Re: Hazing on the rise, and its getting worse.

[Guest guest]

I used to work as a supervisor for a bankcorp that had 150 locations in the Chicagoland area. I was directly involved in the hiring process. One standing order was never to hire anyone who was a member of a fraternity or a sorority. There were three reasons for this:

1) They typically underperform at work once hired and come to the workplace with lower academic abilities (poor writing skills, etc.).

2) They have a predominate need to be social, which is an expense in the workplace. If they are talking and socializing, and not working, they are being productive.

3) They have low morals, are more prone to using sextalk/inappropriate talk (i.e. are more prone to having sexual harrassment greivances filed against them with Human Resources).

While it was considered irresponsible to assume why this may be, there was the belief that it was due to the lowering of morals that fraternities and sororities promote.

Oddly enough, these policies were instituted by executives who had themselves been part of a fraternity. There was once a time when they made it a point to hire only those (if possible) who HAD joined fraternities, as this was their "brotherhood" but they saw how much of a failure this was and turned their back on that policy.

My subsequent work at a consulting firm caused me to be in receipt of demographic information from actuarials which supported the point of view that those who are involved in frats, sororities or the like are indeed under performers, getting by only when those members of the "brotherhood" or "sisterhood" promote them up the ladder.

It is good that companies are finally learning to weed the garden of this infestation.

Administrator

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,516626,00.htmlHigh School Hazing Rife, Growing 'More Brutal'PORTLAND, Maine Authors of an ambitious survey of hazing in colleges anduniversities have turned their attention to high schools and discovered thatmany freshmen arrive on campus with experience â€" with 47 percent reportinggetting hazed in high school.As in college, high school hazing pervaded groups from sports teams to theyearbook staff and performing arts, according to professors Allan and Madden of the University of Maine's College of Education and HumanDevelopment.The hazing included activities from silly stunts to drinking games, with 8percent of the students drinking to the point of getting sick or passing out,they said.Just like college students, high schoolers are susceptible to getting swept upin group activities and doing things they might not otherwise do, the authorssaid."That group dynamic can lead to the escalation where you have the hazing that'sbeen reported in the news, some horrendous incidents," Madden said.Among them: a "powder puff" event in which several seniors at a suburban Chicagohigh school were suspended or charged with roughing up junior girls, and juniorvarsity football players being sodomized by teammates at their New York highschool.The professors' findings, to be presented Thursday during the AmericanEducational Research Association's annual meeting in San Diego, suggest thatlittle has changed since the last major survey of hazing in American highschools in 2000.That survey, led by Norm Pollard at Alfred University, indicated that 48 percentof high schoolers belonging to school groups were hazed.While lack of any significant improvement is bad enough, the nature of hazinghas become more dangerous and destructive, some educators say."We're still having hazing incidents in this country in high schools. They'regetting more brutal. They're getting more sexual. And they're being pushed downinto middle schools," said Elliot Hopkins of the National Federation of StateHigh School Associations.Allan and Madden previously reported on college hazing using a survey of 11,480students at 53 colleges and universities. The result was the biggest study ofhazing in higher education to date, said Pollard, who served as an adviser.This time, the professors tapped the same pool of participants to explore whathappened to them prior to their arrival on college campuses.Allan and Madden found the highest rates of hazing among members of sports teams(47 percent), ROTC (46 percent), and bands and performing arts organizations (34percent). The average for other school organizations was 20 percent, theresearchers reported.Hazing-related activities included being required to associate only with thepeer group (28 percent), singing or chanting in public (21 percent), verbalabuse (19 percent), sleep deprivation (12 percent), and getting a tattoo orpiercing (12 percent), they said.Twelve percent of the survey's respondents participated in a drinking game, and8 percent drank until getting sick or losing consciousness, they said.Hopkins said he is particularly worried that activities are becoming moresexually charged in cases of cheerleaders being forced to undress and shave infront of their peers, or boys and girls being forced to simulate sex acts tojoin a group.At its worst, hazing can lead to sexual assault, as happened with a highlypublicized incident involving a football team from Long Island, N.Y., he said.In that case, several junior varsity players were sodomized with sticks, pinecones and golf balls at preseason training camp in Pennsylvania. Four studentswere charged, five football coaches fired and the team's football seasoncanceled.The psychological harm from hazing can follow into students' relationships,marriages, parenting and workplace, Pollard said."It's not just 'boys being boys.' It teaches impressionable young adults aboutpower, control, humiliation and how you treat other individuals," he said.Allan and Madden, who are based at the University of Maine campus in Orono, saythey were disturbed to learn that hazing is taking a back seat as high schooladministrators focus on bullying."We've had educators say, 'Isn't that the same as bullying?"' Madden said. "Itjust indicates the amount of education that's needed all around."Bullies do not want the victim to be part of their group, and their goal is tohumiliate, ostracize and degrade to make themselves feel bigger and better,Madden said. Hazing is different because it involves a group dynamic andcoercion."The coercion can be subtle, but it's powerful," Allan said. "You have thesereally nice people who are generally reasonable kids making sound decisions forthe most part. And then all of a sudden they're swept up in his group dynamicâ€" it contributes to impairing judgment."