Serve in the Light of Truth

The following is a guest post from Director of Financial Operations Justin Wenger.  Justin is a former Leadership Consultant and Director of Education for the General Fraternity staff.

Candidate education is a rite of passage, and there is nothing inherently wrong with looking at it as such. The issue, though, is how a chapter administers that rite. Joining any values-based organization is going to involve a rite of passage because values-based organizations aren’t interested in mediocrity. Values-based organizations are looking for leaders; men of honor and high moral character.

Why is your best friend, your best friend? I doubt it’s because of how many push ups he can do, or how many beers he can drink. If fraternities utilize these types of rites of passage, then fraternities suffer the realities of living up to their stereotypes. But, if we apply our values to developing the rite of passage that is candidate education, then we can be assured that the young leaders identified as candidates for membership will further develop to become brother-leaders; members who have built relationships on who they are as men, rather than how well they take being yelled at.

The following is a guest post from Director of Financial Operations Justin Wenger.  Justin is a former Leadership Consultant and Director of Education for the General Fraternity staff.

This post is part of a series dedicated to providing answers to common excuses for hazing.  The #40Answers in 40 Days campaign aims to promote National Hazing Prevention Week (September 20 – 25, 2010) and to ultimately create the definitive collection of crowdsourced knowledge to eliminate hazing.

It’s always interesting to hear the words Greek members choose when discussing issues such as hazing, and this excuse is no different. On the surface, no one can argue with this statement, but scratch the superficial veneer off this comment and its weak attempt at hiding its real intent is shattered. If we take a moment to probe slightly deeper, though, it’s not too hard to begin seeing the illogic of this excuse.

“Pledges must pay their dues to become a member.” First, “pledge” is a verb, not a noun; it’s an action, not a person. Incorrect usages aside, take a moment to consider the underlying meaning of the statement. Yes, new or prospective members must fulfill their financial obligations to the organization, just like current, or active, members, but clearly that’s not the intent of this excuse – only someone who is trying to argue the semantics of the statement would say there isn’t a hidden meaning. Let’s challenge that hidden meaning.

What does a Candidate/new member owe you? What do they owe the chapter? Can’t think of anything besides the obvious – They need to learn the history; they should respect the actives (an item to be covered at a later date), etc.? Well, take a step back and consider the fact that it was the chapter that chose to bring the Candidate into the membership. Sure, the Candidate accepted a bid, and, yes, it is reasonable to expect that he grow to understand the ideals of the organization and how to incorporate those ideals into his daily life. Whose job is it, though, to teach him those things? From one man’s perspective, it’s not the Candidate’s job to learn these things – he doesn’t owe us this – it is our job to teach him.

Go back and read the Ritual. The only thing a Candidate owes us (Sigma Nu) is his acceptance of, and best effort to live by, our ideals. We’ve already identified him as a man of honor, so it is up to us to guide, mentor, and counsel him to further incorporate our ideals into his life. We owe him that. The only thing due to us is his continued commitment to being a man of Love, Honor, and Truth.

The Dallas Cowboys knew that there would be questions about who would start at wide receiver this season.  The bigger question that looms now, however, is if the team will support one rookie’s effort to eliminate an ingrained culture of hazing in professional sports.

This weekend, Cowboys rookie Dez Bryant refused to continue a Dallas Cowboys tradition of rookies carrying the equipment of veterans out onto the practice field:

“I’m not doing it,” Bryant said.  “I feel like I was drafted to play football, not carry another player’s pads.”

Despite the fact that Bryant came out later and said he was just joking, the spat brings to light a long-standing tradition in professional sports of new team members performing embrassing stunts or acts of personal servitude to ‘earn their stripes’ on a professional sports teams.

More concerning is an ESPN Sports Nation poll asking if Bryant should take part in the tradition hazing and carry the pads.  With over 63,000 responding, 73% believe that such acts of hazing are “good for team chemistry to uphold the tradition.”

This should sound familiar; familiar because it often plays out in fraternities and sororities every fall when chapters extend bids to new members.  Instead of carrying pads, new members might be asked to wear a candidate pin every day or formal attire on Fridays.  Instead of bagels for the team every morning, candidates are required to be designated drivers, steal articles of clothing from a sorority or make a late night pizza run.

Perhaps you have members like Roy Williams, who use the same, tired excuses to justify the ‘pranks’ and ‘odd jobs’:

“Everybody has to go through it,” Williams said.  “I had to go through it…I did everything I was supposed to do, because I didn’t want to be that guy.”

The fight against hazing is never easy, especially when professional athletes glorify the inane acts that lead to more dangerous stunts.  Nothing that is worth doing, however, is ever easy.  It only took the convictions of three cadets to inspire an international anti-hazing institution that thrives today; what will you do?