By Gillian Taylor | Staff Writer
Baylor’s Interfraternity Council (IFC) hosted various events and profit-shares to bring awareness to the dangers of hazing during National Hazing Prevention Week’s 15th anniversary.
HazingPrevention.Org led events during the week of Sept. 19 and provided an opportunity for universities nationwide to highlight the harms of hazing while helping them advocate against it.
Beto Vasquez, vice president of spiritual leadership and service for the IFC, said this week, the council hoped to spread the message that hazing is not mandatory for fraternities. He also said it does not help fraternity brothers grow closer together.
“Hazing can be life-threatening, but it is also just very demoralizing,” Vasquez said. “It honestly just puts people through so many mental health issues.”
Vasquez said before the 12 international fraternities that are chartered at Baylor welcomed their new members on Tuesday, the IFC met with them to discuss Baylor’s policies for hazing and the Texas legislation.
Garrett Miller, external vice president of IFC, said that each year, this meeting is mandatory for new fraternity members to attend the day before they receive their bid. He also said they discuss various resources for mental health and hazing, which could be helpful for their future in the fraternity.
To help publicize the week, Vasquez said the IFC had a table on Baylor’s campus with the phrase “these hands don’t haze,” and it partnered with Baylor Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) to hold a profit-share. The money raised went toward student scholarships.
Vasquez said Baylor has a stringent policy on hazing, which helps limit the amount seen in the university’s fraternities, but it often doesn’t stop it altogether. He said there are currently fraternities in trouble because of hazing incidents.
Vasquez said the dangers of hazing go beyond just making a member do something they don’t want to do; he said oftentimes, an individual has no other option but to drop his fraternity.
Miller said the purpose of a fraternity is to improve the lives of the brothers they interact with, but hazing is “counter-intuitive to that goal.”
Through National Hazing Prevention Week, Miller said he hopes the Baylor student body realizes that hazing isn’t just an issue at the national level but that it’s also happening within this community. He said the IFC is actively taking steps to combat hazing and improve the brotherhoods at Baylor.
