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A case study in promising practices in anti-hazing education training for fraternity advisors
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A case study in promising practices in anti-hazing education training for fraternity advisors
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Content
Running head: PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION i
A CASE STUDY IN PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING
EDUCATION TRAINING FOR FRATERNITY ADVISORS
By
Joseph Noel Rios
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
May 2014
Copyright 2014 Joseph Noel Rios
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION ii
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge all those who helped support and encourage me through the
dissertation process. Above all, I want to thank my chair Professor Shafiqa Ahmadi for her
unwavering support. Your care and encouragement, sometimes shown through humor,
sometimes through a proverbial swift kick, kept me on task and moving forward. For this
encouragement and positive energy, I extend my sincerest thanks.
I would like to also thank my committee members, Dr. Kathy Stowe and Dr. Eugenia
Mora-Flores. Dr. Stowe, you helped shape the dissertation experience with your challenging and
thoughtful leadership, and I enjoyed every class because of your engaging nature. Dr. Mora-
Flores, I appreciated your attentive and supportive feedback through the dissertation process.
Thank you both for your support and contributions to this dissertation.
I am sincerely grateful to my family, friends and colleagues, especially the Fall 2011
cohort and the dissertation cohort, for providing unending inspiration throughout the program.
As a first generation college student, this dissertation is my gift to my mother, father and two
brothers and the generations that will follow us; may we always remember that our biggest
dreams can come true. For my friends and colleagues, I have been sustained by your positive
thoughts and much-needed distractions. And for my fellow EdD cohort members, our friendship
and memories are just as valuable as the classes we took together.
I am ever thankful for the time I spent with the staff and students at East Coast
University. It was my pleasure to learn more about their fraternity community and to share their
stories within this dissertation. I look forward to the work they will continue to produce to
improve their fraternity and sorority community.
And finally, I want to thank my fiancé Ray for all that you has given me, and I promise to
spend the rest of my life paying you back.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ii
List of Tables v
List of Figures vi
Abstract viii
Chapter 1: Overview of the Study 1
University Responses to Hazing 2
Statement of the Problem 4
Purpose of the Study 5
Significance of the Study 6
Research Questions 7
Glossary of Terms 7
Limitations, Delimitations, Assumptions 8
Organization of the Study 9
Chapter 2: Literature Review 10
Introduction to the Review 10
Defining Hazing 11
History of Hazing in College 14
Fraternity Advisor Training 20
Promising Practices 24
Theoretical Framework 26
Summary 28
Chapter 3: Methodology 29
Research Questions 29
Research Design 30
Theoretical Framework 31
Conceptual Framework 32
Instrumentation 33
Data Collection 34
Data Analysis 37
Ethical Considerations 39
Summary 39
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION iv
Chapter 4: Results 41
Participant Profiles 42
Results 45
On-Boarding Stakeholders and Campus Partners 47
Identifying Stakeholders and Engaged Staff 48
Hiring Competent Professional Staff 51
On-Going Training for Staff, Volunteers and
Campus Partners 52
Discussion of On-Boarding Stakeholders and
Campus Partners 54
Developing Comprehensive Campus-Wide Anti-Hazing Policies 56
Using Campus Data within a Problem Analysis Framework 56
Revisiting Campus Anti-Hazing Prevention Policies 59
Discussion of Developing Comprehensive Campus-Wide
Anti-Hazing Policies 64
Working Toward Campus-Wide Efforts 65
Implementing Anti-Hazing Messages for Multiple
Constituencies 65
Fostering Campus-Wide Support 69
Sustaining Message Saturation 72
Securing Funding for Anti-hazing Education 74
Discussion of Working Toward Campus Wide Efforts 75
Summary 77
Chapter 5: Discussion of Findings 78
Summary 78
Purpose of the Study 79
Summary of the Findings 80
Implications for Practice and Policy 87
Recommendations for Future Studies 90
Conclusion 91
References 94
Appendices
Appendix A: Participant Recruitment Letter 101
Appendix B: Interview Protocol 102
Appendix C: Participant Intake Survey 103
Appendix D: Observation Protocol 105
Appendix E: Hazing Prevention Policy 107
Appendix F: Resident Assistant Anti-Hazing Training 112
Appendix G: Athletics Anti-Hazing Training Scenarios 115
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION v
List of Tables
Table 1: Research question as instrumentation 33
Table 2: Emergent themes for analysis 46
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION vi
List of Figures
Figure 1: Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) Ecology Model as applied to fraternity members’
environment 26
Figure 2: Conceptual framework, Ed.D. thematic group 2013 33
Figure 3: Cresswell’s (2003) six steps for data analysis 38
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION vii
Abstract
This study applies Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) ecological theory to the development of an anti-
hazing culture within a fraternity community. The purpose of this study was to examine the
systems and structures that contributed to an anti-hazing culture within a fraternity community,
and how the culture was implemented and sustained upon its development. Developed as part of
a dissertation cohort group studying promising practices for developing anti-hazing cultures in
educational institutions, qualitative research methods were created from the following research
questions:
1. What are the systems and structures that contribute to an anti-hazing culture in
institutions of higher education?
2. How are these systems and structures implemented and sustained to support an anti-
hazing culture in institutions of higher education?
Data collection for the study occurred through interviews with three students and three
administrators, document analysis of anti-hazing policies and observations of anti-hazing
workshops at East Coast University, a mid-sized mid-Atlantic private university. Findings from
the study indicate that anti-hazing culture development is supported through on-boarding
stakeholders and campus partners, developing comprehensive campus-wide anti-hazing policies,
and working toward campus-wide efforts. The study begins to bridge the gap between the
literature on developing an anti-hazing culture and the practitioner perspective from within a
fraternity community, and contributes to a new line of work examining the perspectives of those
involved in a comprehensive policy implementation.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 1
CHAPTER 1
Overview of the Study
Hazing continues to be a problem in higher education. The effects of hazing can impair
the learning environment necessary for learning to take place (Allan & Madden, 2012; Chapell
et. al., 2004; Duncan, 2010). Collegiate educational institutions have implemented educational
programming and professional staff advising to prevent hazing, particularly within the fraternity
community (Hollmann, 2002; Mumford, 2001).
The term ‘hazing’ is a broad term to describe many different activities, situations, and
actions. Allan & Madden (2008) define hazing as "any activity expected of someone joining a
group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers, regardless of the person's willingness to
participate" (p. 2). Hazing behavior can also include activity that targets existing members.
Campo, Poulos and Sipple (2005) describe hazing an “any activity, required implicitly or
explicitly as a condition of initiation or continued membership in an organization, which may
negatively impact the physical or psychological well-being of the individual or may cause
damage to others, or to public or private property” (p. 137). Cimino (2011) describes the hazing
of new or prospective new members as “the generation of induction costs…that appears
attributable to group-relevant assessments, preparations, or chance” (p. 242). Since historically
Black fraternities and sororities have an initiation process known as ‘intake’ that differs from
other types of fraternal organizations, Rogers, Rogers and Anderson (2012) shared that hazing in
Black Greek-letter organizations is often defined by its “verbal and physical brutality, forced
consumption, sleep deprivation, humiliation, intimidation, and similarly harsh activities” (p. 44)
and that the activities are disguised as the sanctioned membership intake process of initiating
members into the organization. Nearly all of the definitions for hazing include actions that
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 2
impact the physical or psychological health of a person seeking member or continued
membership regardless of consent, though there is no standard definition for hazing with colleges
or legal statutes (Ellsworth, 2006). For the purpose of this study, hazing is defined as the
repeated, persistent and intentional behaviors that fosters a climate of fear and disrespect that has
a significant impact on the physical and/or psychological health of students.
Despite the attempts to define and prevent hazing, the behaviors continue to impact
students. Between 1970 and 2006, at least one hazing-related death occurred on a college campus
each year (Nuwer, 2004). Hoover (1999) revealed that 80% of the students surveyed were
subjected to various hazing acts while in college. Researchers Allan & Madden have found that
hazing is more prevalent than the general population believes, with findings that reveal that
nearly 45% of students surveyed knew about, had heard of, or suspected hazing took place on
their campus (Allan & Madden, 2008) and that 20% entered college having experienced hazing
while in high school (Allan & Madden, 2012).
University Responses to Hazing
College campuses, such as Pennsylvania State University, have developed practices
regarding anti-hazing training that other campuses can replicate (Sheerer, 2012, November 2).
Working with national professional associations (e.g., the North-American Interfraternity
Council, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and the National Pan-
Hellenic Council) and international fraternity headquarters, university administrators are raising
awareness about hazing in an effort to reduce hazing on campuses through trainings, workshops
and guest speakers (Kittle, 2012). In order to effectively reduce hazing activity on college and
universities, administrators have been encouraged by professional associations and national
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 3
fraternity headquarters staff, as well as state legislatures, to develop multi-faceted approaches to
hazing (Duncan, 2010; Hall, 2009).
Colleges and universities have implemented behavior interventions to deal with other
campus issues, such as alcohol abuse (Keeling, 2000) and sexual assault awareness (Gidycz,
Orchowski, & Berkowitz, 2011). However, research has shown that student strategies aimed at
the general student population may not work for fraternity men, since the fraternity men are more
likely to be influenced by their intra-group peer group than the general student population
(Keeling, 2000). Colleges have relied on policy implementation as a means of intervention, in
addition to risky alcohol behavior modification programs (Kilmer, Larimer, Parks, Dimeff, &
Marlatt, 1999). For the alcohol interventions that were implemented and assessed, only a few
were assessed on their effectiveness with fraternity members (Carter & Kahnweiler, 2000). Since
colleges are in more direct daily contact with fraternity members on their campuses than their
national organization headquarters, the colleges are better poised to impact these risky behaviors
(Hollmann, 2002; Mumford, 2001).
Researchers (Campo, Poulos & Sipple, 2005; Hall 2009) suggest that college and
university administrators employ comprehensive intervention strategies to interrupt hazing
behaviors on college campuses. Hall (2009) recommends that representatives from throughout
the campus be actively involved in implementing the intervention, while Owen et al. (2008)
suggests that fraternity leaders increase buy-in to the increased risk management when student
leaders are involved in the university policy creation and implementation. However, not all
fraternity advisors are prepared to confront the complex issues that present themselves in Greek-
letter organizations (Parks & Spencer, 2012; Scharber, 1997). Fraternity advisors often lack
insider information about chapter operations to affectively impact member actions (Parks &
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 4
Spencer, 2012). Ellsworth (2006) proposes that college and university administrators need to
work to dispel confusion, myths and misperceptions about hazing in order to effectively change
the hazing culture on their college campuses.
Statement of the Problem
The causes of hazing in college fraternities have been studied, but hazing continues to be
a problem in higher education (Allan & Madden, 2012; Ellsworth, 2009; Hall, 2009; Langford,
2008; Mumford, 2001). While theoretical and empirical research has been conducted on the
causes of hazing, there has been little research on the perceived efficacy of student affairs staff in
implementing anti-hazing strategies. Gifford, Pregliasco & Mardis, (2002) point out that student
affairs staff must manage the competing priorities of providing a safe environment for students,
and attending to liability issues and risk management without hampering student freedoms. With
increasing liability and legal obligations to protect students, fraternity advisors will be called
upon to demonstrate how their work contributes to effective anti-hazing training and
environment creation.
Researchers (Campo, Poulos & Sipple, 2005; Duncan, 2010; Hall, 2009; Hollmann,
2002) suggest that colleges utilize multi-faceted approaches, which include policy creation with
administrators and students, risk management education and training assessments, to address
hazing and promote student behavior changes. While fraternity headquarters staff creates their
own policies, bylaws and trainings to educate their members about hazing behaviors, fraternity
advisors are better situated to directly impact the fraternity environments where hazing takes
place (Hollmann, 2002). Fraternity advisors implement and enforce policies that prevent hazing
from taking place since the advisors have more frequent contact with fraternity leaders to
influence their activities and abilities to hold organizations accountable for their behaviors
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 5
(Mumford, 2001). As student affairs professionals are called upon to create anti-hazing
environments for fraternity members, more research is needed to understand the factors that
impact their training in anti-hazing education and make for perceived successful strategies.
Purpose of the Study
As anti-hazing intervention efforts are implemented across college campuses, the
fraternity advisor’s training to implement these strategies has not been studied (Hollmann, 2002).
Fraternity advisors have the closest on-campus relationship with fraternity chapters and influence
their behavior through policy enforcement and education. Therefore, this study aimed to increase
the understanding of the training of the fraternity advisor in creating promising practices in anti-
hazing culture development. The purpose of the study is to understand the systems and structures
that contribute to an anti-hazing culture in institutions of higher education. Researchers (Campo,
Poulos & Sipple, 2005; Duncan, 2010; Hall, 2009) have suggested that multi-faceted approaches
were necessary to promote student behavior changes and address hazing. As student affairs
professionals are called upon to address hazing behaviors and cultures, fraternity advisors will
need to understand what type of systems and structures were perceived as effective contributions
to comprehensive plans (Hall, 2009).
Additionally, the purpose of the study was to understand how these systems and
structures were implemented and sustained to support an anti-hazing culture in institutions of
higher education. Ellsworth (2006) suggests that successful structures include students
participating in interventions in order to create buy-in to the cultural changes. Effective cultural
change is also impacted by professional staff advisors understanding the different types of
cultural origins of fraternities (Parks & Spencer, 2012). Finally, the study’s purpose is to
understand student affairs professionals’ perceptions of the impact of anti-hazing efforts on the
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 6
campus, including fraternity advisors and senior student affairs administrators. By understanding
the perceived impact, the study will demonstrate how administrators can measure the impact of
the changes necessary to create anti-hazing cultures.
Significance of the Study
The study is significant in understanding fraternity advisor training on changing and
managing a cultural shift related to anti-hazing efforts. In order to create an anti-hazing culture,
fraternity advisors need to identify and understand their own professional development. Through
this intentional reflection, professional competencies for developing anti-hazing communities
will be identified.
The study adds to the understanding of what advisors should know in order to address the
potential hazing culture that exists within a diverse fraternity and on their campuses. Parks and
Spencer (2012) suggest that advisors need to improve their understanding of how different types
of fraternities operate in order to provide support for the co-curricular out-of-class learning
environment. Since fraternity advisors often lack insider information about chapter operations to
effectively impact member actions (Parks & Spencer, 2012), advisors should increase their
knowledge of how to create an environment that does not tolerate hazing and provide external
support to address internal issues within the chapters.
The study also informs college campuses policy. Mumford (2001) suggests that colleges
can better impact organizational behaviors through policy development than national fraternity
policies regarding hazing. Hollmann (2002) asserts that campus administrators will benefit from
increased understanding of how to influence and change existing structures that impact the
learning environment and allow for a change to existing hazing cultures.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 7
Research Questions
This study aimed to answer the following research questions:
1. What are the perceived systems and structures that contribute to an anti-hazing culture
in institutions of higher education?
2. How are these systems and structures implemented and sustained to support an anti-
hazing culture in institutions of higher education?
Glossary of Terms
Several terms are referenced and pertinent in this study. For the current study, the
following terms were defined as follows either through the literature or in consultation with the
dissertation committee’s operational definitions:
Bullying - the repeated, persistent and intentional behaviors that fosters a climate of fear
and disrespect that has a significant impact on the physical and/or psychological health.
Hazing - any activity, required implicitly or explicitly as a condition of initiation or
continued membership in an organization, which may negatively impact the physical or
psychological well-being of an individual or may cause damage to others, or to public or
private property.
College/University – the terms are used interchangeably to describe four-year higher
education institutions, though each institution may use a specific term to self-identify
with the education field.
Intervention – purposeful strategies used by fraternity advisors to modify or deter
harmful behaviors among students to themselves or others.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 8
Structure – mechanisms, policies, and procedures put in place by federal, state, and
district legislation or widely accepted as the official structure of institutions that are not
subject to change.
Systems – coordinated and coherent use of resources (time, personnel, students, parents,
funds, facilities, etc.) at the institution to ensure that the institution vision, mission, and
goals are met.
Greek Life Advisor/Fraternity Advisor – a professional staff working for the college or
university that is responsible for providing training about campus policies and supporting
student development outcomes, as well as ensuring compliance with local and national
laws, as well as institutional and national policies as applicable. The terms Greek Life
advisor and fraternity advisor are used interchangeably.
Fraternity – a single-gender values-based Greek-letter organization for men typically
affiliated with a national or international organization that is chartered and recognized by
a college or university.
Limitations, Delimitations and Assumptions
This study was limited to one case-study university site. Given that the observations,
conversations and analysis comprising “promising practices” exist at the case-study site, the
“promising practices” identified that may or may not generalize to similar colleges and
universities with fraternity communities. Additionally, since the fraternity communities were
limited to those with nationally-affiliated fraternity chapters, the findings may not generalize to
those communities that recognized local or non-nationally affiliated chapters. It is assumed that
during this study, participants' gender will not significantly affect their perceptions. It is also
assumed that all respondents will answer all survey questions honestly and to the best of their
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 9
abilities. The scope and time frame of the Ed.D program at the University of Southern California
impacted the limited the sample size, the number of students and staff interviewed and observed
which may have affected the outcome of the study. Finally, the region of the institution selected
may also be a limitation, since the institution is located in Mid-Atlantic region of the country.
Delimitations for the study were prepared by doctoral candidates studying anti-bullying
and anti-hazing education, and were focused on the structures and systems of promising practices
in creating anti-hazing cultures in collegiate institutions. An ‘anti-hazing culture’ was determined
to be a college or university that was able to address overt and covert hazing within fraternity
chapters or governing councils. College and universities were considered for the study that had
professional student affairs personnel hired to advise the fraternity chapters and senior
administrators that create policies for fraternities, as well as had adopted structures and systems
to specifically address the overt and covert hazing that occurred within the chapters or governing
councils. College and universities were considered that only had recognized fraternity chapters
affiliated with a national or international office, and did not recognize non-affiliated or
independent chapters. For the purpose of the study, the institutions considered for study had to
have adopted structures and systems for study before the case study and the thematic group
established a timeline of data collection of eight weeks from September 1 to October 31, 2013.
Organization of the Study
Chapter one provided a synopsis of the study including the purpose and significance.
Chapter two reviews the literature on bullying, hazing, student affairs professional development
and university responsibility and leadership. Chapter three presents the research methodology
used in the study. Chapter four provided the results of the study. Chapter five presented
conclusions and recommendations of the study.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 10
10
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Introduction to the Review
College and university administrators develop interventions to create anti-hazing
environments that impact the student community and create a positive learning environment.
Collegiate fraternity chapters are a target audience for anti-hazing intervention implementation
(Sweet, 2004), with fraternity advisors and senior student affairs administrators responsible for
anti-hazing education and policy development (Hall, 2009). Implementing these anti-hazing
strategies is positively impacted by the fraternity advisors who enter the student affairs field with
different educational backgrounds (Parks & Spencer, 2011), understanding of college student
and men’s identity development (Davis, 2002) and work with a diverse group of fraternity
chapters engaging in behaviors incongruent with fraternity values (Sutton, Letzring, Terrell &
Poats, 2000). Since each campus has defined hazing behaviors differently, programs and
strategies reflect the respective campus definition. This impacts the outcomes for each campus
strategy for eliminating hazing activity (Allan & Madden, 2012; Ellsworth, 2006; Morman,
2007; Sutton, Letzring, Terrell & Poats, 2000).
The purpose of the study was designed to describe promising practices in anti-hazing
training on college campuses. To that end, it was important to define and understand the term
hazing, the history of hazing in fraternities and how it impacts college students in particular.
Additionally, colleges and universities have responded to the legal implications of hazing
incidences variably, which impacts the responsibilities of fraternity advisors to educate their
students. This study aimed to answer the following research questions:
1. What are the perceived systems and structures that contribute to an anti-hazing
culture in institutions of higher education?
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 11
2. How are these systems and structures implemented and sustained to support an
anti-hazing culture in institutions of higher education?
To determine how the perception of systems and structures contribute to an anti-hazing
culture for advising college fraternities, a review of current literature was conducted. First, the
history of fraternity hazing and how fraternity members perceive its purpose is discussed.
Second, university responses to hazing within a historical context are presented. Finally, training
for professional fraternity advisors and anti-hazing best practices development is presented.
Defining Hazing
Multiple definitions of hazing exist. Definitions have emerged from multiple areas
including social science and higher education research, legal definitions within statues and
professional associations for fraternity executives and advisors. All of the definitions describe
hazing behaviors using varied different language, which can inform how campuses create
policies and programs to impact student environments. The literature repeatedly states that due to
the lack of a common definition, awareness and prevention efforts are often unsuccessful at
increasing students’ awareness of hazing activities or reducing the likelihood that hazing
activities will occur (Allan & Madden, 2012; Ellsworth, 2006; Hollmann, 2002; Kittle, 2012).
Allan and Madden (2008) completed a national study of college hazing behaviors that
revealed the pervasiveness of hazing occurring on college campuses. The study included 11,482
electronic survey responses from undergraduates enrolled at 53 college and university campuses.
The study also included in-person interview responses from 300 students and professional staff
members at 18 of the institutions. The study defined hazing as “any activity expected of someone
joining a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers, regardless of the person's
willingness to participate” (Allan & Madden, 2008, p. 2.). The survey consisted of 70 questions
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 12
and was designed so participants could respond to questions relative to their different
membership affiliations. For instance, a responding student who belonged to a fraternity and was
on a varsity athletic team would answer different questions for each of these affiliations. In-
person interviews were conducted with 300 individuals at the 53 campuses, and included student
leaders, student affairs and athletics staff, and senior student affairs officers. The findings from
the study revealed that 47% of students arrive at college having previously experienced hazing,
69% of students who were involved in campus activities reported they were aware of hazing
activities occurring in student organizations other than their own, and 95% of the cases where
students had experiences identified as hazing, they did not report the events to campus officials.
The results also showed that 73% of students belonging to fraternities and sororities had
experienced at least one hazing behavior during their time of involvement, and that 53% had
forced participation in a drinking game as part of their hazing experiences.
The act of hazing can be challenging for institutions to narrowly define, given the range
of behaviors that students could engage in and inflict on other students under the guise of
initiation. Hazing definitions can include activity that targets current members rather than only
new members (Campo, Poulos & Sipple, 2005). The hazing activities can be hard to distinguish
from the approved initiation rites from the national fraternity headquarters to join the
organizations, due to local members’ misrepresentation of the hazing as the only source for
granting full and sustainable membership (Allan & Madden, 2012; Rogers, Rogers & Anderson,
2012). Fraternity hazing activities can range from activities involving physical abuse to activities
involving binge alcohol drinking that have been disguised by local members as the national
fraternity-approved new member education process and are described by their initiated members
as pledge programs (Arnold, 2004; Parks, Jones & Hughey, 2011; Parks & Spencer, 2012).
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 13
Personal experiences can impact the denotation and connotation of the term ‘hazing’. A
person engaged in the act of hazing may state its definition different than a person who is hazed,
and both may differ from an administrator or advisor who must determine if the act fits within a
stated college policy or state law (McGlone & Schaefer, 2008). Additionally, Allan and Madden
(2008) found that, “Students recognize hazing as part of the campus culture” and state, “More
students perceive positive rather than negative outcomes of hazing” (p. 2). Ellsworth (2006)
found differences in hazing definitions among different types of student organizations, which
were impacted by their gender and their group affiliation. Cokley et al. (2001) found that
students’ perception of hazing is impacted by their participation in Greek-letter organizations
within the new member process. Parks, Jones and Hughey (2011) found that alumni members of
fraternities held positive beliefs about the effects of hazing in private while publicly denouncing
the activities.
Currently, forty-four states define hazing in their legal statues in either the educational
code or the penal code (Nuwer, 2004). California defines hazing as “conduct which causes, or is
likely to cause, bodily danger, physical harm, or personal degradation or disgrace resulting in
physical or mental harm to another person in the course of the other person’s pre-initiation into,
initiation into, affiliation with, holding office in, or maintaining membership in any
organization” (Matt’s Law, CA SEC. 4. Section 245.6). The California hazing law was updated
in 2005, following the death of a fraternity pledge due to a hazing incident, and moved from the
educational code to the penal code to reinforce the felony aspect of the crimes associated with
hazing (Villaba, 2007). Current hazing legislation differs state to state, and the penalties for
hazing may include a fine, imprisonment or both depending on the state and the severity of the
incident (McGlone & Schaefer, 2008).
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 14
National fraternity organizations and professional advisor associations have developed
statements regarding hazing. Many national fraternity organizations abide by the definition of
hazing developed by the Fraternity Insurance Purchasing Group as intentional activities, whether
on or off fraternity property, that are not consistent with fraternal law, ritual or policy or the
regulations and policies of the educational institution (Pelletier, 2002). The professional
association that guides the practice of fraternity advisors, the Association of Fraternity/Sorority
Advisors, describes hazing as a “tradition of physical, psychological, or emotional testing of its
potential members as a rite of passage to full membership….[H]azing arises when reason is
clouded by tradition, when loyalty is equated with subservience, and/or where the ideal of
brotherhood and sisterhood is misunderstood as something must be proven through the degrading
of the individual (“Position Statement on Hazing and Education Initiatives,” 1999). Fraternity
advisors can frame hazing behaviors as not only violating university policies, but as incongruent
behaviors with the stated positive fraternity values and initiation rituals.
History of Hazing in College
Hazing in American higher education has existed since the start of the nation and pre-
dates American colleges (Nuwer, 2004). Nuwer (2004) has summarized the practice of hazing
activities within US colleges, sometimes referred to as ‘fagging’ and which was often sanctioned
by college leaders. Though hazing activities were reported at Harvard in the 1600s (Nuwer,
2004), no legal statues or penalties existed regarding these activities. The first anti-hazing law
was enacted in New York in 1894, in response to a hazing prank that killed a Cornell staff
member. While hazing has connotations within college fraternities, other college organizations
have engaged in having acts including marching bands, athletic teams, and honor societies (Allan
& Madden, 2008; McGlone & Schaefer, 2008; Nuwer, 2004).
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 15
Hazing in college fraternities
Acts of hazing are inconsistent with stated fraternity values. The North-American
Interfraternity Conference (NIC), the governing body for international collegiate fraternal
organizations, has issued a position statement that outlines how and why negative and violent
behaviors are contradictions of the values and ideals of all fraternal organizations (“Statement of
position on hazing and behavior,” 2009). Similarly, the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC),
the governing body for historically-Black fraternities and sororities, issued a joint statement
against hazing, and reaffirmed that hazing is antithetical to the development of fraternalism and
nurturing an environment of responsibility and respect among its members (“Joint position
statement against hazing,” 2000). However, collegiate fraternal organizations continue to engage
in these behaviors and put their members at risk.
Initiation rituals should not be confused with hazing activities. Initiation rituals are the
agreed upon ceremonies as stated by the national fraternal organizations, typically kept secret
from non-members, and confer membership upon their completion. Hazing behaviors are the
activities that are unofficially practiced by members of the organization, though they are
officially banned by the national fraternal organizations (Drout & Corsoro, 2003; Rogers, Rogers
& Anderson, 2012; Sutton, Letzring, Terrell & Poats, 2000). This misperception can impact the
work of fraternity advisors, who are not privy to the secret fraternity rites but who must help
fraternity members develop positive group member trainings prior to the initiation ceremony
(Parks & Spencer, 2012; Scharber, 1997).
One of the challenges that campus administrators face is changing the positive perception
of hazing in the fraternity initiation process. Cokley et al (2001) suggest that Greek member
attitudes toward hazing are more positive than those who are non-affiliated. Allan and Madden
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 16
(2008) also found that students found more positive than negative outcomes to hazing behaviors,
with respondents believing that enduring the hazing was a sense of accomplishment and helped
the group bond over a common experience. Given the perception of its positive impact, it is not
surprising that 90% of the respondents who shared that they had been exposed to a hazing
activity did not label the activity as hazing. Allan and Madden found that of the students
included in their study, 95% of the students who had experienced hazing did not report it to
campus officials, giving the rationale that the acts were traditional rite of passage, engaging in
the acts was a personal choice, and the behaviors had a minimal impact on their lives. Allan and
Madden (2008) suggest that colleges must better define hazing, how consent is influenced
through power dynamics and move past simply sharing policies of ‘don’t haze’ with campus
community members in order to change the perceptions about hazing among students.
University Reponses to Hazing
While national fraternity headquarters have created initiation rituals that instill positive
membership practices contrary to hazing activities, institutions have relied on policy
development and educational initiatives to curb hazing activities on their campuses (Sutton,
Litzring, Terrell & Poats, 2000). Institutions are increasingly found liable for oversight of the
fraternity chapters they recognize on their campuses, regardless of their level of campus
recognition (Crow & Rosner, 2002; Hall, 2009; McGlone & Schaefer, 2008; Pearson &
Beckham, 2005). Hall (2009) suggests that with repeated incidences of hazing on college
campuses, university administrators have had to reassess their acknowledgement and
management of the risks associated with recognizing student organizations, including
fraternities. The management has had to include direct and indirect oversight of events
happening both off and on campus in university owned and non-university owned buildings.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 17
While national fraternity governing bodies and national headquarters have implemented
policies and procedures regarding hazing, colleges are in better positions to implement and direct
policies to prevent tragedies occurring on the college campuses and protect students from
fraternity-related injuries through professional advising services and educational programming
regarding hazing (Mumford, 2001). Hall (2009) also suggests that, in addition to the university
acknowledging its responsibility to prevent students from potential dangers, including hazing,
students have a reasonable duty to protect themselves. College and universities have responded
to laws regarding hazing, and their implications for providing a duty of care to their students,
through multiple efforts such as educating members on definitions of hazing, posting contact
numbers to report alleged hazing incidents, and training faculty and staff on how to recognize the
effects of hazing (Langford, 2008).
Establishing Duty
When the colleges and universities with fraternities create policies regarding hazing, the
issuance of the policy creates an additional duty to protect students from hazing. These
institutions can be found liable for injuries resulting from hazing, even with policies in place, due
to negligent supervision (McGlone & Schaefer, 2008). It is not enough to only create a policy
that bans hazing; institutions must be proactive in educating their students about the policy and
what constitutes hazing. McGlone and Schaefer (2008) suggested that institutions, and by
extension advisors, administrators, and other student affairs staff members, need to create anti-
hazing policies and then actively enforce the policies in order to meet the duty standard
established within their state. As the courts continue to render judgments regarding hazing
activities that involve college students, college and universities have responded by outlining their
own anti-hazing policies and procedures for handling instances that occur with their students. In
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 18
doing so, the institutions define the sense of duty to protect their students from harm as outlined
through court cases involving fraternities engaged in hazing activities.
Colleges and universities have a vested interest in the application of hazing definitions
established by the courts and through state legislatures. Each law and court case resolves
questions on the establishment of explicit duty that these institutions have for protecting students
from hazing and informs the practice of the student affairs professionals on the college campuses
working with fraternities. Based on hazing activity data (Allan & Madden, 2008; Hollmann,
2002; Hoover, 2000) that indicates that hazing incidents are regularly occurring at a significant
rate, colleges and universities must understand the potential for liability for the hazing of their
students (Crow & Rosner, 2002).
Courts have looked at the duty owed to students by their institutions viewed through
landowner-invitee relationships. Previously, institutions that operated within the legal doctrines
of in loco parentis, which shielded the institution from scrutiny of disciplining their students and
managing the accountability of its students or and the bystander era, which established that
institutions had no legal duty to protect its students from harm (Hall, 2009). Yet as more students
are charged with criminal hazing, institutions are being held responsible for their care. Crow and
Rosner (2002) suggest that,
The courts have not reinstated the doctrine of in loco parentis to establish a duty
of care. Instead, they are relying on traditional tort law to treat college and
university defendants the same as landlords, i.e., with a duty to act reasonably
(p.93).
In order for a college or university to be found liable for injuries incurred from hazing
activities, the courts must determine that they were negligent (McGlone & Schaefer, 2008) and
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 19
that the incident was reasonably foreseeable (Crow & Rosner, 2002). In order for a person or
plaintiff to successfully recover under a claim of negligence against an organization or
defendant, they must establish four components: 1) a legal duty of care on the defendant’s
behalf; 2) a breach of the established duty occurred; 3) evidence that the breach is the actual and
proximate cause of injury; and 4) actual damages to the plaintiff (Crow & Rosner, 2002;
McGlone & Schaefer, 2008; Pearson & Beckham, 2005). In this theory, the argument rests on
the establishment of a legally recognized duty of care. When deciding the liability of universities
for the hazing injuries of their students, courts may apply the theories of in loco parentis,
landowner-invitee or special relationship (Crow & Rosner, 2002).
Recent court cases have further established the duty that college and universities
presumably owe to their students regarding hazing. Furek v. University of Delaware (1991)
established that a university’s own stated policy against hazing and its repeated warnings against
the dangers of hazing constituted an assumed duty (Hall, 2009). Through the establishment of its
policies, the institution acknowledged the foreseeability of harm related to hazing and had
established a reasonable duty to protect students from themselves (Crow & Rosner, 2002; Hall,
2009; Pearson & Beckham, 2005). Morrison v. Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity (1999) emphasized
that, even though students were of legal age, there was still a responsibility on the part of the
institution to monitor the behavior of the fraternity chapter given the institution’s awareness of
the chapter’s history of hazing its members. Since members may not know or understand the
risks associated with hazing (Allan & Madden, 2008; McGlone & Schaefer, 2008), the
institutions must work to not only educate its fraternity chapters about hazing but also monitor
the experiences of its members even when the members believe that the hazing compliments the
pledge process.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 20
In Knoll v. Board of Regents at the University of Nebraska (1999), the court further held
that the institution had a duty to protect the plaintiff, who suffered injuries escaping from a
hazing incident involving kidnapping, even though the hazing incident took place in a privately
off-campus residence (McGlone & Schaefer, 2008). Since the university was aware of past
hazing incidences with the particular fraternity involved, students were owed protection from
hazing incidents as there was foreseeability in preventing future acts of hazing (Crow & Rosner,
2002; Hall, 2009). Additionally, since the abduction occurred on campus and the university had
established policies regarding off-campus student housing conduct, the landowner theory could
apply to protecting students from acts of harm, even if the harmful act occur off-campus (Crow
& Rosner, 2002). This ruling is significant since fraternity houses are typically privately-owned
off-campus properties managed by alumni management corporations.
In the 1990s, court cases involving alcohol and hazing abuses called into question the
institutions unique duty, where institutions are not liable for the actions of its students given their
adult ages but instead are liable for the actions of their organizations since these are advised and
controlled through university processes and advisors (Villaba, 2007). Court cases involving
hazing have held the university accountable on the basis that the university had a responsibility
to protect students from foreseeable injuries, including those resulting from hazing (McGlone &
Schaefer, 2008). Typically, the liability is found through the negligence of the institution to
adequately educate its students regarding dangerous and risky behaviors and provide training on
ways to avoid these behaviors (Parks & Spencer, 2012).
Fraternity Advisor Training
Student affairs practitioners working in Greek Life are part of the campus response to risk
management program development that includes anti-hazing education. Not all fraternity
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 21
advisors are prepared to confront the complex issues that present themselves in Greek-letter
organizations (Parks & Spencer, 2012; Paterson, 2013; Rogers, Rogers & Anderson, 2012,
Strayhorn & McCall, 2012). Professional associations, including the Association of
Fraternity/Sorority Advisors and the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher
Education, have stressed the need for fraternity advisors to attain cultural competence in order to
provide formal advising of fraternity members from different backgrounds (Strayhorn & McCall,
2012). Advisors should have a working knowledge of student development theory, in order to
provide guidance for effective practice (Patton & Bonner II, 2001), including men’s identity
development theories (Davis, 2002). In order to curb future hazing incidences, advisors need to
increase their contact hours with chapters on their campuses (Hall, 2009), particularly during
new member probationary periods, and work closely with alumni advisors to be part of the
private initiation ceremonies (Parks & Spencer, 2012). This increased contact will show students
that their values alignment and congruence are being monitored and measured against
established practices (Parks & Spencer, 2012). And while advisors play a role in the reduction of
hazing behaviors, the members themselves must be educated and held accountable for their
behaviors. (Sutton, Litzring, Terrell & Poats, 2000).
College Men’s Development
Since college fraternities are single-sex organizations, research should be considered on
the unique development of men’s identities during their college years and how this identity
development can impact the creation of anti-hazing environments. Modern day student affairs
researchers have typically pointed out that the seminal college student development models and
theories that inform student affairs services were originally created through the lens of purported
male student development, since the original subjects were men (Harper & Harris III, 2010).
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 22
Recently, researchers have begun creating developmental models and grounded theories for male
identity development (Anger, Johnson & Wawrzynski, 2012). Student affairs educators need to
become more familiar with the gendered identity development that men experience while in
enrolled in college, and how this development relates to the existing literature on student
development, in order to offer men the support services they require in order to create anti-
hazing environments.
Students enrolled in college encounter social cues and interactions on a daily basis that
influence their perceptions about gender. The social construction of gender stresses the
importance of social interactions, structures, and contexts in creating and reinforcing perceived
normative expectations of masculine behavior (Connell, 2002; Harris, 2010), which the college
environment provides in multiple contexts. It is within this on-going and pervasive socialization
that young men begin to make meaning of their identities as they progress into adulthood (Baxter
Magolda, 2002). All of the messages they receive prior to college are either reinforced by
perceived normative behavior or men emerge with a new sense of self as a man that integrates
this new knowledge.
As college-aged men begin to become aware of their male identities, there are challenges
men must face that defy their preconceived societal expectations, such as the contradictions from
being a college student versus a working class man (Harris III & Harper, 2008). Societal
expectations also determine how men will experience and display emotion, the ways to express
authority and strength and which acts men should not do, such as being gay or feminine (Baxter
Magolda, 2002; Davis, 2002; Edwards & Jones, 2009, Harris, 2010; O’Neil, Helms, Gable,
David & Wrightsman, 1986). These societal expectations also influence how the men engage and
participate in their college support services, since asking for help and guidance may not be
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 23
included in how men are expected to act (Davis, 2002; Harris III & Harper, 2008). These
expectations to perform as masculine are important to consider, since it could explain why men
who are hazed do not report the acts to university officials or fraternity headquarters staff
(Edwards & Jones, 2009).
College Men and Relationships
College aged men also begin to navigate new relationships or renegotiate existing
relationships, especially with other men. Davis (2002) found that college men developed new
communication styles with other men, began to challenge the status quo of their previous
relationships and recognized that this new self-expression is novel and worth exploring. Men
also reported that their relationships with women were under additional scrutiny, since they
believed that their true expression might penalize their chances to be potential partners in
heterosexual relationships.
Yet for all of the chances for exploration of a newly integrated male identity, some men
are unprepared to take on a new male identity. Davis (2002), and Harris III and Harper (2008)
identified men in their studies that were presented with opportunities to seek new definitions of
masculinity different from their peers and family members. The men were unable to integrate
new forms of ‘being a man’ that contradicted their previous identities and knew that their choice
to avoid integration of a new identity was an active choice.
The emerging literature about men’s identity development helps to inform the practice of
fraternity advisors. By understanding the pressure to ‘act like a man’, the avoidance of seeking
help, and the lengths to which men will go to avoid being labeled as effeminate or gay that are
part of the identity development stages, advisors will have additional tools to advise men on how
to better improve their relationships with other men while recognizing when these pressures are
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 24
part of their development. A noticeable gap in the literature is the lack of exploration of men’s
gender identity development integration stage. While much of the research focused on the gender
role conflict and unease college men feel exploring their gender identity, none were able to
present evidence that men were able to assimilate a newly integrated male identity into their
post-college identities. Also, additional literature would need to explore the intersection of other
identities, including sexual orientation, race, age, among others (Davis, 2002), particularly those
in college fraternities.
Promising Practices
In order to effectively reduce hazing activity on college and universities, administrators
have been encouraged to develop multi-faceted approaches to hazing in order to create a safe and
respectful environment on their campuses (Crow & Rosner, 2002; Duncan, 2010; Hall, 2009;
Langford, 2008). Working with national professional associations (e.g., the Association of
Fraternity/Sorority Advisors, the Council on Advancing Standards in Higher Education, the
National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and the American College Personnel
Association) and national fraternity organizations (e.g. Fraternity Executives Association, North
American Inter-fraternity Conference and the National Pan-Hellenic Council), university
administrators are raising awareness about hazing in an effort to reduce hazing on campuses
through trainings, workshops and guest speakers (Langford, 2008). While every college
fraternity community is different across the country, best practices have emerged to construct the
multi-faceted approach recommended by researchers and professional associations.
Multiple strategies have been recommended to create a multi-faceted approach.
Researchers (Campo, Poulos & Sipple, 2005; Hall 2009; Hollmann, 2002; Langford, 2008)
suggest that college and university administrators employ comprehensive intervention strategies
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 25
to interrupt hazing behaviors on college campuses. The interventions tackle the causes for hazing
among students (Campo, Poulos & Sipple, 2005) or educate students on how to reach the
outcomes relegated to hazing through safer, educational methods (Langford, 2008). Hall (2009)
recommends that representatives from throughout the campus be actively involved in
implementing the intervention, which includes representatives from athletics, student activities,
the marching band and Greek advisors. Owen et al. (2008) specifically suggests that fraternity
student leaders be included in order to increase buy-in for anti-hazing policy creation and
education. Ellsworth (2006) and Hollmann (2002) proposes that college and university
administrators need to work to dispel confusion, myths and misperceptions about hazing in order
to effectively change the hazing culture on their college campuses.
While promising practices have been developed for creating anti-hazing policies and
education for students, similar practices are absent from the literature for training fraternity
advisors on how to address and prevent hazing on their college campuses. McGlone and
Schaefer (2008) suggest that administrators with direct student contact be educated on hazing
and hazing policies in order to change pre-initiation behavior, and Parks, Jones and Hughey
(2012) additionally suggest that the advisors need to be aware of how these hazing behaviors
exist within Black Greek letter organizations. Parks, Jones and Hughey (2013) stressed the need
for fraternity advisors who work with Black fraternities to have a strong cultural competence for
working with students of color and how their differing fraternity traditions reflect values within
this community. Even if the advisors are trained on how to identify hazing, students believe that
their advisors do nothing with the information and allow the hazing to continue (Allan &
Madden, 2008; Langford 2008). Langford (2008) proposes that administrators working in anti-
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 26
hazing education efforts use strategies similar to those developed for campus-based alcohol
awareness programming.
Theoretical Framework
For the purpose of the study, Bronfenbrenner's (1993) ecological model was used as the
theoretical framework for understanding the development of promising practices for anti-hazing
education for fraternities. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model describes development as a
function of evolving interaction of person and place, which take place in a face-to-face setting, or
a microsystem. Figure 1 describes the interactions of the systems within the ecology model.
Figure 1. Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) model as applied to fraternity members’ environment
Multiple microsystems for college students continually affect the development and
experience of the individual and include fraternity involvement, campus culture, and
relationships with professional staff (Renn & Arnold, 2003) in addition to academic disciplines.
Microsystem
Mesosystem
Exosystem
Macrosystem
Student
Job
Room
mates
Fraternity
Brothers
Fraternity
Policies
Institution
Policies
State
Laws
Federal
Laws
Historical
Trends
Social
Forces
Classes
Family
Cultural
Expectations
Fraternity
Advisor
Classes
Family
Fraternity
advisor
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 27
When two or more microsystems or settings are linked together with the individual, a
mesosystem results (Bronfenbrenner, 1993). Since limited research has been conducted to
examine the influence of the environment on college peer culture (Renn & Arnold, 2003) and its
impact on hazing culture, the current study will use Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) ecological model to
further understand the components that influence an anti-hazing educational environment.
The ecology theory describes “both outcomes and processes of development by
incorporating the interactions of individuals with their environments over time in a Person-
Process-Context-Time model” (Renn & Arnold, 2003, p. 263). The model contains four nested
systems, the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem, that link together as
interdependent and dynamic structures and describes the person-process part of the model. The
systems range from the proximal, face-to-face settings to the distant, broader societal influences
that exist in the larger culture. These systems also change throughout the person’s life and
context of the activities.
Bronfenbrenner’s paradigm is interested in the interactive effects of peer and family
influences (Renn & Arnold, 2003). In order for development to occur, “the individual must
engage in increasingly complex actions and tasks (p 267).” These tasks must also be aligned in
order to impact the student’s development in ways that are consistent with higher education
institutions missions and goals. Using the ecology theory helps practitioners understand how
intended educational outcomes were influenced by peer groups (Anger, Johnson & Wawrzynski,
2012). The interaction of students with their environment, which includes their peer group,
university staff and faculty and their organizational affiliations, impact students to differing
degrees and rates of responsiveness.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 28
The context part of the model is concerned with the interaction of the microsystem and
mesosystem. A typical college student may have microsystem that includes a residence hall, on-
campus job, roommates, student club, or intimate partner. Renn and Arnold (2003) describe each
of the contexts as a physical, social and symbolic relationship that “promote or inhibit
increasingly complex interactions between students and their environments (p 270).” The
interaction within the microsystem and mesosystem can be impacted through specific contextual
environments, including fraternity involvement. The fraternity advisor can also facilitate these
relationships through intentional interactions with peers, family members, faculty and staff.
Summary
There is continued concern to address the issue of hazing within college fraternities. This
literature review showed the need for institutions with fraternity communities to address their
duty to protect students from hazing incidents, strategies have been identified for institutional
leaders and fraternity advisors to adopt, and the need to integrate student development theory and
men’s identity development into anti-hazing education. A thorough review of the literature on
anti-hazing education demonstrated a deficit of research on the role of fraternity advisor
education and training to develop these anti-hazing environments. Much of the scholarship
focused on the acts of the fraternity members and their motivation to perpetuate the hazing acts,
and addressed the need to stop the acts on behalf of the institutions. The present study addressed
this gap in the literature, and provides a positive approach on how fraternity advisors are creating
these anti-hazing environments. The next chapter will address the research methods employed to
determine how the fraternity advisor and senior administrator used the institutional structures and
systems that create an anti-hazing environment.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 29
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
The intent of the study was to understand the perceived systems and structures that
contribute to, and sustain, an anti-hazing environment in institutions of higher education.
Fraternity communities continue to deal with hazing issues on university campuses (Nuwer,
2004). This study examined a fraternity community, including its fraternity advisors and student
leaders, to understand the systems and structures they perceive to be helpful in creating and
sustaining an anti-hazing environment. The perceived systems and structures that college
administrators create to address hazing behaviors in fraternities serve as a guide for other college
fraternity communities and their advisors seeking to create anti-hazing communities on their
college campuses.
Chapter 3 will discuss the design of the study, sources of data, data collection procedures,
instrumentation, data analysis, and methods used to ensure participant confidentiality.
Research Questions
The following research questions were developed as part of a dissertation cohort group
studying promising practices for developing anti-hazing cultures in educational institutions.
Since qualitative research allows researchers to understand the meaning that participants make
about a given phenomenon (Merriam, 2009), the questions were framed to capture data higher
education professionals’ perceptions about developing anti-hazing cultures within their fraternity
communities.
1. What are the perceived systems and structures that contribute to an anti-hazing culture
in institutions of higher education?
2. How are these systems and structures implemented and sustained to support an anti-
hazing culture in institutions of higher education?
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 30
Research Design
In order to capture the perceptions of the professionals working with college fraternities
within one campus community, a case study approach was selected as the qualitative research
approach. Merriam (2009) describes a case study as “an intensive, holistic description and
analysis of a singular entity, phenomenon, or social unit (p. 46).” Within the bounded system
described by Merriam (2009), the promising practice at the college campus could be analyzed to
highlight how the anti-hazing culture is developed. This qualitative research method also allowed
for exploration of the particular context and the perceptions of the staff involved in which the
unique or promising practice was developed. The case study required that interviews,
observations and document review be performed in order to capture the context of the promising
practices and the perceptions of the staff working at the site.
Sample.
Participant selection.
The research questions were developed to capture the perceptions of university
administrators and fraternity advisors in creating anti-hazing environments. A purposeful
sampling of fraternity advisors and senior administrators provided the information necessary to
describe the perceptions for creating anti-hazing environments. A purposeful sample assumes
that the selected sample allows for the understanding and discovery of phenomena related to the
study’s purpose (Merriam, 2009). The staff and administrators considered for the study had to
have adopted structures and systems related to creating an anti-hazing environment before the
interviews were conducted.
With these considerations, participants were identified from the researcher’s professional
student affairs and fraternity headquarters staff contacts who have worked in fraternity advising
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 31
and administration with identifiable hazing policies. This study employed purposeful, snowball
sampling to identify the campus at which to study the anti-hazing education efforts. Fraternity
advisor names were obtained through conversations with senior fraternity headquarters staff and
researchers working in hazing prevention. Purposeful sampling allowed the selection of a
fraternity advisor that met the criteria for working in a campus community that had previously
adopted anti-hazing policies, systems and structures. The potential participant was emailed a
recruitment letter (see Appendix A) requesting participation in the study and stipulating criteria
for participation-working as a fraternity advisor with established anti-hazing policies, systems
and structures- as well as requirements of participants.
Site selection.
The research questions were developed to describe the perceptions of university
administrators and fraternity advisors in creating anti-hazing environments. Maxwell (2013)
describes using observations to “describe settings, behavior, and events (p. 102).” Since the
context of the anti-hazing environment impacts the participants within the setting, it was
important to view the environments in which anti-hazing education takes place. Merriam (2009)
notes that practical considerations and interest by the subjects to be observed play a role in
determining what to observe. Within the research matrix developed, anti-hazing workshops for
fraternity advisors and fraternity student leaders working on anti-hazing education were
indicated for observation. Additionally, accessible fraternity advisor trainings, student leader
trainings and fraternity student leader offices were included in the observation. The observations
were completed at a university referred to as East Coast University in the study between
September 30 and October 5, 2013.
Theoretical Framework
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 32
Bronfenbrenner's (1993) ecological model was used as the theoretical framework for
understanding the development of promising practices for anti-hazing education for fraternities.
Microsystems described within the model affect the development and experience of the college
students and can include fraternity involvement, campus culture, and relationships with
professional staff (Renn & Arnold, 2003). When two or more microsystems or settings are linked
together with the individual, a mesosystem results (Bronfenbrenner, 1993). Since limited
research has been conducted to examine the influence of the environment on college peer culture
(Renn & Arnold, 2003) and its impact on hazing culture, the current study will use
Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) ecological model to further understand the components that influence
an anti-hazing educational environment.
Conceptual Framework
College fraternity men are impacted by multiple daily influences, described in Figure 1.
As described in Chapter 2, fraternity men are impacted by relationships with their peers,
advisors, and their fraternity brothers. Their fraternity experience is also impacted by the
governance, rules, policies and procedures implemented by the college in order to manage the
behavior of the chapter. In particular, the anti-hazing education of fraternity members encounter
are impacted by the college’s funding, staffing, and training. The interactions of the policies,
governance, staffing, funding and training all create the systems and structures within which the
anti-hazing education takes place and impacts the implementation of an anti-hazing fraternity
culture. As evidenced in Chapter 2, the environment is sustained through evaluation processes,
led by institutional leadership, which impact the interaction of funding, staff, training, policies
and governance. The culture is sustained through this evaluation process and informs potential
changes to the structures and systems, and impacts the institutional anti-hazing culture.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 33
Figure 2. Conceptual Framework, Ed.D. Thematic Group 2013
Instrumentation
Instrumentation for this study included semi-structured interviews with participants, an
on-site workshop observation, and review of relevant anti-hazing policy and training documents.
The following table was used to determine how the research questions were used to determine
the suitable type of data collection instrument.
Table 1. Research question as instrumentation
Research Questions Interviews Observations Artifacts
1. What are the perceived systems and structures
that contribute to an anti-hazing culture in
institutions of higher education?
Fraternity
Advisor
Student Leaders
Senior Student
Affairs Officer
Anti-hazing
educator training
University policies
and protocols
Staffing models
2. How are these systems and structures
implemented and sustained to support an anti-
hazing culture in institutions of higher education?
Fraternity
Advisor
Student Leaders
Senior Student
Affairs Officer
Anti-hazing
workshops
Anti-hazing
educator training
Student leader
offices
Anti-hazing
education
curriculum
Stakeholders
Funding
Staffing
Policies
Staff
Development
What institution
will do with
systems and
structures
Institution-wide
anti-hazing
culture
Leadership
Evaluation & Sustainability
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 34
Table 1 lists the research questions and the instrumentation determined to address the
question. Question one required interviews with the fraternity advisor, interviews with senior
student affairs administrators working with fraternities, and a review of the anti-hazing policy
documents. Question two required interviews with the fraternity advisor and student leaders
within the fraternity governance body, as well as senior student affairs administrators.
Observations were identified to take place at trainings on anti-hazing education to fraternity
members. Artifacts included documents related to the university anti-hazing policy, its creation
and implementation for anti-hazing education.
Data collection
Interviews.
Process for Getting Consent.
Study participants were pre-informed that their participation was voluntary and that data
collected would be used to help the researcher gain understanding on promising practices on
anti-hazing education development. Participants were informed that pseudonyms would be used
in the written report. The researcher asked if the participant understood their role as a subject
with the above limitations and asked for a verbal consent of ‘yes’ before continuing with the
interviews.
Approach for Capturing Data.
Semi-structured interview questions were developed for the interview schedules for
senior administrators, fraternity advisors and fraternity student government leaders. The
interview protocol was developed in conjunction with other researchers as part of a thematic
dissertation group and is included as Appendix D. Semi-structured interviews are the most
common interview question to capture data since the interview is guided by a set of questions
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 35
and issues though the exact wording and order are not predetermined (Merriam, 2009). Weiss
(1994) suggests that interviews allow for the researcher to get a window into the past and
understand in-depth reasons for motivations for making choices and perceptions of past
experiences that are not captured in a structured survey. One fraternity advisor, one senior
student affairs administrator, and three fraternity student leaders were interviewed. Prior to the
interview, participants completed a participant intake survey, included as Appendix C. The
survey collected position title, years of experience and demographic information. Interviews took
between 45-60 minutes each. Interviews were conducted either in-person or on the telephone,
with the researcher capturing the interview data on a recording and later transcribed. Questions
in the interviews captured information about the systems and structures that are perceived to
create an anti-hazing environment from the perspective of each of the participants. Field notes
were immediately created following the interview to capture tone, transitions and remarks
relative to the questions themselves.
Observations.
Process for Getting Consent.
Entry for the two anti-hazing workshops was gained by through the fraternity advisor
through verbal invitation during the interview. The Greek student leader office was granted entry
by the vice-president of the campus Inter-Fraternity Council and the president of the
Multicultural Greek Council, who each required information on the study and its dissemination
to the public. Consent was granted after it was shared that the physical space observation would
be included in the final study, and that the final observations would be included without
identifying characteristics.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 36
Approach for Capturing Data.
A structured observation protocol was developed to capture the anti-hazing workshops
for advisors and new members, which was presented to EdD 2013 dissertation cohort for review
to ensure that the format would reflect the research questions. Merriam (2009) recommends that
the observation process be broken into three stages: entry, data collection and exit. Entry to the
workshops via introduction to the presenters from one of the interview subjects hosting the
workshop. During the data collection stage, observations were completed using the established
protocols. Observations were conducted at the two anti-hazing workshops from the back of the
presentation rooms in order to capture all areas of the room. Bogdan and Bilken (2003) suggest
that researchers maintain a passive and inconspicuous demeanor and keep observations short to
avoid becoming overwhelmed. The exit was conducted by speaking directly with the workshop
presenters to share my thoughts and ask additional questions regarding the content. Workshop
observations lasted one hour each, and the exit to the observation included introductions with
each of the program presenters upon the completion of the sessions.
The environmental scan of the Greek Life office lasted for thirty minutes in order to
visually capture and evaluate all of the physical setting décor of the office. The scan was
completed at the end of the work day, when the office would not have interruptions from
students using the office, since student use of the office was not required as part of the structured
observation protocol. The exit stage was completed by speaking with the Inter-Fraternity Council
president following the observation to thank him for the opportunity to include the office as a
data collection site.
Upon exit, descriptive and reflective field notes were completed for each of the
observations. Bogdan and Biklen (2003) note that descriptive field notes allow for objectively
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 37
capturing of a slice of life and takes into account behaviors witnessed that occurred within the
observation site. These notes were completed in each of the observation sites while making the
physical observations and were prepared with pen on the protocol sheets developed and revised
in-class. Reflective field notes, as described by Bogdan and Biklen (2003), allow for the
recording of subjective thoughts regarding the observation including analysis, methodology and
procedures. Reflective field notes for each observation were recorded following the site
observations and noted in a word processor file.
Artifacts.
Process for getting consent.
Administrators working with college fraternities were asked to provide document
regarding anti-hazing policies and education that were unavailable on the public website.
Facsimiles or word processor of the documents were requested, if available, for additional
analysis. Administrators were additionally informed that public documents regarding anti-hazing
policies and education were going to be included in the analysis of the promising practices.
Data Analysis
Following the collection, through interviews, observations, and document review,
analysis was performed on the collected data. Merriam (2009) describes data analysis as the
process of “making sense out of the data” (p. 175). The collected data points were each codified
based on type of collection method and transferred to a word processor file.
Maxwell (2013) suggests that analysis occurs after the data is captured, since the data can
be viewed and reviewed to develop exploratory ideas and relationships among data points.
During the transfer process, where the study interviews were transcribed and observations were
transferred to electronic versions, the pilot study research questions were considered to ensure
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 38
that data collected reflected answers to the questions. In addition, the data analysis consisted of
coding and theme analysis.
Figure 3. Cresswell’s (2003) six steps for data analysis.
The analysis process employed for this study was modeled upon Creswell’s (2003) six
steps for data analysis, which provided a guiding framework. A pictorial version of Creswell’s
model, developed by a 2008 thematic dissertation group, is included above to illustrate the
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 39
process of analysis implemented. The analysis model begins by organizing the collected data
from all sources, including interviews, observations and documents. Second, the data was
scanned to gain a general sense of meaning from the data and identify preliminary themes. Third,
the data was grouped and coded into related categories. Fourth, the coding process was used to
develop major categories that describe the participants and setting across settings. Fifth, the
major themes were organized in ways that represented the narrative of the study. Finally, the data
was fully examined to make meaning from the major themes through the data analysis.
Ethical Considerations
Throughout the data collection and analysis, ethical behaviors guided the research
process. University procedures for ethical conduct designed by the Institutional Review Board
(IRB), and IRB approval was granted for the execution of the study. The participants were not
coerced in any way, and all participants volunteered their time willingly.
In qualitative studies, ethical dilemmas can emerge from the collection and dissemination
of the data (Merriam, 2009). In-depth interviews can have unanticipated effects elicited through
the questions, feeling that their privacy is being invaded or feel embarrassed with certain
questions by revealing information that was never intended to be revealed. To protect the privacy
and confidentiality of the participants and the institution, participants were asked to choose their
own personal pseudonym, and the name of the institution was given an alias from the start of the
data collection. All data was kept in a secure location to prevent harm to the participants through
inappropriate usage.
Summary
Chapter 3 provided an overview of the qualitative case study method and data analysis
used in the implementation of the study. Chapter 4 presents the study’s findings, as related to the
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 40
research questions. The second part of Chapter 4 reviews the findings from data collection and
examines their meaning related to the purpose of the study.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 41
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS
The goal of this study was to examine the systems and structures that contribute to an
anti-hazing culture within a fraternity community, and how the culture is implemented and
sustained upon its creation. In order for institutions to implement a comprehensive approach to
anti-hazing culture development, institutional systems and structures should involve multiple
campus and community partners working together in coalition, and identify local campus
resources including personnel, funding, and administrative support (Allen & Madden, 2009;
Hall, 2009; Langford, 2008). The conceptual framework for the study identified several factors
that constitute the structures that influence the system in which anti-hazing education can occur.
These structures were identified as stakeholders, staff and staff development, policies and
funding.
The case study site, East Coast University, may be informative for other college
campuses with fraternity communities that are trying to create a comparable anti-hazing
community. All interview participants were asked to share their perceptions on the creation,
implementation and sustaining factors related to developing an anti-hazing community. This
chapter presents details about the study participants, all of whom are involved in the fraternity
community at East Coast University. The results of the study are then presented by the themes
that emerged from the data analysis.
To determine how the campus community created and sustained its anti-hazing culture
among the fraternity community, two questions were framed to capture data on the perceptions
about developing and sustaining anti-hazing cultures within the East Coast University fraternity
community. Developed as part of a dissertation cohort group studying promising practices for
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 42
developing anti-hazing cultures in educational institutions, an interview protocol, observation
check-list and document analysis were created from the following research questions:
1. What are the systems and structures that contribute to an anti-hazing culture in
institutions of higher education?
2. How are these systems and structures implemented and sustained to support an anti-
hazing culture in institutions of higher education?
Data collection occurred via interviews with participants and participant referrals,
observation of anti-hazing workshops for fraternity members and analysis of the campus anti-
hazing policies. Triangulation of the data sources increases the validity of the study’s findings.
Following a brief introduction of the participants, the themes that emerged from the data analysis
will be presented, along with their answers to the two research questions.
Participant Profiles
Six participants were purposefully selected for this study via colleague referrals of
individuals involved in the fraternity community at East Coast University. After identifying the
fraternity advisor through snowball sampling from professional colleagues working in fraternity
and sorority advising, the advisor identified campus-based colleagues and students who were
actively involved in sustaining the anti-hazing education and culture at the institution.
Participants were emailed the recruitment letter (see Appendix A) and asked to confirm their
participation, or were recommended by participants and asked to commit after being shown the
recruitment letter. All participants agreed to take part in a 45 to 60 minute in-person interview
and share their perceptions about the policies, education and sanctions regarding hazing at the
university.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 43
As previously stated, participants are referred to by pseudonyms in order to protect their
confidentiality. Within the study, the participants are referred to as Emma, Patrick, Vince, John,
Danny and Lihor. The next section will provide a description of each participant and their
relationship with the fraternity community.
Emma was the coordinator for fraternity and sorority life at East Coast University from
2008 to July 2013. During her time as an advisor, she was the professional staff advisor for the
Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Multicultural Greek Council (MGC). She was initiated into a
National Panhellenic Conference sorority as an undergraduate student and completed a master’s
of science in counseling and education psychology, with an emphasis in higher education and
student affairs from a mid-Atlantic university. She maintained active professional volunteer
involvement within the regional Greek leadership organizations and the Association of
Fraternity/Sorority Advisors. In July 2013, Emma was promoted from coordinator for fraternity
and sorority life to associate director for student affairs with responsibilities that include
coordinating campus-wide efforts related to hazing prevention and education, among other
Student Affairs responsibilities.
Patrick is the current associate dean for campus engagement within the student affairs
organization and has worked at East Coast University since 2003. He began his career at the
university as an assistant director for residence life and transitioned to the director for campus
activities in 2006. He was involved in a fraternity during his undergraduate career at a mid-
Atlantic university and received a master’s of arts degree in college student personnel from a
Midwestern university. He is currently enrolled in a doctor of education degree at a local
university. He was moved into the senior leadership role within Student Affairs in 2008, where
he has functional supervision for campus activities, community and transfer student engagement,
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 44
fraternity and sorority life, new student and family programs, student leadership and transition
programs and student fee allocation.
Vince is the director for recreational athletics and senior associate athletic director at East
Coast University, and has worked at the university for sixteen years. He has been involved in
fraternity life since his undergraduate career at an area university, and has been a chapter advisor
for the East Coast University chapter of his fraternity. He has worked collaboratively with Emma
and Patrick in developing campus-wide strategies for hazing education that includes all members
of the community, including athletes and coaches.
John is a junior in computer science and currently serves as chair of the fraternity judicial
board. The judicial board assessed complaints made against inter-fraternity standards and
delivered sanctions against the organizations to hold them accountable. He is actively involved in
his undergraduate NIC recognized fraternity, but currently is unable to hold a position within his
chapter given his position within the judicial board. His term in office will end at the end of the
fall term 2013.
Danny is the current vice president for membership development within the
Interfraternity Council, and served as president of the IFC during the previous year. Danny is a
senior, pursuing a degree in sport management. He plans to pursue a degree in student affairs
administration upon graduation. He was also involved in his chapter as a re-founding father of
his NIC-recognized fraternity, as it re-chartered at the university during his time at the university.
Lihor is junior biomedical engineering student and the president of the Multicultural
Greek Council (MGC). The MGC is comprised of the various fraternity and sorority chapters of
National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), National APIA Panhellenic Association (NAPA),
National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations (NALFO), National Multicultural Greek
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 45
Council (NMGC) organizations and culturally-based fraternities within the North American
Interfraternal Conference (NIC) currently recognized at East Coast University. The MGC has 6
fraternities among the eleven total chapters that comprise the council. Lihor is an initiated
brother in one of the Southeast Asian fraternities recognized by the NIC, and holds a chapter
executive board position that involves risk management.
Results
The first research question of the study sought to identify the systems and structures that
contribute to an anti-hazing culture in institutions of higher education. The second research
question sought to identify how the systems and structures that were implemented and sustained
support the anti-hazing culture. Six interviews were conducted with college administrators and
undergraduate fraternity leaders regarding their perceptions about the anti-hazing education,
culture and behaviors at the campus, observations were made during anti-hazing workshops and
documents regarding the anti-hazing policy were reviewed.
The literature identified several possible factors that impact an anti-hazing culture, and
offers suggestions for continuing to study the effectiveness of anti-hazing education practices.
Ellsworth (2006) suggests that successful structures include students participating in
interventions in order to create buy-in to the cultural changes. Effective cultural change is also
impacted by professional staff advisors understanding the different types of cultural origins of
fraternities (Sparks & Spencer, 2012). Langford (2009) identified the contributing factors as
individual, peer and group influence, institutional factors, community factors and public policy
and societal influences and suggested that these factors should be addressed and studied when
identifying specific contributing factors to reducing hazing incidents on a college campus. Hall
(2009) suggests that institutions should take proactive steps in reviewing current and developing
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 46
new risk management strategies that address campus-specific hazing behaviors, and that
institutional policies should be formed collaboratively and clearly communicated to the campus
community. Allen and Madden (2009) found that the continued persistence and pervasiveness of
hazing among fraternity members supports the need to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of
current strategies. Allen and Madden also found that students who have been hazed still may not
identify the behavior as being defined as hazing, and that the students do report the incidents to
close friends and family members.
After reviewing the data, three predominant themes emerged as contributing to and
sustaining the system and structure of an anti-hazing culture (Figure 2): on-boarding stakeholders
and campus partners, developing comprehensive campus-wide anti-hazing policies, and working
toward campus-wide efforts. The themes reflect the literature on identifying systems and
structures that support an anti-hazing environment. Researchers suggest administrators need to
hire fraternity advisors who are able to meet all of the developmental needs of their students
(Patton & Bonner II, 2001), work collaboratively on creating an anti-hazing culture (Campo,
Table 2. Emergent Themes for Analysis
Main Theme Subthemes
On-Boarding Stakeholders and Campus
Partners
Identifying Stakeholders and Engaged Staff
Hiring Competent Professional Staff
On-Going Training for Staff, Volunteers and
Campus Partners
Developing Comprehensive Campus-
Wide Anti-Hazing Policies
Using Campus Data within a Problem Analysis
Framework
Revisiting Campus Anti-Hazing Prevention
Policies
Working Toward Campus-Wide Efforts Implementing Anti-Hazing Messages for
Multiple Constituencies
Fostering Campus-Wide Support
Sustaining Message Saturation
Securing Funding for Anti-hazing Education
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 47
Poulos & Sipple, 2005; Duncan, 2010; Hall, 2009; Hollmann, 2002; Langford, 2008), and
provide professional development opportunities to meet the changing needs of the campus
community (McGlone & Schaefer, 2008). Researchers also suggest that institutional leaders need
to develop a plan or strategy before creating an anti-hazing culture (Hollmann, 2002; Langford,
2009), be mindful about risk management messages and their intended audiences (Keeling,
2000) and work to include fraternity men throughout the process to increase buy-in (Owen et al.,
2008). Upon reviewing the collected data and comparing to the literature, the three main themes
and nine subthemes emerged. The themes, described more fully below, are presented through
staff and student quotations.
On-Boarding Stakeholders and Campus Partners
The ECU campus administrators revisited the anti-hazing prevention policies in 2009 to
create a more campus-wide comprehensive policy, and considered the role of multiple factors
that impacted the scope of the policy. The campus had a policy in place prior to 2009, but the
policy was enforced by various offices and policy violations were adjudicated independently by
staff around campus depending on the offense. The impetus for exploring the hazing culture
began with Emma being hired into the fraternity and sorority life office in 2008 and asking
questions to the senior student affairs leadership regarding existing anti-hazing education
programs upon her arrival. In order to developing this campus-wide policy revision, ECU
administrators had to identify who would participate in the policy review. In 2009, campus
administrators at ECU believed that there was an opportunity to more fully develop a campus
anti-hazing culture that focused hazing education and prevention without responding to any
specific campus-based high-profile hazing incidents. The administrators believed that getting
staff, faculty, and other campus partners, onboard with anti-hazing education efforts was
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 48
important in developing systems and structures that supporting a campus-wide cultural change
around hazing. The subthemes that emerged from the data were identifying stakeholders and
engaged staff, hiring competent professional staff, and providing on-going training for students,
staff and volunteers.
Identifying Stakeholders and Engaged Staff
Since the anti-hazing culture development was going to be comprehensive and impact
constituencies across campus, the student affairs staff believed that it was important to look at
hazing from multiple perspectives across campus and involve stakeholders who would help
advance the anti-hazing education agenda. Patrick said, “I worked with the fraternity and sorority
life staff on looking at our hazing policies, because I had that influence on a variety of offices
with campus activities.” The fraternity and sorority life staff attended the Novak Institute for
Hazing Prevention, which offers training to participants on how to create and implement a
comprehensive hazing prevention program specific to their campus community. At the
conclusion of the institute, Emma shared that the fraternity and sorority life staff began to think
more critically about how to implement the professional development they had just received
about anti-hazing culture development. She said they asked themselves, “Hey, we need to find
out more of what hazing looks like in our community before we can really address it
effectively.” This reflective statement spurred the problem analysis process to identify
stakeholders and understand who was involved in existing anti-hazing training programs. A
summary of the data on these interactions from different constituencies were divided into and
identified as campus stakeholders and fraternity alumni stakeholders.
Campus stakeholders were identified as campus faculty and staff members working either
in their paid capacity to advise fraternities or had significant interactions with fraternity men as
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 49
formal and informal advisors. The fraternity and sorority leadership office identified campus
stakeholders that were interested in and participating in activities that addressed hazing behaviors
and prevention activities. These initial identified stakeholders were involved in different areas
and divisions of the campus community, including public safety, student conduct, athletics and
recreation sports, student activities and residence life. The campus stakeholders were interviewed
to find out what hazing behaviors were prevalent among the student population, as well as to
learn what efforts had been made to address hazing issues prior to 2008. Emma said,
I picked [the student conduct officer’s] brain on what hazing stuff has been
brought up, what were the themes in those hazing…and then did the same with
our director of [recreation] sports and some of our colleagues in Athletics as well,
including some of our coaches.
Patrick agreed with Emma on the need to learn more about the institutional history regarding
hazing incidents and outcomes, as well as learn who had experience in hazing education. He
said,
We had people from outside of student affairs that took part, just to gather what
they’ve seen or observed or had experiences at their own institutions as an
undergraduate to kind of put it in, to brainstorm the different ideas.
This institutional oral history was compared with the student organization records for
organizations and sports teams that had been found responsible for engaging in hazing between
1998 and 2008. The data revealed that multiple offices were involved in identifying hazing
behaviors and those sanctions for the organizations or teams were inconsistently delivered
depending on which office handed down the sanction. The data also revealed that the previous
anti-hazing policy was almost exclusively being enforced with fraternities and sororities and
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 50
athletics teams, and that there was little oversight by any one office or department to monitor
training on anti-hazing education for all students and student organizations. By being inclusive of
the stakeholders, Emma and her colleagues was able to piece together a comprehensive history
of hazing incidents that had impacted the student community and look at trends of staff
involvement and interventions.
Fraternity alumni were recognized as a stakeholder in anti-hazing education and policy
enforcement, since local East Coast University alumni are involved with chapter advising,
operations and traditions. All three administrators identified the significant involvement of
alumni in educating fraternity members about hazing behavior and expectations. Patrick
identified Monica, the ECU director for fraternity and sorority life, as a key player in developing
strong relationships with local alumni leadership. Patrick believed this relationship was effective
“because when there’s an issue, we triangulate the process pretty much between our office, the
alumni, and the national headquarters to center in on the undergraduate chapter.”
Fraternity leaders listen to their alumni when they speak about hazing education. Vince
recounted how he would visit the local ECU chapter of his fraternity and,
“When I walk into the house and I give my spiel once a year [about hazing], they
all look at me like, “All right, come on, like we got it.” I’ve never been frozen out
or felt a negative feel from a group.”
If additional alumni understood how and why policies regarding hazing were implemented, their
strength as a campus partner could be improved. Through their initial inclusion as a stakeholder,
fraternity alumni would be more aware of contemporary policies and practices regarding hazing
behaviors and reporting structures. In order to develop a truly comprehensive anti-hazing
community, all members of the community would need improved understanding regarding
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 51
contemporary hazing education and expectations when interacting with fraternity leaders
regarding hazing policies.
Hiring Competent Professional Staff
An important stakeholder in hazing prevention and education process is the selection of
professional staff advisors for fraternities. Patrick shared that ideal candidates for ECU student
affairs positions are those with a student affairs background and education. While there were no
particular expectations for previous anti-hazing education or prevention experiences sought out
from candidates, “[o]nce they get here, there’s a lot of on-boarding.” Student affairs staff
working in the campus engagement area was expected to be familiar with campus policies,
including the hazing prevention policy, and participated in staff development training on the
topic. Patrick said,
Because we have a hazing initiative at our office, I’m pretty confident that
everybody knows. Everybody in my area, at least, does. Something I’m very
proud of is we do professional development every bi-weekly meeting. Emma has
done stuff on hazing before what are hot topics in higher education.
Vince provided training for new varsity and club sports, and included hazing education
for each coach regardless of previous coaching experience. He believed that it was a
responsibility to share in person expectations regarding hazing and its incongruence with
sportsmanship, and said,
We talk about citizenship and what our expectations are with club sports. My
personal philosophy from my years and experience is being present, being visible,
that we’re not just a PowerPoint that we show people.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 52
Emma expressed similar skepticism about assuming that all candidates for fraternity
advising positions would be equipped to handle the cultural change necessary to address
systemic hazing that could be happening within the fraternity community.
[W]e need to hold each other accountable…I feel like there are no standards to
challenge and push professionals, not that I can’t think of. If you look [at] the
counseling field, there’s a licensure process, and you have to renew that. Every
once in a while, you have to go through education being a teacher. And we don’t
have anything like that that says you’re a licensed Greek advisor
In order to hold herself accountable, Emma kept abreast of any hazing news through online RSS
feeds and attending professional development opportunities on the topic of hazing. Her
knowledge about hazing was known to the student leaders. John said,
I know she does a lot of research. She loves it. She had multiple [RSS feeds] of
like most recent hazing, what caught the news, and I’d say she’s pretty up to date
and well knowledgeable about everything regarding it.
She also led professional development activities for her campus colleagues and students, and for
colleagues working within the area of fraternity and sorority advising across the country. This
professional development work, and its impact on anti-hazing education at the university, had
not gone unnoticed. Both Vince and Patrick shared that Emma has been publically acknowledged
by the university president for her efforts to increase awareness about hazing throughout the
college.
On-Going Training for Staff, Volunteers and Campus Partners
Patrick, Emma and Vince believed there was a need for on-going training for staff at all
levels, as well as alumni volunteers, which are involved in the anti-hazing education efforts.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 53
Similar to the efforts of Vince in training his newly hired coaches on anti-hazing prevention
strategies and policies, Patrick shared that the university cannot assume that all visiting alumni
will support contemporary anti-hazing efforts. He said,
That could be a challenge because some of these alumni were here when hazing
was acceptable. I think we’ve gotten through to them, that they were the old
times, and look at the consequences of those actions today.
Given these possible past experiences of the fraternity alumni advisors, Patrick explained
how alumni advisors now receive similar training to the undergraduate students on anti-hazing
policies. Patrick believed the close connection with the fraternity alumni association has allowed
the fraternity administrators to work on building relationships with fraternities that have been re-
chartered since
[W]hen they got removed from campus, they were angry…, but we just had to re-
educate them. Some alumni chose not to come back, but some did, and they
learned. Now they are very impactful now in this process.
By developing training for alumni members, the university was able to keep up with the
changing relationships between existing chapters and their alumni advisors. He further
explained,
It just shows that we appreciate what they do. They get a very similar training [to
the fraternities] and an orientation program that they have to go through as well
[to be alumni advisors]. It shows what our expectations are.
Since hazing incidents could escalate to the point of police involvement, Emma stressed
the importance to include public safety in trainings about hazing behaviors and prevention
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 54
efforts. Emma believed that there was a need for continuous conversations and training with
Public Safety to know what to investigate and what is considered hazing. She explained,
I think sometimes you have campus police who are like, ‘Oh, it’s just a prank,’ or,
‘There’s not enough information to really pull a charge ahead.’
Emma has been supported by the chief of police in helping create consistent investigation
and enforcement of the policy, and has gained the support of the campus chief of police.
She shared,
The chief of police is on our [anti-hazing] task force, and he is fully dedicated to
the hazing prevention effort. He has allowed me to talk to some of their officers,
but I’m hoping to do more of that.
An anti-hazing prevention effort that emerged from the office training was to assign public safety
officers to the fraternity chapters and encourage informal interactions to help the officers develop
understanding about fraternity life and create closer relationships with the men involved in the
chapter.
Discussion of On-Boarding Stakeholders and Campus Partners
Based on the study’s evidence, there are two findings. The first is that institutions need
to identify campus partners that have stakeholder status in order to increase buy-in regarding
anti-hazing policy development. The evidence suggests that staffing at all levels had a significant
impact on the implementation of the policies and the creation of an anti-hazing culture, and grew
to define how anti-hazing education systems and structures were developed and implemented.
Whether the staffing was for full-time professional staff or volunteer fraternity advisors, it was
important for staff that had contact with fraternity leaders to understand their role in developing
the culture that supported student’s development and challenged the system within which hazing
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 55
could occur. The administrators spoke at length on making sure that the ECU perspective was
considered when developing training for students and staff, and new staff were not only expected
to know the policies but were also trained on how to implement them during their new employee
trainings. From creating and implementing policies as an administrator or advising fraternities
from the alumni perspective, the staff and alumni volunteers at East Coast University utilized
their high student contact to inform their decisions and directly impact the student behaviors
regarding hazing.
The second finding is that institutional staff and volunteers require clear expectations
regarding appropriate responses to hazing. The East Coast University made positive decisions
regarding their inclusion of multiple staff from across the university, all of whom had direct
student contact with fraternity men in multiple roles. This contact with the men has significant
influence on how their behavior is monitored and reinforced, and impacts the enforcement of
community standards regarding hazing behaviors. By having clear expectations on how to report
alleged hazing shared with new and continuing staff and appointed fraternity alumni advisors, as
well as training staff, such as public safety officers, on how to properly identify and respond to
hazing allegations, the university communicates that it not only values an anti-hazing community
but also supports the development of the community through training and policy implementation.
Based on the evidence, it will be important for institutions to consider staffing and training issues
and their impact on developing a campus-wide anti-hazing culture. Both Patrick and Emma
identified non-fraternal institutions that need more advising support in identifying hazing within
their organizations, but have begun to implement different ways to influence and train these
student leaders and advisors. In order to directly impact the systems and structures that support
anti-hazing prevention, institutions will need to be mindful about their staff hiring and in-house
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 56
orientations, and ensure that all staff are made aware of expectations in supporting a hazing-free
environment.
Developing Comprehensive Campus-Wide Anti-Hazing Policies
The administrators interviewed stressed the importance of developing a campus-wide anti-
hazing policy that would address expectations regarding hazing prevention for multiple
constituencies. One of the themes that emerged from the data was the importance of developing a
comprehensive campus-wide anti-hazing policy. Multiple factors were addressed by the
administrators as they developed the policy, and two subthemes in the data were identified as
using campus data within a problem analysis framework, revisiting anti-hazing prevention
policies.
Using Campus Data within a Problem Analysis Framework
In order to address the campus culture regarding hazing education and prevention, Emma and
the staff within the fraternity and sorority leadership office felt it was important to create a set of
guidelines to help them identify significant gaps in their knowledge and understanding about the
issue on their campus. After attending the Novak Institute for Hazing Prevention, Emma began
the process of creating a strategic plan that would allow her and her campus colleagues to
analyze hazing education issues and develop comprehensive approaches for addressing the
issues. Several questions were developed to help guide Emma and her colleagues through the
problem analysis, which including collecting data on local hazing behaviors at East Coast
University, understanding the student perspective on hazing behaviors and attitudes, and
reviewing the hazing reporting and sanctioning process. She said,
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 57
The problem analysis, it happened after we went to the Novak Institute. I kind of
realized, ‘Hey, we need to find out more of what hazing looks like in our
community before we can really address it effectively.’
Emma further clarified the problem analysis method for collecting information. She shared,
[W]e reached out to campus partners to see who is doing hazing education and
what are they doing. We went to our conduct records, saw what are conduct issues
that we’ve had over the years. Then I also did some interviews with various
stakeholders. And then we did some focus groups for students.
The three administrators interviewed shared that the campus environment in 2009
promoted a proactive approach to hazing policy development, and that it was a significant
contributor to developing a problem analysis framework. Since the problem analysis framework
relied on contributions from across the college campus, the proactive environment encouraged
staff from across the campus to develop a comprehensive anti-hazing policy and education
program. Emma shared that the timing of the policy review allowed the campus to be “proactive
without responding to serious allegations, injury or a student death.”
Vince agreed with Emma that the institution was situated in a way to address
comprehensive anti-hazing policy changes. He believed that the institutional leadership had the
right mindset when approaching the topic. He said,
I just think we have the right mindset here at [East Coast University]. Right now
we’re just in a really good – we’re in a good culture right now. It’s actually been a
positive culture that’s been created so it almost prevents the negative.
Patrick echoed the sentiment of Emma and Vince, that the campus was ready for a
comprehensive policy review. Patrick shared,
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 58
It didn’t happen overnight. It took about a year or so to get it together. We had
some starting points. There was a whole initiative behind it. It was just not the
document, but it was also the education behind it as well and letting people know
it exists.
Patrick, Emma and Vince believed that their efforts coincided with a campus culture that was
poised for change, with a new university president coming on board. Since the staff looked at
their campus hazing environment without needing to respond to a critical hazing incident, they
were able to put time, effort and energy into researching anti-hazing prevention strategies in
addition to response-based approaches.
In order to answer the problem analysis question, Emma and her colleagues began to
collect and review data about campus-specific hazing incidents and sanctions from 1998 to 2008,
as well as review attitudes about hazing and hazing behaviors from their own students. Emma
and Vince believed it was important to look at the attitudes and behaviors of ECU students.
Emma began by creating focus groups with student leadership and asked them,
‘Okay, what do you know about hazing? Where do you find that out? Where have
you learned that from?’ We found that hazing was happening across all
organizations but our most concerning were our honors and professional
organizations.
Similarly, Vince believed that students’ approaches to their education, during his sixteen years at
ECU, have changed. He shared how contemporary ECU students,
have a different expectation today when they come here. Like, it’s just about
respecting people and treating people appropriately and people sticking up for
themselves more than they used to.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 59
To find out what types of hazing behaviors were prevalent at the campus and what
students knew about hazing, East Coast University participated as an institutional participant in
the Allan and Madden (2008) national study of student hazing. Undergraduate students
completed an online survey on attitudes and behaviors regarding hazing, and a focus group of
students, staff and faculty from the college were interviewed to better understand these attitudes
and behaviors. While the summary of results of the campus was included in the total findings
published in the national study, “Hazing in view: College students at risk. Initial findings from
the national study of student hazing (Allan & Madden, 2008),” the East Coast University
findings were sent back to Emma to inform her about the reported attitudes and behaviors of the
students, staff and faculty that participated in the study. She said,
We had the national results from that, but then we also were given our results for
our campus, and they were reflective of the national results.
The ECU staff was able to look at the data collected and determine how it would inform a
comprehensive anti-hazing policy that reflected the needs of the campus and that took into
account the experiences of the students that would be impacted by the revised policy.
Revisiting Campus Anti-Hazing Prevention Policies
After collecting information regarding hazing behaviors and the interests in stakeholders,
a committee of administrators lead by Patrick revised the campus anti-hazing prevention
policies. The administrators looked to a national anti-hazing and training organization that
awards campus for comprehensive anti-hazing education and prevention programs, and
developed benchmarks from the previous award winners for their hazing prevention programs
and policies. Emma and Patrick were very conscious about ensuring that upon benchmarking
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 60
programs, efforts were made to make sure that other campus efforts would fit the university
culture. Patrick shared that,
[B]ecause we won the anti-hazing award one year or two years ago, we kind of
looked to [previous winners] to see what they were doing. We didn’t duplicate
them. We just looked at them to see what they were doing.
Emma agreed with this approach, stating, “I think understanding how to take what other
group campuses are doing, and headquarters are doing, and customize it to our own
organizations is really important.” The administrators considered whether components of the
award-winning policies would fit the ECU culture, and began to include segments of other
university policies in the updated version of the ECU policy.
The ECU anti-hazing policy was reviewed and reintroduced during the 2009-2010
academic year (Appendix E). The revised anti-hazing policy is reviewed annually, along with all
of the policies listed within the ECU student handbook. The goal of the administrators was to
consolidate the policies into a singular document, rather than holding students and organizations
accountable to policies located in the student handbook and by their national organizations, and
using different definitions for hazing when participating in other campus involvement efforts.
Patrick said,
We have a pretty good document now that encompasses everything that relates to
student organizations and students when they’re planning events on campus. We
did have some hazing policies in place already, which were in our student code of
conduct. National organizations have certain things they require for each chapter.
Through the anti-hazing efforts, we consolidated all that into one thing and made
it more prominent.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 61
Emma agreed with the need for pulling all the policies into one campus-wide policy, since it
showed what the current policy emphasized when working with students. She said,
[W]e reached out to campus partners to see who is doing hazing education and
what are they doing…What we found was that Athletics and Fraternity and
Sorority Life were doing the most education regarding hazing, and a lot of it was
focused on ‘Don’t haze…’
The campus policy was made to explicitly address how all campus organizations were
responsible for providing a hazing-free environment for their members and better defined
hazing as it related to all types of student organizations.
One important revision to the anti-hazing policy definition was reframing of the ‘zero
tolerance’ language found in the original policy. Emma shared how fraternity leaders assumed
that a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy meant that identifying hazing behaviors within their chapter would
automatically remove chapters from the campus as the only sanction for any type of hazing
allegation found to have occurred. She said,
It’s like ‘it happens, we have to address it’ is kind of our approach, versus ‘it
happens, we have to kick groups off campus.’ Students are really afraid if they
come forward and ask for help, their group is going to get shut down.
Emma believed that this type of all-or-nothing language continues to keep students from
identifying hazing that was occurring out of fear that their allegations would kick off
organizations they cared deeply for. While it was important for the administrators to address the
reporting culture among students, this culture has not been successfully addressed among the
student leaders.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 62
Both Lihor and John echoed this sentiment of fear, believing that fraternity men are still
afraid to share information about the goings-on in their chapters. According to Lihor, members
of his fraternity would be reticent to report hazing, because of the still-perceived impact on the
chapter recognition. He stated,
I know from experience, what the [Fraternity and Sorority Life Office] has told
us, that our chapter is going to be shut down, we’ll never even be able to come
back on campus and I'm pretty much ending the career of our chapter here on this
campus and no one wants to do that.
John also felt that the updated hazing definition felt ambiguous about what would be hazing
behaviors versus what would be allowable behaviors.
[I] guess you can’t really define everything as hazing or not hazing because there
are those things that are just, you know, in between. But I’d like just to see it be
more stone, like ‘This is what it is. You know, you can’t do these things. If you do
them, you’ll get the sanctions for them. Here is the punishment your chapter will
receive.’
Since the hazing behaviors listed within the policy are not intended to be inclusive, the fraternity
men believe that any ill-perceived behavior could be considered hazing and leave the chapter
vulnerable for losing recognition. However, Danny believed that the fear that fraternity men feel
is less about vague definitions or possible sanctions but was rather about the fraternity men not
understanding the role of the fraternity advising process. He said,
I think one of the key things is making sure that chapters understand what the
policies are. And I think that’s huge – to break the stigma that a lot of students
have here that, “Oh, FSL, the university is all out to get us. They hate fraternity/
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 63
sorority life,” which couldn’t be further from the truth in my experience. But just
viewing them as a partner, not the enemy.
While Danny supports the goals of the fraternity and sorority life office, other student leaders
like Lihor and John have identified a gap in the intentions of the policy development and their
impact on hazing reporting.
Emma shared how language from the ECU alcohol policy – the Responsible Peacock
Protocol – was adapted to work for the anti-hazing policy, pointing out how the anti-hazing
policy now includes a provision that students who reported hazing would not be included in the
group that is investigated, and chapters that self-identify hazing within their chapter could
prevent the organization from participating in the conduct process. Emma emphasized, “We will
document all the behaviors and then keep an eye on you and make sure that behavior has
changed.” The eventual anti-hazing definition was updated to language that included ‘we do not
tolerate hazing in our community’ and how allegations would be considered on a case-by-case
basis with sanctions to follow the severity of the incidents.
Vince felt that students are sometimes confused by the term ‘hazing’ and fraternity men
“mix some of the things that they do that probably is hazing and they don’t think it is.” One way
that he has been able to articulate the damaging effects of hazing and avoiding ‘anti-hazing
language’ has been to re-frame the outcomes of hazing prevention. Vince said,
If we could come up with a way to make this message stronger like you’re saying
almost in a more positive way, words like anti-hazing, like what if we were, like,
pro team-building?
Emma echoed the need to reframe the definition, pointing out that “instead of [telling
students] ‘this is what you can’t do,’ [we tell them] ‘here’s what you can do.’
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 64
Emma and her colleagues would be able to allay the fears of students like Lihor and John by
emphasizing what should take the place of hazing, rather than focusing on the act of hazing itself
and how to avoid anti-hazing language.
Discussion of Develop Comprehensive Campus-Wide Anti-Hazing Policies
Based on the study’s evidence, three findings were identified. The first finding is that
institutions should develop a comprehensive approach to anti-hazing education in order to
implement and sustain systems and structures necessary to create an anti-hazing culture. The
staff felt it was important to begin the policy development with a plan that would direct their on-
going efforts. The ECU staff approached their policy development with a clear strategic plan that
involved stakeholders from across campus and with on-going reviews built into their assessment
processes. Staff stressed how important it was to have a comprehensive plan in place that
proactively addressed the issue of hazing without reactively responding to a hazing incident, so
that the policy would reflect university values rather than respond to an incident only.
The second finding is that the anti-hazing education and policy implementation should be
on-going and pervasive throughout the institution. The participants demonstrated their
commitment to a comprehensive policy development by involving multiple constituencies in
identifying and addressing hazing behaviors. Since the 2010 implementation of the anti-hazing
policy, the campus engagement staff has continued to invite and involve staff from across the
ECU campus to participate in anti-hazing education training and program development. With
each year, new partners are identified who have helped share the anti-hazing message to
particular student and staff groups, such as international students. Staff and students have begun
to use these campus resources to talk about hazing within the fraternity community from
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 65
different perspectives and shows that more than the fraternity and sorority life staff care about
hazing education.
The third finding was that institutions should use local data in order to influence their
policy and education decisions. While ECU was able to retrieve data from the Allen and Madden
(2008) study on hazing behaviors, institutions should make on-going efforts to collect
information about hazing behaviors through student and organizational records as well as collect
attitudes towards hazing from institutional community members. This will ensure that
institutions are addressing the real impact of hazing within that specific community, and be able
to filter best practices in anti-hazing education that will best fit within the institution.
Working Toward Campus-Wide Efforts
The students and administrators believed that developing an anti-hazing culture was more
work than a once-a-year project. Researchers (Allan & Madden, 2008, 2011; Hall, 2009;
Langford, 2008) believed it was important to revisit hazing policies regularly to evaluate their
effectiveness and to change them according to new campus data. Though the anti-hazing policy
impacts the entire campus, the evaluation efforts were housed within the student affairs campus
engagement area. Through the division’s ongoing review of the anti-hazing policy, changes to
prevention approaches were considered annually to help continue educating the campus’ needs
for anti-hazing education. These efforts included implementing anti-hazing messages for
multiple constituencies, fostering campus-wide support, and sustaining message saturation.
Implementing Anti-Hazing Messages for Multiple Constituencies
Through the policy development and implementation, Emma and the campus engagement
staff began to introduce on-going anti-hazing education and prevention measures. While the
focus of the initial efforts were centered on the fall quarter Hazing Prevention Awareness Week
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 66
programs that occurred the week before fraternity recruitment, on-going efforts have expanded
the types of programs offered to students, alumni and staff. Through the student record data
collections efforts, and through participation in the Allan and Madden (2008) study on hazing
behaviors and attitudes, fraternity and sorority life staff was able to tailor the anti-hazing
messages to focus on the types of hazing occurring within the campus community.
Previous messages about hazing education delivered before 2009 focused on extreme
hazing acts that could end in death and focused mostly on fraternity and sorority members.
Emma believed that anti-hazing messages needed to be supported by ECU data on hazing, and
rebranded the message focus on awareness on the types of behaviors that could be considered
hazing and how all types of student organizations need to be aware of hazing and hazing
prevention. In addition to sharing this information, Emma said,
[It] is really focusing less on that definition and more on the what can you instead,
the alternatives, the team building, what resources do we have on campus that are
helping students do positive team building for their organizations, and
highlighting those better.
Emma has been able to measure the effectiveness of the awareness campaign through requests
she receives from non-fraternity organizations requesting workshops on identifying hazing in
their organizations and helping them develop leadership and initiation programs that are hazing-
free. The student affairs staff has created workshops to help resident assistants identify hazing
within the residence halls (Appendix F) and for student athletes to identify hazing within their
teams (Appendix G).
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 67
Patrick believed it was important to make sure that fraternity members were well versed
on the anti-hazing policies to reach multiple audiences. During meetings with fraternity leaders,
Patrick and his staff tell the students
We know you’re part of other groups, so make this a ripple effect in those other
groups and realize hazing is not a fraternity and sorority life issue. It’s a national
problem. It’s in every student organization.
Empowering the fraternity men to act as ambassadors allows the men to share best practices in
their groups and speak up against hazing in student organizations. It also allows the men to
challenge the preconception that hazing is simply a Greek life issue, when the data at ECU show
that it is happening in all types of student groups.
The fraternity leaders felt it was important for the anti-hazing messages focus on the
experiences of fraternity men. The three fraternity leaders shared that anti-hazing education
began at the chapter level during the new member education programs, reinforced through anti-
hazing messages from national office and from the campus. Prior to 2013, the IFC had multiple
fraternity leaders coordinating education and training efforts that included hazing. Danny
believed that a new position was required to help streamline training and on-going membership
development. He said, “I was getting a lot of questions working with the university on who
oversees membership development, education aspects and there really wasn’t one person. So I
said ‘We need this position.’ Student leaders were also looking at national initiatives to see
what’s working for other national organizations and other campuses. Danny felt he was
committed to continuously educating his community about values congruence, and how hazing
was not congruent with their shared fraternity values. He said,
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 68
I look at what’s being offered from a lot of the national educational
[organizations]…. [W]hat’s being offered by the NIC and other overarching
bodies. I especially look at Campuspeak and what sort of speakers they’re
offering and saying, ‘Oh, hey. This is how it’s going on in our campus. Maybe
this speaker is a good speaker to bring in.’
Lihor worked closely with Danny, from the IFC, to create an all-fraternity training
workshop on bystander interventions during Hazing Prevention Awareness Week. He agreed
with Danny that it was important for MGC fraternities to continually address hazing as an
educational topic, and said
MGC really has had poor reputation for hazing and I wanted to be able to say, not
just our constituents but also show the school, that we’re trying to correct what
we’ve done wrong in the past and take a step in the right direction.
Danny, Lihor and John believed that anti-hazing training should be developed that
specifically address fraternity experiences, since their hazing might look different than for others,
including sorority experiences. Danny stated, “I think one of the key things is making sure that
chapters understand what the policies are.” Lihor agreed that fraternity hazing trainings are
important, and should reflect the experiences of those from within the councils. He said,
I know last year they had one but really it’s just hosted with the IFC, which a lot
of MGC didn’t come to which I believe was poor decision. I think if they just
hosted it with us… but again, retrospect is 20/20.
John felt that hazing trainings should be adjusted to better capture the attention of the men who
attend them. He said,
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 69
I mean a lot of these guys already know it so it’s kind of boring for them.
Including myself, I don’t think anyone really wants to go sit through a two-hour
anti-hazing meeting. But if maybe make it in interactive ways for them just to
learn about hazing and the negatives of it, I think that would be a good place to
start.
Past understanding the policies, Danny believed that there should be on-going training regarding
hazing for fraternity members. Danny said, “Because there’s a lot of people that go, ‘Oh, we
don’t haze.’ They might not haze, but they just immediately shut their ears, like, ‘Oh, that’s not
an issue here.’ And maybe there’s still room to educate.” This tension for fraternity men on
needing to know information and reinforcing previously addressed information is an on-going
challenge for the fraternity and sorority life staff and the IFC.
Fostering Campus-Wide Support
In order to demonstrate the far-reaching impact of the anti-hazing policy, the Campus
Engagement staff continued garnering support for the policy implementation throughout the
university. Patrick felt it was important to include different ‘friends’ or those closely aligned
with hazing prevention at the table to look at anti-hazing initiatives. Since 2009, the group has
included staff from student activities, athletics, residence life, and public safety. The current
group that reviews anti-hazing education efforts now includes faculty from psychology,
education and sports management, and most recently veteran student organizations and the
international programs and student services office. Student leaders are included, from fraternities
and sororities, as well as student athletes and resident advisors. Emma explained,
It changes a little bit each year, but we kind of pull together all the people who do
programming as well as our folks that we think are kind of our target audiences—
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 70
so, student organizations, athletes, and fraternities and sororities are kind of our
primary focus.
Part of the efforts to develop campus-wide support has included talking to staff about
how to recognize hazing and its effects on students. Emma reminds her colleagues,
If you see something even a little bit, and it seems off, tell me. Because what you
see may be a little off. What someone else sees may be a little off, and it’s going
to add up. And that in of itself, not concerning. But in the context of everything
else that’s going on, it could be very concerning.
This bystander training is reinforced by Patrick, who includes hazing prevention as part of the
on-going training for campus engagement staff.
Because we have a hazing initiative at our office, I’m pretty confident that
everybody knows. If there are changes about certain things, we let people know.
Everybody in my area, at least, does - those offices I listed.
Vince also includes anti-hazing training for all new coaches working with intramural and varsity
athletes, to ensure that the importance of the policy enforcement is on-going rather than a one-
time event.
During the interviews with the administrators, there was a common theme about
connecting hazing prevention with the university’s values. Vince believed that because ECU
students begin their professional internships during their first year at college, students have a low
tolerance for engaging in behaviors that work against pursuing their personal and professional
goals. This shared philosophy of not tolerating harassment connects to the university values
through its president, Dr. Post. Vince emphasized the efforts of the president, and said
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 71
It is [East Coast University] and it’s President Post, and President Post has really
created a family environment and he says no tolerance for harassment,
discrimination, anything on any level.
Emma agreed that President Post has helped support the development an anti-hazing
culture at the campus, through his visible campus support for anti-hazing education and
prevention efforts.
[President Post] sent an email to all faculty and staff and all students stating, ‘We
are a campus of respect. Because of that, we don’t tolerate hazing. Here’s a
reminder of what our hazing policy is. Here’s how to report. And, take advantage
of Hazing Prevention Awareness Week.’ For the faculty and staff, he tied it to our
learning outcomes for students, which is awesome.
Vince shared how the president’s email sent out to the campus regarding campus hazing
policies was reinforced by the Senior Director of Athletics, who resent the email to coaches on
his staff and to other senior athletic directors within the athletic conference, to demonstrate the
institution’s commitment to creating an anti-hazing community. He said,
Dr. Martin took his email and emailed it to the whole athletic department. Like
it’s that type of campus, that [a Division I athletic director] is taking a student
affairs hazing message and cutting and pasting it and sending it to the friends of
the world. He’s sending this out and saying, ‘Hey, everyone, read all this and
that’s what it means to be a Peacock.’
To reinforce the university-wide nature of anti-hazing education, Hazing Prevention
Awareness Week giveaways used the Athletics slogan “I am a Peacock” modified for anti-hazing
education. Emma elaborated on the impact of the slogan use, and said,
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 72
These wonderful t-shirts that you see are part of that awareness campaign we
actually came up and tied to our athletics catchphrase, the “I’m a Peacock”
campaign. I like personal responsibility, I don’t like to go ‘You don’t haze,’ but
it’s more of the message ‘I don’t haze.’
Vince believed that the use of the Athletics slogan was an important connection to the
ECU student identity, since many of the students are engaged in academic majors that reinforce
self-monitoring and entrepreneurial skills.
[I]t came from – this is our slogan, ‘I’m a Peacock.’ It’s now been embraced by
everyone at the university and self-empowering. Like, a lot of hazing is group-
think. So, it’s not ‘we are.’
Emma shared that during the 2013 Hazing Prevention Awareness Week, there was going
to be an emphasis on connecting the ‘I am a Peacock’ slogan with developing shared
expectations that connected to the university’s shared values.
We’re really tying it to creating a community standard of ‘ours.’ Our community
doesn’t do this. And we, as individuals, have made the commitment to not do it.
We’re not just telling you not to, but we’re not going to do it either.
This idea, that an ECU community member doesn’t haze, came up several times during
interviews with students and administrators. There was a definite emphasis on the individual’s
responsibility to stand up to hazing behaviors from within the fraternity community and
throughout the campus community.
Sustaining Message Saturation
Since 2010, the Fraternity and Sorority Life staff have continued to develop new methods
for sustaining the saturation of the hazing prevention education efforts. The Hazing Prevention
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 73
Awareness Week expanded from two workshop events on hazing prevention in 2008 to include
student-led large-scale passive and interactive efforts, which included creating t-shirts, sharing
hazing statistics on the campus-wide tv screens, and developing different types of programming
focusing on new audiences in 2013. Other efforts have been included to sustain an anti-hazing
education message.
Students were involved to the development of the on-going fraternity training and
campus-wide anti-hazing education efforts. Without a dedicated fraternity and sorority life
budget for campus-wide programming on hazing education, student organizations were relied
upon to request funding from the student activities office for programming supplies and
speakers. Emma encouraged student organizations to develop the methods for awareness
branding, which included developing a consistent branding that reminded students of the issue.
“The t-shirts last year were actually a suggestion of two of the Club Sports
[committee] members. They said, ‘We don’t have a whole lot of traditions in our
campus, but every year we do a blood drive and we get red shirts with different
designs but same color scheme every year. Why don’t we do the same thing for
Hazing Prevention Week?’
Fraternity leaders were involved in the campus efforts to increase training on identifying
and preventing hazing. John felt that the campus culture at East Coast University encouraged
student participation in programming on topic. He shared that all chapters are required to host or
attend a hazing awareness or prevention workshop annually, and said,
Anyone can set up a program and say, “Hey, Greek community”—and it could be
opened up to sororities. Anyone really could. Not a lot of people do but it’s open
to them. They have the resources to do it.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 74
Within his position on the judicial board, he meets with the chapter risk management chairs to
explicitly address expectations for compliance with ECU’s policies, including the anti-hazing
policies. The IFC also created a new position to develop on-going training for initiated members,
which includes anti-hazing education.
Fraternity leaders have also been encouraged to talk informally with the fraternity and
sorority life staff about what is going on in their chapters without repercussions or investigations.
Emma believed it was a positive experience for students who are unaccustomed to asking for
help, and she said,
I think that students are afraid of saying, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Or ‘We’ve
always done it like this, and I feel uncomfortable, but I don’t know what to do
instead,’ or, ‘I wanna try something new, but I'm afraid it might be hazing.’
Emma summarized the student perspective, stating “I think more of our students think about
hazing now.” Since awareness about hazing was an intended learning outcome of the anti-hazing
policy, having more students talk about hazing is a positive outcome that reflects the
comprehensive nature of the message saturation.
Securing Funding for Anti-hazing Education
Anti-hazing education is an integral part of the Fraternity and Sorority Life Office, but
does not have a dedicated budget allocated within the divisional budget. In order to meet the
demands of educational multiple constituencies during the year, the department has had to rely
on co-sponsored funding from students and one-time purchases from grants. For instance, East
Coast University was the recipient of a competitive national grant that recognizes outstanding
work on hazing education and prevention with a one-time $10,000 award.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 75
Emma believes hazing prevention is not yet considered a campus funding priority, since
it is not part of federally mandated training similar to Title IX training. She said,
There’s no consistent, dedicated funding. When we run out of the [hazing
education and prevention] grant, I’m not really sure what we’re going to do.
[B]ecause until we got the grant, we had no money to work with, other than a
little bit from Fraternity and Sorority Life.
Patrick agreed that the institution lacked the funding support when compared with peer
institutions. Patrick stated,
Some of those campuses have more resources than we have. We took what they
were doing and kind of made fit the [East Coast University] environment and
culture with the resources that we have. Our population has been growing
exponentially, yet the resources get cut every year.
Since the university has not had to address a significant or highly visible hazing incident within
recent institutional memory, Emma believes that the university administration has not felt a need
to bolster funding to address an issue that involves preventing incidents from happening rather
than reacting to incidents that are occurring. Emma characterizes the campus as a “numbers
school” with senior administrators who often ask for quantifiable hazing incidents.
Discussion on Implementing Anti-Hazing Messages for Multiple Constituencies
Based on the study’s evidence, three findings were identified. The first finding was that
campus-wide messages regarding anti-hazing should reflect shared institutional values and
educational objectives. Staff and student efforts were concerned on how to sustain the message
saturation that was initially created when the anti-hazing policy was introduced in 2010. Multiple
strategies were employed to make sure that each constituency received training and support from
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 76
staff members, and fraternity leaders were encouraged to develop their own training that reflect
values congruence with the institution and their respective fraternities. Patrick and Vince set
clear expectations for professional conduct from their staff and coaches and were supportive of
student involvement in continuing the anti-hazing training among their peers. Emma sought out
collaborators to help reach the broader student community, and while she maintained the advisor
role for the fraternity community, she was interested in bringing these collaborators to speak
with the fraternity men as well. The administrators spoke about how the “I am a Peacock” slogan
from Athletics was co-opted to also reflect anti-hazing efforts, and how the university president
and senior administrators shared the anti-hazing message as being consistent with the educational
values at East Coast University. By connecting their anti-hazing message to the slogan ‘I am a
Peacock’, the students and staff were able to tap into the shared values of students and encourage
personal responsibility and community expectations.
The second finding was that institutions should ensure that multiple methods are
employed to evaluate policy effectiveness once an anti-hazing policy is put into place. The ECU
staff and students sought opportunities to evaluate anti-hazing efforts and to introduce
educational methods that work for this student community. The IFC created a new vice president
position to specifically address on-going training for its members based on needs of this
particular community. Emma actively sought student input to continue to improve Hazing
Prevention Awareness Week programming efforts and encouraged them to think of ways to
make their message memorable and sustaining.
The third finding was that institutions should be concerned about the affect of their long-
term anti-hazing education strategies that involved secured institutional funding for campus-wide
efforts. Emma and Patrick addressed how the funding for hazing prevention is not a part of the
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 77
line-item budget within student affairs, and how current efforts are in jeopardy after the award
grant is depleted. While student leaders at ECU are able to tap into multiple funding sources in
order to secure monies for programming efforts, the institution may not be able to continue its
long-term goals without securing funds for educational efforts. The administrators will need to
consider how their efforts will continue and whether the institution is able to continue its support
of anti-hazing efforts when its dedicated funds run out.
Summary
This chapter discussed the study’s findings by themes and outlined the systems and
structures that allow for the implementation and sustained anti-hazing environment at East Coast
University. The results indicate that East Coast University had cultivated systems and structures
that contributed to an anti-hazing culture. It further indicated these systems and structures
sustained an on-going anti-hazing culture among students, staff and faculty.
The efforts of the administrators were measured by the efficacy of the students and staff
to participate in their own anti-hazing culture development that would benefit the university. In
particular, Emma and Patrick worked to align collaborators across campus and create a campus-
wide anti-hazing policy that would work to address the attitudes and behaviors of East Coast
University students and staff. The fraternity leaders also identified areas of improvement across
the councils and held themselves accountable for aligning their anti-hazing education efforts with
shared fraternity values. It is important to consider the implications of these findings, as well as
what the data did not reveal. Chapter 5 will examine the implications of these results and offer
suggestions for future research to provide more insight into fraternity advisors developing an
anti-hazing culture for colleges and universities.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 78
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
This chapter provides a summary and conclusion of my research. The three major
conclusions and the findings derived from my research will be discussed. The following section
includes the implications for institutions looking to adopt a comprehensive anti-hazing policy
and education model. Next, areas of research that could be explored will be further discussed.
Finally, an overall conclusion to the study and summarization of major conclusions will be
provided.
Summary
Hazing within fraternity communities continues to be a problem on college and university
campuses. The impact of hazing can reach past the targeted students and affect the learning
community both inside and outside of the fraternity community. In recent years, college and
universities have been identified as having the duty to provide a hazing-free environment and
protect their students from potential dangers associated with hazing. Higher education
administrators, in particular Greek advisors, have implemented hazing policies and developed
anti-hazing programs to address this issue. On many campuses, the implementation of hazing
policies and education is the sole responsibility of the Greek advisors, which then depends on the
professional development of the staff and their ability to influence fraternity members and their
alumni. Yet, many fraternity advisors are professionally unprepared to manage the complex
issues that Greek-letter organizations face (Parks & Spencer, 2012; Paterson, 2013; Rogers,
Rogers & Anderson, 2012, Strayhorn & McCall, 2012). It is critical fraternity advisors, and their
senior student administrator supervisors, understand how to prepare for the complex issues
related to developing an anti-hazing policy and educational program.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 79
Campus communities cannot rely on a proscribed or one-size-fits-all strategy to develop
an anti-hazing community. Researchers (Campo, Poulos & Sipple, 2005; Duncan, 2010; Hall,
2009; Hollmann, 2002) suggest that college administrators utilize multi-faceted approaches,
which include policy creation with administrators and students, risk management education and
training assessments, in order to address hazing and promote student behavior changes. Hall
(2009) asserts that as students are engaged in implementing these multi-faceted approaches for
their own fraternity experiences, campus administrators will have continued access to first-hand
knowledge on how the anti-hazing culture is being developed and what will need to adapt to
react to changes within the fraternity and student community. Langford (2008) affirmed that
campuses should develop goals and objectives that are informed by data in order to direct the
changes in hazing behavior within the community that are desired. It was important to discern
the types of actions that colleges developed that helped create an anti-hazing culture, particularly
among their fraternity community members.
Purpose
College administrators have significant pressure to develop strategies to create effective
anti-hazing policies and education programming. As student affairs professionals are called upon
to address hazing behaviors and cultures, fraternity advisors should understand what type of
systems and structures have contributed to effective comprehensive anti-hazing policy and
education development. Additionally, fraternity advisors should also know how to sustain their
efforts and how to work with other campus professionals and volunteers to sustain the anti-
hazing education across multiple constituencies. Due to the needs of university administrators to
create anti-hazing environments, it is critical to examine the practices within fraternity
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 80
communities to determine how systems and structures are created and sustained in order to
support these hazing-free learning environments.
To that end, the goal of this study was to examine the systems and structures that
contributed to an anti-hazing culture within a fraternity community, and how the culture was
implemented and sustained upon its development. Developed as part of a dissertation cohort
group studying promising practices for developing anti-hazing cultures in educational
institutions, qualitative research methods were created from the following research questions:
1. What are the systems and structures that contribute to an anti-hazing culture in
institutions of higher education?
2. How are these systems and structures implemented and sustained to support an anti-
hazing culture in institutions of higher education?
Data collection for the study occurred through interviews with three undergraduate fraternity
leaders and three administrators, document analysis of anti-hazing policies and observations of
anti-hazing workshops at East Coast University, a mid-sized mid-Atlantic private university.
Triangulation of the data sources was used to increase the validity of the study’s results.
Summary of the Findings
The previous chapter discussed the study’s results and discussed the systems, structures
and strategies for sustaining an anti-hazing culture at East Coast University. Three predominant
themes emerged from the data as contributing to and sustaining the system and structure of an
anti-hazing culture: on-boarding stakeholders and campus partners, developing comprehensive
campus-wide anti-hazing policies, and working toward campus-wide efforts. The themes reflect
the literature on identifying systems and structures that support an anti-hazing environment, and
sustaining campus efforts to maintain and further develop an anti-hazing culture.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 81
Regarding the first theme, on-boarding stakeholders and engaged campus partners, two
findings were identified as recognizing campus partners as stakeholders and sharing clear
expectations regarding appropriate responses to hazing allegations. The first was that institutions
need to identify campus partners that have stakeholder status in order to increase buy-in
regarding anti-hazing policy development. The data showed the importance in hiring and training
any staff with direct contact with fraternity men on how to recognize the signs of hazing and how
to report instances in both informal and formal methods. This practice is consistent with Allen
and Madden (2008) and Langford (2008), who found that multiple stakeholders across the
campus must be involved in campus-wide collaborations to change or adopt a comprehensive
anti-hazing policy, and addressed student concerns identified by Allen and Madden (2008), that
even when campus staff are told about hazing allegation, that the reports are not investigated.
The administrators interviewed spoke at length on the need to hire and train competent staff and
volunteers. While the fraternity advisor has the most constant contact with fraternity men, all
staff were told they have a chance to interact, influence and educate fraternity men on how their
behaviors are inconsistent with fraternity values and university policies. This is consistent with
Hall (2009) and Mumford (2001), who suggest that increased interactions with members during
their fraternity involvement stage can curb negative behaviors. The Bronfenbrenner's (1993)
ecological model situates the students within the center of the model, and suggests that the
fraternity advisor along with his chapter peers can influence his behavior with particular
ecologies.
The second finding was that institutional staff, faculty, student leaders and alumni
volunteers require clear expectations regarding appropriate responses to hazing. East Coast
University was able to develop a comprehensive anti-hazing culture by training more than the
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 82
fraternity advisor on the responsibility to create the culture, since fraternity men interact with
many different types of staff during their time as undergraduate students. Campus administrators
interviewed shared that in order to increase accountability of its community members, it was
important that the revised anti-hazing policy reach all members of the ECU community,
including staff, students, faculty, alumni and guests. This finding was consistent with Hall (2009)
and McGlone and Schaefer (2002), who suggest that university community members benefit
from improved understanding of anti-hazing policies and training on how to report alleged
hazing. Of particular significance was the fraternity advisor’s ability to reference the most recent
hazing research and information learned from professional development opportunities during
conversations with the student affairs administrators, as well as her significant participation in
well-regarded national training opportunities, in order to keep up with and understand national
trends in anti-hazing education efforts. This information is distilled and filtered to other staff
members at various on-campus trainings, and was an important connection between the
university and national professional associations.
Of particular interest were the efforts of the fraternity leaders in clarifying expectations
on responding to hazing allegations and initiating additional training on developing an anti-
hazing community. The student leaders reiterated that the campus administrators had put many
practices into place to help develop accountability among students regarding hazing education
and reporting hazing incidents. Sutton, Litzring, Terrell and Poats (2000) note that fraternity
members must be educated and held accountable for their hazing behaviors. ECU Fraternity
student leaders developed a fraternity-led training program and worked closely with professional
student affairs staff on how to identify and report hazing incidents, and have developed
leadership roles within the IFC to develop continual training for all members, regardless of years
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 83
of membership. The efforts of the students reinforce Renn and Arnold’s (2005) assertion that
multiple microsystems, which include student peers and campus culture systems, can influence
student expectations and interactions among these peers. Since the ECU fraternity men are
encouraged to become campus ambassadors and represent their understanding of campus
policies during their involvement in other student organizations, fraternity men are encouraged to
navigate multiple microsystems and influence general students and the general campus culture.
Though men can be insular about their scope of influence outside of their intra-group peers
(Davis, 2002; Harris III & Harper, 2008), this encouragement of fraternity members to
participate in and advocate for anti-hazing environments for the campus community has
expanded the scope of influence of the microsystems and better translates the institutional
policies within the exosystem of Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) ecological model.
The second theme involved development of comprehensive campus-wide anti-hazing
policies. Based on the study’s evidence, three findings were identified: institutions develop a
comprehensive approach to anti-hazing policy development, anti-hazing policy and education
implementation must be on-going and pervasive, and institutions integrate local data to
determine policy and educational changes. The first finding was that institutions develop a
comprehensive approach to anti-hazing education in order to implement and sustain systems and
structures necessary to create an anti-hazing culture. McGlone and Schaefer (2008) believed a
proactive approach to policy development helps administrators identify areas of concern before
the concerns become litigious. Crow and Rosner (2002) and Duncan (2010) suggest that the
development of a comprehensive policy requires multiple stakeholders, since it allows the
institution to institute programs and policies that are coordinated to reflect campus norms and
expectations. East Coast University worked to develop collaborative relationships that involved
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 84
staff, faculty and alumni in order to address student hazing behaviors. All three administrators
spoke about how critical it was for multiple groups of people to address training needs, policy
enforcement and general education about hazing to different constituencies across the campus.
Researchers suggest that comprehensive, campus-wide efforts that involve multiple campus
stakeholders (Allen & Madden, 2008), utilize a problem analysis methodology (Langford, 2008),
and involves risk management and anti-hazing education training for campus partners (Hall,
2009) produce long-standing results that impact campus culture.
The second finding was that the anti-hazing education and policy implementation must be
on-going and pervasive throughout the institution. This was accomplished through presidential
support of the efforts, which allowed the campus administrators to share the ECU definition of
hazing, the connection of an anti-hazing community to institutional outcomes and the creation of
a student learning community, and the responsibility of the community to intervene and report
incidents to the appropriate administrator. Allen and Madden (2008) shared this connection to
campus learning outcomes was critical for colleges to share in order to move past a simple ‘don’t
haze’ policy.
The use of the Athletics slogan “I am a Peacock” reinforced the shared community values
held by students, and was an innovative way to include university athletics personnel in anti-
hazing efforts and increase buy-in on anti-hazing efforts from different student constituencies.
As suggested by Owen et al. (2008), that fraternity leaders increase buy-in to the increased risk
management when student leaders are involved in the university policy creation and
implementation, and Connell (2002) and Harris (2010), that men reinforce and can create new
societal expectations for gendered behavior, the IFC and MGC governing bodies demonstrated
their commitment to creating different expectations regarding hazing through continual hazing
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 85
education, collaborative workshops and leadership roles in order to educate members of their
own community. The fraternity leaders also understood that other campus professionals, outside
of fraternity and sorority life, were available for trainings through their involvement of student
conduct and residential life professional staff in their anti-hazing training efforts. These efforts
were inaugural during the study, but show promise in becoming a permanent part of the anti-
hazing culture development among fraternity men.
The third finding was that institutions integrate local data in order to influence their
policy and education decisions. Emma collected both student record data and anecdotal data
about the history of hazing and sanctions for student organizations as a starting point in the data
collection. Langford (2009) shared that it was important to base campus efforts on best practices,
but to make sure that the practices matched the needs on individual campuses. Local data was
collected annually through formal and informal methods. Emma collected information regarding
fraternity hazing through her advisor position and spoke with campus staff to also gain more
information about hazing incidents. She also spoke with student organization leaders about
hazing behaviors and how to avoid participating in them. Hall (2009) and Langford (2008)
stressed the need to include assessments and evaluations as part of the policy development
process, to ensure that the campus was responding to changes in student behaviors. Local data
collection led to the creation of an IFC vice president position that involved on-going education
that included anti-hazing training.
The third theme was the importance of implementing anti-hazing messages for multiple
constituencies. From the study’s data, three findings were identified: campus-wide messages
anti-hazing messages reflect institutional values and objectives, multiple evaluation methods
were employed to measure effectiveness, and institutional leaders’ concerns regarding long-term
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 86
funding for anti-hazing initiatives. The first finding was that campus-wide messages regarding
anti-hazing efforts reflect shared institutional values and educational objectives. Since fraternity
men do not respond to general student strategies to impact at-risk behaviors (Keeling, 2000) and
college-age men are learning how to develop new strategies for seeking help (Edwards & Jones,
2009) and speaking up against what they believe are rules for men to follow (Harris III &
Harper, 2008), it was important for ECU administrators and student leaders to develop fraternity-
specific training and education opportunities that addressed their intra-group peer influence and
accountability. Allen and Madden (2008) found that fraternity alumni should be informed about
hazing efforts and policies, since students reported that alumni is present at 25% of hazing
incidents. Since alumni participation can vary from event to event, it was important for ECU to
develop a fraternity alumni organization responsible for educating all alumni on updated student
policies regardless of level of involvement in the chapter operations.
The second finding was that institutions ensure that multiple methods were employed to
evaluate policy effectiveness once an anti-hazing policy was put into place. Researchers (Allan
& Madden, 2008, 2011; Hall, 2009; Langford, 2008) believed it was important to revisit hazing
policies regularly to evaluate their effectiveness and to change them according to new campus
data. Multiple methods were employed to collect data regarding policy effectiveness, including
annual reports from chapters, student organization judicial hearings, and anecdotal stories from
student organization leaders. IFC leaders also considered past hazing incidents and training
efforts in order to create a new IFC vice president position that involved anti-hazing training for
initiated members.
The third finding was that institutional leaders’ concern about the affect of their long-
term anti-hazing education strategies impact campus-wide efforts. Langford (2008) suggests that
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 87
institutional education and prevention efforts should be supported by infrastructure, institutional
commitment and systems which include funding. One of the worries from Emma and Patrick
was that current efforts could not be sustained without guaranteed funding from the institution
for continued anti-hazing education efforts. The student leaders recognized that their student-led
anti-hazing education efforts were required to access funding options in order to continue on-
going educational goals. Allen and Madden (2008) believe that institutions should make serious
efforts to educate the entire campus regarding the dangers of hazing, yet the senior ECU
administration has not demonstrated through continual funding efforts to demonstrate it will
make hazing education a financial commitment.
Implications for Practice and Policy Development
The findings from this study have implications for fraternity advisors and university
policymakers in regards to the development of a comprehensive approach to developing an anti-
hazing culture. Since no single approach is recommended for any campus considering
developing an anti-hazing policy, the comprehensive approach developed by East Coast
University could be useful for other campuses to consider. Fraternity advisors may find the
results of this study useful in determining how to approach the required professional demands in
creating a comprehensive anti-hazing policy.
Study data suggested that institutions might consider approaching a policy review and
anti-hazing culture development without responding to a particular hazing incident or crisis. The
East Coast University staff and students spoke at length about how the culture development was
not in response to any specific hazing incident, and that the policy review and creation process
was a liberating experience. The staff felt they were able to brainstorm the possibilities of a
hazing-free environment as a proactive rather than reactive process. Institutional leaders could
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 88
include a comprehensive review of hazing policies and education efforts as part of their regular
policy review processes, and administrators could consider updating their policies during these
policy reviews.
Institutions will meet their anti-hazing cultural development goals by connecting anti-
hazing policy and education programming efforts with institutional values and goals. By
securing presidential and other senior administrator’s support, the collaborative team at ECU that
drafted the anti-hazing policy was able to send a message about the importance of educating
oneself about hazing and its impact on the educational environment. Institutional leaders should
be updated on research addressing the impact of hazing on learning communities and the role of
faculty in developing an anti-hazing culture. Additionally, the comprehensive nature of the
policy development requires the input of faculty and staff from across the campus from different
disciplines and offices, and should include representatives from academic and student affairs,
fraternity student leaders and alumni advisors, athletics and alumni affairs, and campus risk
management professionals. East Coast University continually invites new people to participate in
policy implementation and trainings, in order to reach new audiences and train new staff. Allen
and Madden (2008) and Hall (2009) stress the importance of including collaborators from across
the campus community, in order to better create a true campus-wide culture.
Institutional efforts to develop an anti-hazing culture will be impacted by the institutional
commitment to funding these efforts. Without earmarking specific budgets that include anti-
hazing efforts, institutions have not demonstrated clear support for or commitment to developing
an anti-hazing culture. Institutions might consider demonstrating institutional support by creating
a university-wide coordinator for hazing education, but these efforts will not have full campus
impact unless the coordinator has a functional budget with which to create or implement new and
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 89
existing programming. Current educational efforts at ECU are funded through a competitive one-
time grant in recognition of the institution’s anti-hazing education and policy development.
However, when the grant is depleted, the educational efforts run the risk of being reduced in
scope or stopped altogether. Institutions should ensure that anti-hazing education efforts are
annually funded through more secure funding sources. For instance, while hazing is not
considered a mandated reportable Cleary Act incident, administrators should consider connecting
hazing education as a way to reduce campus violence in order to ensure consistent funding. Until
institutions address the ability to fund education efforts, hazing policy and educational
programming development could be limited in scope and may not reach all of the intended
audiences.
Institutions should consider training all staff with student contact on how to recognize
signs of hazing and report instances of hazing. Given the different definitions of hazing that exist
and that students may not know that their experiences would be defined as hazing, it would
benefit the entire community if more staff knew and understood how to recognize the signs of
hazing within different types of student organizations and teams. Institutions should provide on-
going training for student organization advisors, similar to the trainings offered at East Coast
University for fraternity alumni advisors, to help them understand contemporary policies and
strategies for encouraging a hazing-free environment. As staff begins to recognize the signs of
hazing, a stream-lined system to collect this information would allow conduct officers to hold
student organizations and their leaders accountable for their hazing behaviors.
Implementing the above-mentioned recommendations for institutions seeking to adopt a
comprehensive anti-hazing policy and educational programming model should encourage
institutions to adopt strategies that will impact their particular campus community. University
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 90
administrators should be mindful about assessing about their own campus culture, staff
competency and resources before revising or implementing a new anti-hazing policy. Through
thoughtful assessment of institutional assets, institutional leaders that are seeking to adopt a
comprehensive policy should be able to adapt promising practices from peer institutions and
develop home-grown strategies that impact their unique campus cultures.
Recommendations for Future Studies
This study demonstrated the promising practices in developing a campus anti-hazing
culture. The study was designed to capture the perceptions of staff and students at one private,
urban Mid-Atlantic University and presented in the form of a case study. Therefore, this section
presents recommendations for additional study.
East Coast University was selected based on the criteria of its existing anti-hazing policy
and educational programming model. Although the data collected shows the strategies for
developing a comprehensive anti-hazing policy and educational model, it does not demonstrate
the campus approach for other types of institutions, such as large public institutions or rural,
liberal arts colleges. An examination of these institutional types would be important because the
educational environments and staffing models are different at these types of institutions and may
result in a diverse approach to developing an anti-hazing culture. Similarly, the selection criteria
for East Coast University also included a diverse fraternity community comprised of chapters
recognized by the North-American Interfraternal Conference, National Pan-Hellenic Council,
National Multicultural Greek Council, National APIA Panhellenic Association and the National
Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations. Many campus fraternity communities may have
one, two or all of these national governing bodies represented on their campus and it would be
important to know how a campus could develop an anti-hazing culture with a different
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 91
composition of nationally recognized chapters. Additionally, the selection criterion for East
Coast University was predicated on not recognizing local or one-school-specific chapters. It
would be worthwhile to study how a campus community would be able to integrate a local
chapter and their alumni into the anti-hazing community goals and educational efforts.
Finally, since this study focused on anti-hazing education and training for fraternity
advisors, the focus of the study was primarily on the undergraduate college experience related to
creating an anti-hazing culture. However, East Coast University included alumni advisors as one
of their stakeholders and offered ongoing opportunities to train alumni advisors about the
campus policies regarding hazing prevention. Fraternity advisors have been encouraged to work
closely with alumni advisors (Parks & Spencer, 2012; Patton & Bonner II, 2001) during
fraternity initiation and probationary periods and beyond in order to positively influence
fraternity men to develop strong leadership skills and healthy connections to their fraternity. It
would be important to study the specific training alumni volunteers receive in contributing to the
development of an anti-hazing environment. Additionally, in order to recognize the differences
among the different types of recognized chapters and their cultural history and backgrounds, it
would be important to study the anti-hazing education offered to members of the different types
of fraternity alumni, such as National Pan-Hellenic Council or National Multicultural Greek
Council alumni.
Conclusions
This study aimed to identify the systems and structures that contribute to and sustain an
anti-hazing culture within a fraternity community. Its findings suggest that the systems and
structures can be identified and further developed with the employment of a strategic policy
analysis and involving stakeholders from throughout the university community. While the study
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 92
focused on the efforts of the fraternity advisor to help implement the comprehensive policy,
various staff and administrators continue to be involved in sustaining the anti-hazing culture
among the fraternity men and have identified additional constituencies that will benefit from
their on-going staff and advisor trainings. This on-going policy implementation, with its
concurrent assessment plan, will help adapt current strategies to reach each of the student groups
that operate at East Coast University and align their behaviors with institutional learning
outcomes.
As Allen and Madden (2008) state, “At present, there are no simple solutions or foolproof
methods of eliminating hazing on a college campus” (p. 40). As campus administrators work to
identify the hazing behaviors occurring on their campuses, they will be better poised to identify
strategies to eliminate the hazing behaviors. Incorporating a comprehensive and inclusive hazing
prevention and education committee will allow more members of the university community to
support and advocate for anti-hazing training and reach more and more students. By changing
the expectations for behavior and increasing the training for identifying these behaviors, the
institution will change how hazing will be welcomed and tolerated among the students, staff and
faculty.
It is anticipated that these findings will prove beneficial for current and aspiring fraternity
advisors, senior student affairs administrators and fraternity headquarters staff, and encourage
institutional leaders to review their current and implement comprehensive anti-hazing policies
and educational programs. Additionally, efforts should be made to increase the diversity of the
sample in both gender and geography. By learning more about how different communities
identify and prevent hazing from occurring among their student members, Greek life advisors,
administrators and headquarters staff will be better poised to train their members and alumni
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 93
advisors to develop campus-specific strategies that identify, prevent and eliminate hazing
behaviors among college students.
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 94
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PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 101
Appendix A
Dear [Name],
My name is Shafiqa Ahmadi and I am the Principal Investigator of the thematic group titled
Promising Practices for Preventing Bullying in K-12 Schools and Post-secondary Institutions at
the Rossier School of Education at University of Southern California. We are conducting a
research study as part of our thematic group, which examines systems and structures that
contribute to and sustain an anti-bullying environment. You are cordially invited to participate in
the study. If you agree, we would like to conduct interviews, observations, document reviews
and an online survey.
The interview is anticipated to take up to 45-60 minutes to complete. In addition to interviewing
yourself, we would like to interview 4-5 additional staff at your school. If possible, we would
like the opportunity to observe different locations within your school site. To gather more
information, we also have a survey that we would like to administer. Participation in this study is
voluntary and interviews may be audio-taped.
Participation in this study is completely voluntary. The identity of participants will remain
confidential at all times during and after the study.
If you have questions or would like to participate, please contact me at sahmadi@usc.edu, USC
Rossier School of Education, WPH 602H, (213) 821-2259.
Thank you for your participation,
Shafiqa Ahmadi
Assistant Professor - Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 102
Appendix B
Interview Protocol
1. What is your role or your involvement in promoting anti-bullying at your institution?
2. What was the driving force behind the start of the anti-bullying efforts?
3. Tell me about the instances of bullying at your school
4. Explain the basics of the anti-bullying efforts your institution has in place
a. What policies and preventive measures does your school have in place to prevent
bullying?
b. What other factors influence your school’s anti-bullying efforts?
c. Have these efforts changed? If so, how?
5. What is the process that occurs when there is a bullying incident?
6. What type of training is provided to the staff to identify and prevent bullying?
a. What offices or staff is involved in anti-bullying intervention training?
b. How prepared does your staff feel in relation to bullying?
c. How prepared do you feel to handle bullying?
7. How are teachers, staff and administrators involved in anti-bullying efforts?
8. How are students involved in anti-bullying efforts?
a. Tell me what is being done to help students feel more connected to your institution
9. How are parents and/or other stakeholders involved in anti-bullying efforts?
10. What data do you use to evaluate your school’s anti-bullying efforts?
a. How is the data used to sustain and improve the efforts?
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 103
Appendix C
Promising Practices for Preventing Bullying in
K12 Schools and Postsecondary Institutions
Interview Intake Survey
Please read each question carefully and answer it to the best of your knowledge.
1. Name (Please use a pseudonym (false name)
_________________________________________________________
2. Gender
o Male
o Female
o Transgender
o Other
3. How do you identify? Check all that apply
o Arab American
o African American/Black
o American Indian/Alaska Native
o Asian American/Asian
o Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
o Mexican American/Chicano
o Other Latino:_________________________
o White/Caucasian
o Multiracial:_________________________
o Other:_______________________________
4. What is the highest level of education you have attained?
o Less than high school
o High school graduate
o Associate’s Degree
o Bachelor’s Degree
o Master’s Degree
o Professional/Ph. D
o Do not know
5. Check all the credentials that apply
o Administrative
o Single-subject
o Multiple subject
o PPS
o MFT/MSW
o Other
o None
6. What is your position at your institution? Check all that apply
o K-12
o Administrator
o Counselor
o Teacher: Grade level(s):_____________ Subject(s):_____________
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 104
o Classified staff: Title:_______________
o Other:________________
o Higher education
o Administrator
o Advisor
o Faculty
o College student
o Other:_______________
7. Number of years you have been at your institution:__________
8. Number of years you have been in your profession:__________
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 105
Appendix D
Observation Protocol
School Name: _______________________________________ Date: _______________
Type of Observation:
_____________________________________________________
Participants: ______________________________ Materials: ____________________________
Researcher: ________________________________________________________
Time Started: ____________ Time Ended: ____________ Total Time: ___________
Environment
What are you looking for? Notes
Location:
What does the environment look like?
Physical setup:
How are the participants grouped?
Who is leading?
What is the agenda?
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 106
Interactions
What are you looking for? Notes
Context:
Noteworthy interactions:
Students
Staff
Community
Engagement of participants:
Overall tone:
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 107
Appendix E
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 108
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 109
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 110
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 111
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 112
Appendix F
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 113
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 114
PROMISING PRACTICES IN ANTI-HAZING EDUCATION 115
Appendix G
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0031
This dissertation written by
\JDse Pb
kioei Rios
under the discretion ofh3 Dissertation Committee,
and approved by all members of the Committee, has been
presented to and accepted by the Faculty of the Rossier
School of Education in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
5
(j/fC(
Date
tthLL i,/?W1AAI
Dean
Dissertation Committee
Cha erson
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
This study applies Bronfenbrenner’s (1993) ecological theory to the development of an anti‐hazing culture within a fraternity community. The purpose of this study was to examine the systems and structures that contributed to an anti‐hazing culture within a fraternity community, and how the culture was implemented and sustained upon its development. Developed as part of a dissertation cohort group studying promising practices for developing anti‐hazing cultures in educational institutions, qualitative research methods were created from the following research questions: ❧ 1. What are the systems and structures that contribute to an anti‐hazing culture in institutions of higher education? ❧ 2. How are these systems and structures implemented and sustained to support an anti‐hazing culture in institutions of higher education? ❧ Data collection for the study occurred through interviews with three students and three administrators, document analysis of anti‐hazing policies and observations of anti-hazing workshops at East Coast University, a mid‐sized mid‐Atlantic private university. Findings from the study indicate that anti‐hazing culture development is supported through on‐boarding stakeholders and campus partners, developing comprehensive campus‐wide anti‐hazing policies, and working toward campus‐wide efforts. The study begins to bridge the gap between the literature on developing an anti‐hazing culture and the practitioner perspective from within a fraternity community, and contributes to a new line of work examining the perspectives of those involved in a comprehensive policy implementation.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Rios, Joseph Noel
(author)
Core Title
A case study in promising practices in anti-hazing education training for fraternity advisors
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education (Leadership)
Publication Date
04/30/2014
Defense Date
03/19/2014
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
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Tag
anti‐hazing,fraternity,hazing,OAI-PMH Harvest,professional development,student affairs
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Advisor
Ahmadi, Shafiqa (
committee chair
), Mora-Flores, Eugenia (
committee member
), Stowe, Kathy (
committee member
)
Creator Email
joseph.rios@usc.edu,josephnrios@gmail.com
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https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-408302
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Tags
anti‐hazing
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