Study: Hazing widespread

It turns out members of the college marching band have more in common with athletes than the color of their uniforms.

Students from both groups told researchers that drinking games were the most popular form of hazing they experienced at college.

The findings, culled from surveys of almost 1,800 students at four New England schools, come from a recently published pilot study on hazing by a pair of University of Maine professors.

The pilot study, published last week, was the first phase of a nationwide survey on college hazing that will identify participants by social group, from athletes to "Greeks" and recreational club members.

Few students at the New England colleges said they knew their school's policy on initiation rites, or where to turn for help if hazed, according to the report.

"We need to find better ways to help support students (who report hazing)," said Dr. Elizabeth Allan, a UMaine assistant professor of higher educational leadership. "There's a lot of fear around that."

Allan and fellow UMaine researcher Mary Madden posted the results of their pilot study last week on their Web site, www.hazingstudy.org.

The national study, scheduled to continue early next year, comes at a time when news reports of violent and humiliating initiation rites for new members of sports teams and clubs at high schools and colleges make national news.

Northwestern University briefly suspended its entire women's soccer team in May after photos of initiation rites appeared on the Web site www.badjocks.com.

In Maine, Husson College officials revoked Mu Sigma Chi's fraternity charter in 2004 after a pledge complained he and others were ordered to drink urine.

Allan said she hopes the study will give college administrators guidance in their efforts to reduce hazing, a tough issue to address not only because students sometimes fear reporting their peers to authorities, but also because students and authorities have a different understanding of what constitutes hazing.

One in every 20 students who participated in the survey told researchers he or she had been hazed. More than 20 percent, however, reported participating in activities consistent with the researchers' definition of hazing as "any activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them regardless of a person's willingness to participate."

Allan said students often don't consider the impact of peer pressure on decision-making, though most anti-hazing policies take group coercion into account.

"They'll often provide an example (of hazing) that uses physical force," she said of the study's participants, some of whom were interviewed face-to-face in addition to the online survey.

Allan said news coverage of violent or sexual hazing may have skewed students' perception of the activity. Students reported sexual, violent or humiliating acts in the study, but at a lower rate than activities involving alcohol.

The disconnect caught the eye of University of Maine System Vice Chancellor Elsa Nunez.

Nunez said administrators need to explain better to students what activities policymakers consider hazing if universities are going to address the problem.

"They brush it off because nothing bad happened to them. It is still, nonetheless, hazing," she said.

Nunez said the university system has a no-tolerance policy on hazing. A number of the state's private colleges also have similar policies, and Maine has an anti-hazing law that covers public schools.

She said administrators should incorporate information about hazing and initiation rites into freshman workshops on alcohol and drugs.

Nancy Frick said the early results suggest college administrators should approach students before freshman year to address skewed perceptions of hazing. Another one of the pilot study's findings was that although one in 20 students admitted they were hazed in college, one in 10 said they were hazed during high school.

"It's a cultural thing. It begins much before college," said Frick, executive director of the North American Interfraternal Foundation, one of the groups sponsoring the study.

Allan and Madden want to collect 20,000 survey responses from participants at 40 colleges and universities across the country for the national study. The $250,000 project is sponsored by a group made up primarily of people representing college sports teams and Greek organizations.

About 86 percent of the 1,789 who answered the 70-question, Web-based pilot study survey were white, and two-thirds were women.

Allan said men's and women's groups tend to haze differently. Women often force new group members to endure appearance-associated trials, while men tend to be more physical, so it will be important to get more gender equity in the national study if the researchers want to paint a clearer picture of overall trends, she said.

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