As a part of National Hazing Prevention Week, UNF’s Fraternity and Sorority Life is working to raise awareness about the issue, in the hopes of preventing it in the future.

UNF’s Fraternity and Sorority Life spent the week discussing hazing and hosting events aimed toward learning more about it and its negative effects.

Christina Bennet, a Fraternity and Sorority Life student assistant and a member of Alpha Chai Omega, said the department has hosted dinners for faculty and students where they discussed why hazing doesn’t belong in UNF Greek life.

She said they also held public service announcements and Facebook contests..

A recent hazing incident involving the University of Iowa’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter has emphasized the need for awareness and prevention.

The SAE National Office shut down its University of Iowa chapter and expelled its sixty fraternity members Tuesday, due to accusations of hazing, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

John Scorza, president of UNF’s SAE chapter, said the Iowa chapter’s closure is disappointing but necessary.

“Hazing is an outdated practice that needs to be expunged,” Scorza said. “The more people that focus on stopping it, the better off fraternities and sororities will be.”

At UNF, banners created by each fraternity and sorority now hang in the Student Union, all of them centered on this year’s theme: Healthy Ospreys Don’t Haze.

Laura Fox, UNF’s assistant director of Fraternity and Sorority Life, said she agrees with that sentiment.

“When you look at the mission and vision of what fraternities and sororities are supposed to do, it just doesn’t fit,” Fox said. “It tears people down.”

Fox said there are lots of measures in place to prevent hazing at UNF, including the requirement that all departments and members must meet with Student Life, so they can be educated on the negative effects of hazing and what it means.

The Department of Student Affairs also has a section of its website dedicated to hazing prevention, where they include a link to UNF’s strict no-hazing policy and details on how to report a hazing incident.

However, Fox said the best way to stop hazing is to just get people to talking about it in a safe environment.

“There’s times as schools where [they will] sweep a hazing incident under the rug,” Fox said. “I’m not that person. I’m more of a person who would say, ‘let’s talk about it.’”

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