Eileen Stevens: A Tribute and a Thank You

by Hank Nuwer

Every journalist comes to trust certain sources because in interview after interview they display integrity, honesty, and fairness—even when they are talking about those who may have wounded them. Eileen Stevens was such a source for me, as I wrote about her attempts to gain answers after the death of her son, Chuck Stenzel, in an Alfred University Tapping Night (opening night of pledging) on February 24, 1978.

Writing 25 years after that event, I still can’t fully comprehend all that Eileen lost that night, but as the father now of two sons, I know I could not have shown the courage she displayed had I lost one in a hazing incident.

My research showed me that Chuck was smart, athletic, and generous-spirited. Inspired by a charismatic and devoted Alfred professor of history, he hoped to one day become a teacher himself. If all that had worked out to plan, he would be middle-aged himself now, perhaps a mentor to many other young people who shared his love for learning and adventure. Almost certainly he would be married and a father and a caring citizen, coming back to his mother’s table Sundays and holidays to light up the room with his smile and dry wit.

But Chuck died a horrible death that night, literally poisoned by ethanol at a Klan Alpine event that was referred to in the New York Times and other papers as a “party”—a term that seemed most inappropriate to the rituals that actually went on. Two other pledges were rescued that night, or it would have been a triple tragedy. Many lives were altered by Chuck’s death. Then-AU President Richard Rose, given bad advice by attorneys he once told me, shut Eileen out when she came to Alfred to claim her son’s body. Worse, Alfred promised an investigation and performed one in most slipshod fashion, according to several Klan Alpine members I interviewed. A local prosecuting attorney promised an investigation, and he failed to interview any of the young men with Chuck in his final minutes. While Rose was contrite and regretful when I interviewed him, the prosecuting attorney (at the time a New York judge) ordered me to leave his office when I approached him. Worse, an entire thick file on the Stenzel case was removed or destroyed from an evidence shelf, preventing any reporter from obtaining details essential to that night.

It is certainly almost a cliché when the mother of a victim takes some action so that her child “won’t have died in vain,” but that’s precisely what Eileen Stevens did.

Her “crusade,” as several reporters called it, started out as an attempt to gain answers to exactly what happened to her son that night. She eventually learned much, but not all, of what happened to her son that night. Many Klan Alpine members and pledges alike were intoxicated that night he died, and there were conflicting claims and an early cover up. Incredibly, some AU administrators at the time tried to smear her, and these documents they sent out to Alfred faculty and staff (and to reporters and talk-show hosts) were a textbook case of horrible public-relations practices.

But over time, many at Alfred had a change of heart, and succeeding administrations have tried to make amends. Alfred University researchers Nadine Hoover and Norm Pollard conducted important research into collegiate hazing. The school invited Eileen to talk and presented her with an honorary doctorate. The school faced a football hazing incident and the still-open case of a Zeta Beta Tau member’s death with far more openness than it had displayed in 1978. Several members of Klan Alpine who partook in those fatal Tapping Night rituals cooperated fully with me as I researched Chuck’s death for my book, “Broken Pledges,” now long out of print. Significantly, an older Klan alum named Richard Sigal, a sociologist, became a nationally known, outspoken opponent of hazing. Numerous Alfred faculty members, administrators and alums (including Sigal and other Klan alumni) cooperated fully with me for the writing of Broken Pledges, and their theories regarding hazing behaviors in Klan have been cited in numerous scholarly, medical and legal journals.

Without question, the most amazing internal and external changes took place in Eileen herself. A housewife at the time of Chuck’s death, she trained herself to become an orator and started CHUCK, the Committee to Halt Useless College Killings. She took her message in speeches delivered at hundreds of colleges, and dozens of fraternities and sororities at their summer conclaves. She worked with the National Interfraternity Conference, the National PanShe patiently answered the questions of hundreds of journalists, including literally thousands of questions from me in the 1980s for the eventual publication of “Broken Pledges.” She told me that if she even saved just one person from Chuck’s end, all her work would be worth it. While there is no way of documenting how many lives her work has saved, and how many scared members called 911 instead of letting an intoxicated pledge sleep it off forever, it is possible to document the enormous effect she has had on the passage of anti-hazing laws in New York, New Jersey, and many other states.

I am writing this on February 23, 2003. I am still a journalist but writing about environmental issues these days, not hazing. The work I now do on hazing is for Indiana University Press as a scholar, working with other scholars, to get at the root causes of hazing, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed assisting numerous young doctoral students with their work on hazing in recent years. Because I no longer interview Eileen as a source, I can see her now (and appreciate her) as a grandmother, a trusted colleague, and a friend. Reader’s Digest used to run articles on my most unforgettable character. In my life, she would be that one person—only I see her as a person of character—and not a character.

I’ll close with some quotations from a few of the people who have been touched by Eileen and her work over the last few years. If you have a quote of your own to add, please use the Fraternity Discussion board on Stophazing.org to express yourself.

And, most important of all, please take a moment to think and reflect how the death of Chuck Stenzel, and all others who have lost their lives due to hazing, has deprived the world and their families of so much joy, promise, and accomplishment. RIP, Chuck.