Categories
Hazing News

Objections to conference wording added

Link is here

Objection to content noted by Chuck Eberly and Dan Bureau:

Dear Hank,
This announcement for the upcoming Hazing Audioconference is written in such a way that the content suggests hazing practices originated within fraternities and sororities and have now “spread” to other campus groups / venues. Thus, the advertisement subtly “blames” fraternities and sororities for the proliferation of hazing activites now found on college campuses (and elsewhere). As you know, I have read all of your books on hazing. Where it is documented that members of fraternities and sororities invented hazing, and that all hazing practices somehow can be attributed as generated from fraternity / sorority initiations? At the same time that fraternity / sorority leaders like Dan Bureau, Past President of the Association of Fraternity Advisors, and other of his colleagues work diligently to reduce and eventually eliminate hazing in fraternities / sororities, it would appear that the organizations are still being blamed as the source of all such practices.
I am reminded of the pronouncements of Vice Presidents of Student Affairs on college campuses in the 1980s, when the issue of “risk management” first emerged as a hot topic. Now as then, it appears that people find it convenient to blame a wider societal problem on a single, highly visible group of college students. The issue of high risk drinking was then and still is a campus wide problem, and campuses without fraternity / sorority systems have challenges to surmount due to their students’ high risk drinking. The issue of hazing was then and still is a campus wide (if not societal) problem, and campuses without fraternity / sorority systems still have issues with the occurance of hazing that have not been addressed.

Respectfully,
Chuck Eberly
Eastern Illinois University

Hi to all.

Thanks to Chuck for the mention. It has been a wonderful effort that
MANY folks have worked together to accomplish within AFA and numerous
other partners.

This blurb from PaperClip Communications may reflect just a lack of
knowledge by who wrote the description. I would imagine Hank and others
had little input on the content of the announcement.

I do agree that many in higher education perceive this to be a
fraternity and sorority community only issue. Those campuses without
fraternity and sorority communities have issues with hazing as well.

Hopefully the teleconference will be a well balanced view of the
collective issues of hazing in multiple forums. The list of persons
participating sounds great but none are fraternal movement experts, so I
would imagine the focus will be very much on groups outside of the
fraternity and sorority community.

Dan

Dan Bureau
Assistant Dean of Students
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
610 E. John St. 300 TSSB
Champaign, IL 61822

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer tracks hazing deaths in fraternities and schools. Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024, the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

Leave a Reply