WVII, WABI cover hazing prevention summit at UMaine
WVII (Channel 7) and WABI (Channel 5) covered the hazing prevention summit at the University of Maine June 13 and 14. Representatives from six schools across the country and UMaine met to assess the efforts of each institution to prevent hazing, and to see which strategies are more effective. The other universities involved are Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Oregon and the University of Texas at Austin. The group concluded that more than half of students who belong to a club, organization or team have been hazed, and that research on hazing is limited, WABI reports. A recent UMaine study shows that hazing is not restricted to Greek life organizations. “We have national data. It’s happening in athletics. It’s happening in honor societies and performing arts organizations … So it just depends on the campus, but it’s more widespread,” Elizabeth Allan, a professor of higher education at UMaine, told WVII. “There isn’t a simple one-size-fits-all solution,” Allan told WABI. “We’re really working to understand, to tease out some of these complexities and to analyze the problem in such a way that we can develop more effective solutions.”