Alcohol,
Hazing, and Fraternities as Addictive Organizations
©
April 2000 by James C. (Jim) Arnold, Ph.D.
jim@jimarnold.us
Introduction
During the period
of time that I was doing my doctoral research, they called
me "the alcohol man." "They" were the
pledges, members, and friends, of a fraternity on a large
public university campus in the Midwest. Starting in 1991,
and continuing until 1995, I interviewed high-school-age recruits,
pledges, and active members, of the group I called Iota Nu
Sigma (INS, a pseudonym) about their use of alcohol. I also
was present for, and observed close-up, several functions
where alcohol consumption was a focus. As my research progressed,
I became interested, more specifically, in how this fraternity
integrated alcohol into its socialization process, that is,
its pledgeship program. The length of my research and writing
project coincided precisely with the college careers of many
of the respondents in my study. Those newly-recruited pledges,
interviewed in the fall of 1991, were graduating in the spring
of 1995—just as I was defending my dissertation
(Arnold, 1995) and handing in the final copy to my graduate
school’s office. The purposes of this paper are to share a
small portion of my autobiography, to briefly explain how
I conducted this study and, finally, to discuss some of what
I learned. Unfortunately, I don’t believe much has changed
in the last five years, and that the lessons I learned then
still apply today.
Studying College
Fraternities
How did I come
to pursue a research agenda related to fraternity life, student
alcohol use, and hazing? What kind of person does that?
To begin, I must admit that my life's path has not exactly
been a linear one. I have had careers as: a chemist, a professional
photographer, a counselor/therapist, and a college administrator.
Along the way I earned graduate degrees in three rather disparate
fields (organic chemistry, counseling, higher education administration).
It was as a traditional-age college student myself, though,
that my interest in this area began. For the first two years
of my time as an undergraduate, I was just as immersed in
the on- and off-campus parties as I was in the academic life.
Though I studied enough to stay in school, I sometimes "partied"
up to five nights a week; alcohol was my drug of choice. Somewhat
later in life, during the period of time that I was a professional
photographer, I owned a small business specializing in pictures
of fraternity and sorority events. Although these kids were
of a different generation than me, removed geographically
by half a continent, and participating in Greek life (which
I had not), I found the alcohol-saturated college environment
eerily similar to my own undergraduate experience. Sometime
after I left the lifestyle of a party photographer, and had
decided to pursue a degree in counseling, I discovered, much
to my horror, that I was an alcoholic. It was with
this kind of background, including (at that time) over eight
years of sobriety, that I approached, in my forties, a doctoral
program in higher education—during which time I immersed myself
in the topic of college students and alcohol use.
The fraternity
I chose to use as the focus of my dissertation was one of
four that I originally included in the study. I started out
investigating four white male fraternities, two on a large
public campus, two more on a small, private liberal-arts campus.
Two of the groups (one on each campus) were identified as
"responsible" groups (with respect to alcohol use)
by the chief student affairs administrators and Greek advisors,
and two were assessed as "not so responsible" (i.e.,
had recently had disciplinary sanctions imposed in this area).
My initial entry into each group included asking permission
from the national office, contacting the local chapter president,
and making a presentation to the entire membership to enlist
their support. The groups varied in their level of receptivity,
but I eventually got permission from four of the seven fraternities
I approached. Of these, INS was one of the "responsible"
groups and, interestingly, the hardest to "crack"
in terms of breaking down the secrecy barriers.
After three years
with the men of INS, learning about them through interviews,
observing selected events, and analyzing a variety of documents
made available to me, here are some things I can say with
relative certainty—at least about this one group.
The Lessons
of Iota Nu Sigma
Members of
this fraternity used and abused alcohol. I believe
that, when it comes to traditional-aged undergraduates, there
is much evidence to support the thesis that: "college
students drink." Certainly the members of INS did so,
often to excess. Remember, though: INS at that time had been
identified to me as a "responsible" fraternity with
respect to their approach toward alcohol. In fact, the administration
struggled mightily to come up with even one other candidate
on this campus in the "responsible" category, so
highly were the INSs held in esteem. However, little did the
campus officials seem to realize the potential for disaster
that lurked behind the closed doors of INS. As the pledges
and members of this group described for me, over and over
again, the events most significant to them in the fraternity,
it became obvious that alcohol was an integral part of their
life in the organization. Further, they had come to the fraternity
with an expectation of what college life would hold for them.
One person put it this way:
When you think
about going to college, you don’t think about professors
and books. You think about being away from home, the people
you’re going to meet and the parties, and the social life
and the drinking. That’s what you’re really thinking
about.
In INS, when the
pledges and members were asked to comment on the nature of
their "dry rush" and "dry pledgeship"—both
of which were proudly pointed to as reflective of the group’s
values, one respondent talked about the times that pledges
were authorized to drink:
We’ve got a
party called the INS Luau that we have usually in late
September or so, which is just like an island party, basically,
and the pledges are allowed to go to that. They get dates
and are allowed to drink during that. Let’s see, also
we have, dad’s weekend [which] usually falls during pledgeship
and so we usually have a bar for the dads or kegs going.
That’s always a football weekend too, so we’ll have kegs
downstairs before the game and mixed drinks and then also,
later that night, we’ll have casino night with kegs and
mixed drinks. The pledges, they’re allowed to drink downstairs
with us before the game with their dads and with their
dads that night too. And then also during pledgeship,
the biggest thing is probably they get a little party
that we call the pledge dance, which is just one night
out of pledgeship usually after it’s been going on for
a while, where they get their own party. They have a date
party in the house and they just get just really, just
butt wasted and the seniors bartend. They get a couple
of seniors to bar tend for them and it’s just like a stress
reliever.
This respondent
followed up that remark by stating: "and those are probably
the only times [that the pledges drink]." However, as
my investigation showed, there were many more instances of
excessive use of alcohol during their "dry pledgeship"
program.
What I learned
from this group seemed to be, at the very least, consistent
with the findings of other researchers over the years, namely
that members of fraternities have a propensity to not only
use but abuse alcohol (see, e.g., Faulkner, Alcorn, &
Gavin, 1989; Globetti, Stem, Marasco, & Haworth-Hoeppner,
1988; Goodwin, 1990; Hendren, 1988; Presley, Meilman, &
Lyerla, 1993; Tampke, 1990; Wechsler, Kuh, & Davenport,
1996). Members of INS were able to provide, in graphic detail,
evidence of the focus on alcohol in the life of this fraternity
chapter.
Members of
this fraternity routinely engaged in hazing activities.
The president of INS who was my initial contact with
the group, and was my "gatekeeper" for first year
of the study, had also held the office of "pledge educator"
two different years. His view of hazing started from the premise
that:
…obviously,
anytime you want to indoctrinate somebody, the way you
do it is to restrict their food, restrict their sleep,
get them run down and then really emotionally play with
them…
This group presumably
subscribed to the policies of its international organization
and to the principles set forth by the Fraternity Insurance
Purchasing Group (FIPG)—both of which outline explicit rules
prohibiting underage drinking and hazing. INS told
everyone on the outside that they did not engage in hazing
practices, but when left to their own devices, members revealed
to me that hazing was essentially routine. The former pledge
educator/chapter president continues, talking to me after
I’ve inquired about "hazing" activities that I’d
been hearing of:
Yeah "hazing"
is emotionally loaded; it is a very emotionally
loaded word. [But] we still do it, and I hope we always
do it. And there again you talk about responsible. Well
how is it "responsible hazing?" That’s…an oxymoron
whatever you call it… People on the outside don’t understand,
they have no idea, but I think most people on the inside
say it’s not as bad…
Hence, in terms
of the two most controversial and hazardous areas (alcohol
and hazing) for which fraternities are criticized and condemned,
INS showed itself, in this study, to have high disregard for
the safety of its members and even the long-term survival
of the organization. Despite the belief, outlined above, that
the group engages in "responsible hazing," there
is much to be debated about the level of responsibility exercised
by this organization. Mostly, the aura of "responsibility"
that is projected by this group is one that is carefully cultivated
and nurtured. Their reputation is not one that is earned;
their reputation, rather, is "sold". Members do
and say one thing when in the presence of outsiders, but revert
to traditional means of hazing and indoctrinating their pledges
when they are out of sight of campus administrators and fraternity
officials.
Just as INS labels
their hazing as "responsible," many acts of hazing
are often similarly dismissed as "pranks" or "boys
being boys." Additionally, arguments have been made that
often-severe "rites of passage" (van Gennep, 1960)
are routinely practiced by males around the world. Reluctantly,
it seems to me, the fraternity world has come to realize that
hazing is a serious matter—if for no other reason than economic;
lawsuits are very expensive, and a large punitive judgment
may put a national fraternity out of business. The FIPG policies—for
which national fraternities bear responsibility—are quite
explicit in terms of forbidding such behavior. Despite recent
efforts to extinguish such activity, however, hazing practices
remain entrenched. Both my study and the observations of others
(Gose, 1997) support this view. Researchers (e.g., Sweet,
1999) and practitioners alike continue to seek understandings
and explanations for hazing, and perhaps new insights will
eventually lead to improved strategies for combating such
dangerous and unhealthy behavior.
The organizational
dynamic of this fraternity can be explained in terms of an
"addictive organization" framework. One
of the goals of my research was to offer a theoretical framework
that could enrich our understanding of college fraternities.
My first attempt utilized the approach of looking at these
groups as "organizational cultures" (Arnold &
Kuh, 1992; Kuh & Arnold, 1993; Schein, 1992). However,
my exposure to other (unhealthy) organizations, and my life
experience with alcohol, led me ultimately in a different
direction as I was seeking understanding. Having "discovered"
the work of Anne Wilson Schaef, and her book, with Diane Fassel,
on The Addictive Organization (Schaef & Fassel,
1988), I wondered if the theoretical framework she proposed
in that book—as applied to work groups—could apply to a social
organization such as INS. My assessment was, ultimately, that
it was a very good fit.
Schaef and Fassel’s
(1988) way of looking at organizations is based on the hypothesis
that an entire organization may exhibit the traits
of an individual alcoholic or addict. This approach
is quite similar to a body of literature that provides analyses
of family units as "dysfunctional" (e.g., Wegscheider-Cruse,
1981). Although there is no universally agreed-upon definition
of, or list of common characteristics that describe, an alcoholic,
Schaef and Fassel suggest that among the descriptors would
be: control, denial, confusion, dishonesty, perfectionism,
self-centeredness, and ethical deterioration. In Alcohol
and the Chosen Few (Arnold, 1998), I make the case
for the applicability of these characteristics to INS.
For example, if
we think about the terms of "denial" and dishonesty,"
we can begin to understand how those might describe INS as
a group. Here is an argument I’ve previously used in this
regard:
Members are
being dishonest with themselves when they justify hazing
as "fun" or "responsible" behavior,
for example. I do not believe that that "responsible
hazing" rationale was concocted for my benefit. And
recall that [the president/pledge educator] has admitted
that this phrase is an oxymoron. I believe that members…have
convinced themselves that the hazing they do is "mild,"
"responsible," or "really not hazing at
all." Although I’m inclined to agree that abusive
behavior labeled as hazing can lie along a continuum from
mild to harsh, my assessment of such occasions as steam
bath or HP Night [the names of two hazing events] is that
they constitute rather significant hazing experiences.
This is consistent with the Fraternity Executives Association,
which defines (Nuwer, 1990, p. 25) hazing as "…any
action taken or situation created, intentionally, whether
on or off fraternity premises, to produce mental or physical
discomfort, embarrassment, harassment, or ridicule."
INS members, virtually uniformly, report feeling fearful,
intimidated and/or degraded on such evenings. Additionally,
INS members are also lying to themselves when they say
that both rush and pledgeship are "dry." The
numerous examples of alcohol use during both rush and
pledgeship indicate that they clearly are not (Arnold,
1998, pp. 207-208).
If one accepts
the hypothesis that INS (and groups like them) can be accurately
described by an addictive organization model, then perhaps
the ingrained, dysfunctional behaviors of the group can be
better understood. The continuing central importance of alcohol
to the group can be compared to an individual alcoholic/addict
seeking the next "fix." And the perpetuation of
hazing practices and rituals—which go on, as does alcohol
use after many educational and intervention attempts—fit into
the "ethical deterioration" characteristic of an
addictive organization. It is my belief that hazing is abusive
and wrong—and only an organization whose ethical and
moral foundation had significantly eroded could permit such
activity to exist.
Conclusion
In this paper,
first I shared small portions of my autobiography to introduce
my research in the area of college students and alcohol use.
In essence, my study was an "interpretive" one,
an approach that Denzin (1989, p. 12) describes as "beginning
and ending with the biography and self of the researcher."
Then, I outlined three primary areas that the study addressed:
use and abuse of alcohol in the fraternity; the organization’s
views and practices with regard to hazing; and, finally, an
analysis of this group as an "addictive organization."
Although it might be tempting to view this study as "dated,"
I doubt that it is. From the latest research on student binge
drinking to appear in scholarly journals, and the attention
given to hazing "pranks" and deaths by the media,
to Hank Nuwer’s (1999; 2000) two recent books about hazing,
these topics, like the behaviors of college students, seem
to be timeless.
Jim Arnold received his Ph.D. in higher education administration from Indiana University. His dissertation explores the topics of hazing and alcohol in a college fraternity. He currently is employed by the College of Marin ( Kentfield , CA ) as the Dean of Math & Sciences. Comments may be addressed to him at jim@jimarnold.us . (Visit his website at http://jimarnold.us and his blog at http://technomonksmusings.com .)
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