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6 U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER
News Features NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1988
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1988 Student Body
U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPEF
HAING:M
F-
C
How far will students go
in search of acceptance?
A persistent wave of hazing inci-
dents over the past decade - some
of them fatal - has prompted indi-
vidual group, university and state
leaders to enforce anti-hazing poli-
cies. Will what some consider a rite
of passage soon become a federal
crime?
Greek leaders
reinforce laws
to stop hazing
By Junda Woo
The Daily Texan
U. of Texas, Austin
A district president for Tau
Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity
has been praised for bringing to
light a hazing incident and set-
ting an example for the crack-
down on hazing.
Jay Bohner, the fraternity's
district president for Texas and
Oklahoma, said he discovered
members had led pledges to think
they would have to drink a dis-
tasteful concoction and teased
them with questions that had no
correct answers. He alerted U. of
Texas (UT) administrators, and
the fraternity was placed on prob-
ation because of the incident.
Bohner's action was praised by
TKE chapter officials on campus
and marks the first time a
fraternity adviser has initiated a
UT hazing investigation.
"It speaks really well of our
fraternity and shows how hard
we're trying to fight it (hazing),"
said chapter Vice President Dar-
ryn Finn.
"What we're trying to do is get
the whole thing stopped," said
Finn, a business junior. "Every-
thing that we can do to help, we
will."
Bohner said he reported the in-
cident, which he characterized as
"mild," to set an example.
"It's a cyclical thing, it gets
worse every year," Bohner said.
"Hazing undoes all the good soror-
ities and fraternities do."
Bohner said the chapter will
submit details of its fall rush
plans to the university and insti-
tute a new, workshop-oriented
program for pledges.
Fii ~2~hm2Iflf ~h~aa~Heisman
Program eases tensio by accInmatficniathletes nhe y Toage2
By Kevin Blocker ity, with a pair of Los Angeles guns li
ByKeioBlckl------ ----"The beneficiaries of this program ing the way. Troy Aikman was the o)
Colorado Daily o will be this year's freshman class. whelming pick, leading UCLA to an
U. of Colorado The whole idea is to provide positive pressive start, but a cross-town-q
U. of Colorado (CU) athletes will minority role models - male and terback named Rodney Peete could
receive some additional advice about female - for our athletes, in order to sent a problem after the two mee
how to cope with student life under a 1 build a cultural identity leading to their annual Pac-10 showdown.
program proposed by the CU Athle- self-esteem for the individual," he Barry Sanders was probably the
tic Department.<said. name people thought of as this ye
After a difficult year, in which o Gregory sees an improvement in running back contender for the F
players often received more publicity CU's image on the horizon, with help man, but the junior has run away f
for off-field incidents - such as a coming from support groups. the competition and into the spotl
arrests for assault and other misde- "We're not an outlaw football prog- as a top contender.
meanors - than for their play, they ram, contrary to what outsiders be- Lost in the quarterback shuffle
department is taking steps to im. Theo Gregory lieve," he said. "We have one of the been Steve Walsh. The overachie
prove athletes "acculturation" into have expressed frustrations about best academic programs and athletic senior has exceeded expectations, w1
the student body, said Theo Gregory, isolation and racism on CU's campus departments in the Big Eight, if not continuing the Hurricanes' traditic
the department's academic coordi- and in Boulder. To help ease these the entire country. I'm optimistic good air attacks.
nator. frustrations, the athletic depart- that a lot of the bad news that has Florida State running back Sam-
Black athletes have been the sub- ment is trying to create a faculty- plagued us in the past is just that - Smith also regained some Heisi
ject ofmuch of the controversy. Many staff mentor program. in the past." hope after surviving a nightma
start at Miami.
Deaths draw attention to national problem
By Robert Frank
Pipe Dream
State U. of New York, Binghamton
On September 17, 1986, Mark
Seeberger was taken on a "ride."
According to sworn testimony, the 18-
year-old U. of Texas, Austin freshman
was handcuffed with two other fraterni-
ty pledges to the roof of a van and
ordered to drink 18 ounces of rum with
his free hand. Instead of dropping him
off and letting him find his way back as
planned, he was taken back to his dorm
room.
He was dead in the morning.
In February, an 18-year-old Rutgers
freshman pledge died after being
ordered to drink until he was sick.
Over the past 10 years, 43 hazing
deaths have been reported. University
officials, parents and state legislatures
are coming to realize that the "silly and
dangerous" things students do to gain
acceptance into fraternities are becom-
ing a national crisis.
Whether hazing has recently in-
creased is unclear. No accurate records
were kept until 1978, and there is no
central reporting office. Also, many haz-
ing injuries and deaths go unnoticed be-
cause fraternity and sorority members
must adhere to a "conspiracy of silence."
Fraternity spokespeople say, howev-
er, that "hazing" is not what fraternities
are about. Building character, forging
friendships and charity projects are the
"root" goals of Greek groups, they say.
Hazing cases are isolated and some
argue, that with 400,000 students now
in Greek societies, the number of hazing
deaths is comparatively small.
Not everyone agrees. "We are associ-
ated with primitive barbarity, savagery
and torture," said Dr. Frederick Ker-
shner, a past president of Delta Tau
Delta fraternity and former professor at
Columbia University, N.Y.
In addition to Greek and university
policies, 29 states now have anti-hazing
laws, and there is a move in Washington
to make hazing a federal crime.
Much of the success in drawing atten-
tion to hazing practices and lobbying for
legislation can be attributed to Eileen
Stevens, a Sayville, N.Y. woman whose
son died of acute alcohol poisoning dur-
ing a hazing incident in 1978. While
locked in a car trunk, her son Chuck
Stenzel, a student at Alfred College,
was ordered to drink a pint of whiskey, a
fifth of wine and a six pack of beer.
Stevens' Committee to Halt Useless
College Killings (CHUCK) has been the
most successful special interest forum
in fighting the hazing battle.
She emphasized that hazing is not
accidental and can be avoided. "I'm not
anti-Greek, or anti-fraternity. I'm anti-
hazing," she said.
Hazing is defined as anything that
causes physical or mental discomfort or
embarrassment, including forced eat-
ing or drinking, excessive fatigue or
humiliating public acts. The practice
dates back to the 17th-century Euro-
pean concept of "making the new stu-
dent pay for being inexperienced," said
Jonathan Brant, executive director of
the National Interfraternity Council.
Now universities are paying the price
as well. The parents of a young man
killed in a 1986 U. of South Carolina
incident were recently awarded
$250,000 from the university.
Seeberger's parents are seeking $40
million in punitive damages from the U.
of Texas, Austin and the national chap-
ter of the fraternity he was pledging.
This surge in lawsuits in which univer-
sities can be named has caused schools
to disassociate themselves from Greek
societies. Colby, Amherst and Williams
have altogether banned fraternities
from their campuses.
Yet banning Greek groups does not
seem to be a working solution to the
problem of hazing. The reasonable solu-
tion seems to be enforcing strict policies
within the groups and holding up anti-
hazing fraternities as examples.
"Students are starting to realize how
stupid hazing is," said Kevin Walker,
vice president of Pi Kappa, a newly
chartered fraternity at the U. of Texas,
Austin. "Hopefully, soon, they are just
not going to put up with it anymore."
Skating
Continued From Page 25
felt it the next day."
Rex Albertson, the club's coach and a
competitor in the 1980 U.S. Olympic
Trials, guides club members through
two dry-land workouts and two skating
sessions per week.
The more dedicated members also
take regular runs up nearby Flagstaff
Mountain and lift weights twice a week.
Such is the stuff big thighs are made of.
The training has paid off this year for
two ofAlbertson's pupils. Chantal Dunn
and Patrick Hannon took time off school
this semester to train in Calgary in
hopes of making the U.S. national team.
Although the CU club is fairly popu-
lar, with about 25 members, the sport as
a whole "has been on a decline for a long,
long time," Albertson said. In the early
part of the decade, there were only 800
registered speed skaters in the country,
a far cry from the 1920s when there
were about 20,000.
The sport is slowly coming back,
Albertson said, but there's "not a lot of
recruitment." That the U.S. has pro-
duced so many Olympic medals from
such a small pool is "phenomenal," he
said.
"The program (at CU) is for anyone
interested in learning to skate," Albert-
son said. "In fact, we prefer rookies.
Then we don't have to break bad
habits."
Caffeine
Continued From Page 25
during exam time. "We sell about six
cartons in six weeks normally," he said.
"But during exams we can sell 20 or
more cartons in three days."
Caffeine pills shouldrbe perfectly safe
as long as large doses are not taken, said
Gail Levey, research director for the
American Dietary Institute. But no one
has researched the pros and cons of tak-
ing the pills, she added.
"These pills will keep you awake, but
they also make you jittery, which can
make it hard to study," Levey said.
A person interested in using the pills
should try them on a normal day before
using them in pressure situations,
Levey said.
People with medical conditions
should stay away from Vivarin and
NoDoz, Levey said. Instead of pills, she
prescribed studying in advance to cure
any worries about having to use the pro-
ducts for exam-cramming purposes.