish.
For more hazing prevention resources, including buttons, brochures, resource guides, magnets, stickers and doorhangers, please visit the HPOnline Store at http://missionmade.com/hazingprevention/.
Used with permission of
Hazing Hurts: Hazing Specturm Worksheet As a group, please place the following list of activities along the hazing spectrum based on the level of physical and mental health risk for each.
Lower Risk
Moderate Risk
Higher Risk
Wearing inappropriate, conspicuous and/or embarrassing clothing
L
M
H
Forced (implicit or explicit) alcohol consumption
L
M
H
Verbal abuse, yelling or screaming at a member
L
M
H
Performing favors for members, such as running errands or cleaning a room
L
M
H
Mandatory for new member to greet older members in public in a certain way
L
M
H
Kidnapping a member, even for fun
L
M
H
Humiliation of new members (body image, dress, etc.)
L
M
H
Forced calisthenics
L
M
H
Forcing new members to perform simulated or real sexual acts
L
M
H
Bar crawls
L
M
H
Driving members to and from locations at all hours (being on call)
L
M
H
Requiring new members to interview or get signatures from senior members
L
M
H
Restricting members from talking to certain people outside of the group
L
M
H
Shaving someone’s head or otherwise altering their appearance
L
M
H
Singing sexually explicit songs to members of the opposite sex
L
M
H
