How has fraternity membership positively impacted your life, and how has it negatively effected you?

Yesterday, I interviewed for a position at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Metropolitan Campus in Teaneck, New Jersey. I was interviewing for the Assistant Director of Student Life position which would be in charge of student programming and Greek Life. I have to say that in the interviews I have been on lately (and perhaps this is just a phenomenon in the education field, but who knows) there have been some really thought provoking questions that have actually stayed with me for a long time after the interview was over. My hat has to go off to the team of interviewers at FDU yesterday...of all the interviews I've been on (about 5 to 7 now), they had the most interesting and most thought provoking questions.

Most striking of all the questions they asked was this one question that felt like it was tailored for people who love fraternity life, in other words, people like me: "Being a part of a fraternity, what was the best experience you remember having as part of a fraternity, and what has negatively impacted you about fraternity life?" What was best about fraternity life...that's so easy to answer...the camaraderie, the brotherhood, the many different things that me and my brothers have done over the years, of course the one time that stands out the most was the time that I decided to run for Student Government President. I had already been Inter Greek Senate President, and now I was looking at being a leader in college in a wider audience. There was only one problem, I hated public speaking (some people would say that today, you could never tell, but back then, I did). My fraternity brothers helped me through the "big debate" in the student center (podiums, microphones, stages, about one hundred to one hundred and fifty people in the audience...in other words, nightmare for someone who hates public speaking).

So anyway, the TauDelts were smart, they knew that when I had taken public speaking class, I was taught to speak to the back of the room...so they took all the seats at the very back of the room so I would see them when I looked out into the audience and would be comforted by their presence. It worked, and it was a great demonstration of how fraternity brothers help each other try to do "big, scary things" and support each other through the hard times.

The second part of the question was going to be more difficult. How had fraternity negatively effected me? Lots of different things ran through my mind. What I said, and what I believe, is that the most negative imprint that Greek Life has left in its past is what has probably effected me the most. I'm talking about hazing. I know that whenever you bring that up to a bunch of other Greeks they go, "oh, Man, this topic again," but truthfully, it is the single most negative thing out there for Greek Life. I'm not writing some public service announcement, nor am I trying to get preachy, but we are in 2010...can't we, as Greeks, as fraternity men find a way to prepare our prospectives for membership besides hazing? We are still at a rate where Greeks kill and maim people every year over these activities. Maybe it's just that I'm getting to be an old man, but the stuff that I see passing as new member education in many fraternities oftentimes has no point...and if it did have a point, that point was lost three to seven decades ago...Half the time we don't even realize where the negative stuff started, unless we investigate:

Drop-Offs: Started in the Colonial era and was supposed to be an example of how a team can work together (by the way the first hazing death from a fraternity ever was the result of a drop-off

Paddling: That was a form of discipline used by the university on its students as was a demerit structure, as were greetings, as was half of the stuff out there that Greeks do nowadays.

Branding: That comes from slavery for god sakes, it was the way that one master would demonstrate that he owned another person...

Fraternities and Sororities are in a period of real growth right now, but the only way we are going to sustain that growth is if we finally, once and for all, move away from the "hazardous hazing," the hazing that skids out of control, that causes harm to someone psychologically or physically and that has no real point, and if we move toward meaningful new member education programs that aren't boring, and that are challenging for the new members.

Honestly, I think that hazing is what turns off us older alumni the most. When the events a chapter runs involve hazing...alumni don't want to deal with it or be there (at least the good alumni that you want at your events). We are beyond all that. Subjecting someone to mental and physical cruelty really isn't what I call a good time.

So overall, what was my answer to the question? It was having to be a part of a group of organizations that I knew had the potential to do so much good for the world, but also had the potential to do so much bad as well. That was what negatively effected me the most...having to deal with the dichotomy between what fraternities are supposed to be and what they really are because of the impact of hazing.