Greeks and Hazing

What a juicy and interesting article about hazing in your last issue! I like the use of outside school's hazing problems...interesting and imaginitive! Yep, that was sarcasm.

I pledged Psi Beta Gamma sorority in Spring of 1997. At the time of my bid (when you begin the pledging process,) I was saturated with horror-stories of what would happen to me, that I now find incredibly laughable. To add injury to insult, I was forced, during pledging, to endure the school's retelling of hazing stories of local Greeks from the seventies (that's right, what people did to their pledges before I was even born, haha,) - in fact Tau Kappa Epsilon (now defunct at least 30 years,) was a key figure in these stories.

As I grew as an active sister, we found our organization quite lucky - no quitters until...I believe it was my 1st senior year. Then, unfortuately we lost 4 very imaginitive sisters to be who imagined we did some pretty interesting things. MOST hazing stories are created by quitters...I should know, I followed through the entire pledge process, and hearing what my sorority supposedly did to these girls was disgusting and humiliating for us to hear as a group! We would never endure such activities done to us as pledges or to our pledges. Of course, quitter stories are so juicy - how can you not whisper them as campus gossip? I heard several stories about other Greek houses' pledge processes which I also was sure were untrue - considering I knew my fellow sisters and brothers of other houses, and knew what they would and would not allow.

A few years ago, some Alpha Sigma Alpha sisters who were blackballed created a "sorority." For those of you that are not Greek, this is not really a sorority because a real Greek organization needs to be first recognized by the Greek council to be recognized by the Greek community. (Psi Beta Gamma history is interesting, as we learned this the "hard way" in 1987.) Those organizations who have attained and then lost their charter are recognized among the Greek communtity as being Greek, however. Also, blackballed Greeks may not create a new Greek house. Once you have been blackballed, you are no longer allowed to be a member of any house. Digressing back, these young women using faulty reasioning attempted to create a Greek house, and - having little to no idea of the appropriate pledge process or care that all PSC Greeks I know have towards ensuring the health and safety of their pledges, allegedly involved one of their "pledges" in a vehicular accident which resulted in a girl's death.

What's funny here? Well, as a past pledgemaster, I did not even like my initiates in a car. If they were in accident driving home or to work, no doubt we would not only lose a friend but we would be blamed (even if not involved.) We never allowed pledges to ride in a car without a seat belt (common sense for everyone, but go ahead and label it hazing if you like,) much less make them lie in the storage area of an SUV blindfolded as the women from this would-be "sorority" did. Certainly, if the pledges were in a car with any of us, we were driving the right speed limit, and they were seatbelted and not blindfolded.

To be blunt, I would not allow my girls to drink when they were free from pledge activities during pledging becaue if they got alcohol poisoning - I must be to blame, even if I wasn't within 100 miles of them. Once again, me prohibiting underage (in most cases) drinking is probably what you call hazing, but actually, it is against the law for a 19 year old to drink, so call it what you will.

When I attended PSC, the SPORTS TEAMS were the worst in regards to hazing. I knew of no Greek house that would allow such behavior in their initiation process. Unfortunately thanks to "SKO" (the non-sorority created by people booted out of Greek life,) all school-"unrecognized" organizations have come under a great amount of scrutiny. What is painful to me is that many of the unrecognized organizations at Plymouth lost their charters in my junior year (99-00,) and to blame the current members for incedents that generally revolved around parties (not pledging) held by my classmates is rather sad. Then alleging that we are evil hazers who put everyone's lives in danger is equally libellous! My actives have told me over the years about the school's warning against what unrecognized Greeks will do to pledges (I hear we have no regard for saftey and worse accusations, which is rediculous - safety is a huge thing to our pledging and always has been!) I can't say pledging was a walk in the park, but honestly, the role of pledgemaster was 20 times harder than being a pledge. The time-commitment is huge, which is why we offer our girls study-hours, and the active sisters do their best to help the pledges with their projects and papers, and WE DO give them extra time for school work because education is a number one priority.

Greek life is such a wonderful experience. I still speak with so many Phi Beta Upsilon brothers, Kappa Delta Phi brothers, Sig Tau, Alpha Theta (now defunct,) and Omega Omicron brothers. I am still in touch with virtually all my sisters from 1987 (founding) to present! I always have a place to visit on Homecoming or Alumni Weekend. There is always someone at Plymouth who remembers me... It was really the most wonderful time of my life, and the majority of Greek almuni I know would happily say the same. I would never ever ever trade my time as an active Psi Beta Gamma sister for anything.

Please, don't listen to the opinions of people who quit pledging (they are very imaginitive to say the least,) or allow yourself to be frightened-off by stories of some Greek house that isn't even near Plymouth, NH. Greek life is a wonderful experience, and all of the houses I still know to be there will not make you endure vomit and urine (? that was a new one for me to hear,) or anything else so disgusting. Unrecognized houses and Plymouth generally lost their charters over party-incedents, not pledging incedents. At the time, we were misled, and felt it was in our best interests to hand over the charters without argument to the school, and we Greek alums did no favor for our current actives.

I was an active student governement member, a member of the judicial board, and active in several clubs. Greek life was another great leadership opportunity for me. I hope that it is also to be a great opportunity for many of you. Please, take the hazing stories told to you with a grain of salt, and check out the Greek houses (recognized and unrecognized) during this rush season. I promise you will not regret it.

~K. Cat WorkPSC - 96-01Psi Beta Gamma - Spring '97