For years, colleges, universities, fraternities, sororities, athletic programs, and other organizations have worked to prevent hazing. There are policies, educational programs, reporting systems, and consequences. Students are told that hazing is dangerous and harmful. Yet hazing continues to happen. That raises an important question: What are we missing?
Charge for Change: Building Safer Campuses Now with Research-Informed Hazing Prevention, developed by Penn State’s Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research, encourages us to think more broadly about that question. Drawing on more than two decades of scholarship and recent research, the resource frames hazing as a preventable, systemic issue and calls for coordinated and sustained approaches to prevention.
At its core, the message is fairly simple: If we want different results, we have to do more than tell people not to haze. We have to understand and address the conditions that allow hazing to happen in the first place.
Hazing Isn’t Just About “Bad Organizations”
Hazing happens within groups, organizations, and larger campus cultures. Traditions, peer pressure, the desire to belong, expectations about “earning” membership, alcohol use, power differences, and silence from others can contribute to an environment where hazing is more likely to occur. Charge for Change approaches hazing as a complex social and public health issue and encourages institutions to consider both individuals and the environments around them.
Instead of only asking why organizational members chose to haze someone, we should also ask what made that behavior seem acceptable or normal within the group and the high school or campus community. What about the culture said this was okay? What traditions had been passed down? Did members feel comfortable challenging them? Were coaches, advisors, staff, and student leaders paying attention? Those questions help us better understand the conditions that can allow hazing to continue.
Education Matters, But It Can’t Stand Alone
Students need to understand what hazing looks like, recognize its potential harm, know how to intervene, and know where to report concerns. But education is more effective when the environment around students reinforces what they have learned.
Consider a student who completes a hazing prevention program and then joins a team or organization where older members say, “This is just how we do things,” or “Everyone before you had to do it.” The student is receiving two very different messages. A training program says hazing isn’t acceptable, while the group and campus they want to belong to suggests that it is.
That is why Charge for Change emphasizes comprehensive prevention rather than relying on one program or strategy. Leadership, policies, education, data, organizational practices, and other prevention efforts should work together.
Prevention Starts Before an Incident
Too often, organizations become intensely focused on hazing after something goes wrong. There may be an investigation, disciplinary action, new policies, additional education, or increased oversight. Those responses may be necessary, but they happen after hazing has already occurred and potentially after someone has been harmed.
Prevention asks what we can do before an incident happens. That includes examining community and group environments, paying attention to warning signs, strengthening leadership, providing alternatives to hazing, using data to guide decisions, and creating environments where people feel comfortable speaking up.
It also means recognizing why students join groups. They are looking for friendship, connection, leadership opportunities, shared experiences, and a sense of belonging. We don’t want to eliminate those experiences. We want teams and organizations to create them without humiliation, coercion, fear, or harm.
There Is No Single Solution
One of the most important lessons from Charge for Change is that there isn’t one program, policy, or presentation that will “solve” hazing. Effective prevention requires multiple approaches working together.
That can include clear policies and accountability, meaningful education, engaged coaches and advisors, bystander intervention, accessible reporting options, assessment and data, positive group-building activities, and support from leadership. Instead of viewing hazing prevention as a checklist of separate activities, campuses can consider how those efforts work together as a larger prevention system.
Moving from Compliance to Prevention
The federal Stop Campus Hazing Act established new requirements for colleges and universities related to hazing transparency and prevention, including a requirement for research-informed, campus-wide hazing prevention programming. (Stop Campus Hazing Act, 2024)
Meeting those requirements is important, but compliance should be a starting point rather than the ultimate goal. The larger question is whether our efforts are actually changing behavior and creating safer environments for students.
That may be the most useful takeaway from Charge for Change. Don’t just have a hazing policy; make sure people understand and follow it. Don’t just provide hazing education; reinforce that education through leadership and culture. Don’t just respond when hazing occurs; work to reduce the likelihood that it happens in the first place.
Hazing is preventable, but prevention requires more than telling students that hazing is wrong. It requires intentionally creating teams, organizations, and campus communities where students can build friendships, develop as leaders, experience meaningful traditions, and feel that they belong – without being humiliated or harmed to earn their place. 💜
About the author(s):
Todd Shelton is executive director of the Hazing Prevention Network, with 20+ years working with college students and eight years focused on hazing prevention, education, and advocacy, including efforts to advance state and federal legislation.
Stevan J. Veldkamp, Ed.D., is Executive Director of the Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research at Penn State. With more than 30 years in higher education, he advances evidence-informed strategies to prevent hazing, dangerous drinking, and other harms. His work focuses on creating safer, healthier campus communities through research, education, and organizational change. He holds a doctorate from Indiana University.
