Greek Village isn't at all what C. Edward Floyd remembers it was when it first started — it isn't at all what he remembers.
And according to Floyd, a USC trustees, it's hazing that's brought about this change in USC's culture.
Floyd said hazing has become “absolutely absurd” on USC’s campus and puts Greek life in jeopardy at the university.
“If we don’t do something about this, we’re going to have some big trouble,” he said. “And I think we ought to take a public stance that we are absolutely against it.”
Floyd believes the physical aspects of hazing are seen as the only form. For him, it is not just the physical activities regarding hazing that should be called into question, but the mental strains that can be put on a student as well.
“I think we need to pass a resolution that as a rule at the university, there is no hazing,” he suggested at the board meeting on Friday.
An estimate of 55 percent of college students have been involved in some sort of hazing, according studies conducted by Elizabeth Allan and Mary Madden, professor at the University of Maine. According to the study, 95 percent of the cases where students identified their experience as hazing, they did not report the events to campus officials.
USC has now suspended four fraternities for hazing, but Floyd and others on the board of trustees believe that it is not enough.
Although Floyd’s stance was largely directed at fraternity life, Leah Moody, another member of the executive board, felt strongly that this was something that was happening in the university’s sorority life as well.
“They might be doing it, they’re just doing it a different way,” Moody said.
Student Body President Lindsay Richardson voiced the need that she saw for every member of the USC community to commit themselves to ending hazing.
“I think it’s very relevant on our campus, regardless if you’re affiliated with a greek organization or not, you do see it on the campus,” she said.
Richardson told the board that she felt strongly that it needed to be an effort made by the entire Carolina community to help report instances of hazing, whether it be a friend or a peer.
Currently, USC has a hazing policy that was put into place on June 1, 1992 and was most recently revised on Aug. 10, 2010. There is also a South Carolina state law against hazing, making South Carolina one of 44 states with an anti-hazing law.
The draft of the hazing policy from the board detailed that the Board of Trustees reaffirmed that hazing was “inconsistent with the Carolinian Creed and the values and campus community standards at the University of South Carolina.”
“It’s a matter of changing the culture,” Dennis Pruitt, the vice president for student affairs, vice provost and dean of students, said. “We’ve been on a three year effort to try and address this. Some successful, some not successful.”
Floyd thinks that this resolution will be an even more concrete way of reaching the student body regarding the university’s anti-hazing policies.