Pace joined the National Hazing Prevention Week for the fifth consecutive year last week to prevent hazing on campus,. Organizations participated by hosting activities and events to raise awareness about the dangers of hazing.

Hazing is an infamous phenomenon that several nationwide organizations like athletics, fraternities, and sororities have taken a part of at colleges and universities around the U.S. Throughout time, there have been many cases of individuals who plan to join these kinds of organizations becoming mentally and physically traumatized due to hazing. Acts that can be used to abuse rookies to teams or organizations can range from running “alcohol miles” to simply using seniority power to be condescending towards new coming members of the affiliations.

“As a swimmer, I’ve never experienced hazing within my team or any that I’ve been in. I’ve heard about hazing from other people at different schools. Being a part of a new team is hard enough, so I can’t even imagine being hazed on top of that. I think it’s stupid to bully someone just because they’re new to a team. We try to do team bonding over the weekends and try to hang out all together. We do this to make the freshmen, along with others, be more included and feel comfortable in the team,” said sophomore swimmer, Paula Hernandez .

Throughout the week, different organizations like Lambda Upsilon Lambda and Pace’s Student Government shared facts and spoke out against hazing. On Wednesday, Pace asked teams, Greek Life and other organizations alike to post Instagram pictures or videos encouraging students to speak out against hazing. Phi Sigma Sigma won a $300 prize for their organization in a photo contest by posting a picture with the hashtag #BlueOutHazing on social media and getting the most “likes.”

“I think that hazing defeats the purpose of joining any organization or team. If you need to be forced to do anything degrading or dangerous to join something, then there clearly aren’t any solid expectations of professionalism in that organization or team. [Phi Sigma Sigma] participated by having a tabling event to bring awareness to National Hazing Prevention Week. We had paper hands that said ‘these hands don’t haze’ and we had people take pictures with them to promote this week. We also made a video with all of our sisters on the effects of hazing and why we don’t do it. We participated and won the social media contest for National Hazing Prevention Week,” said senior, Jennifer Appel.

The goal was to avoid harming newcomers of teams and organizations. Pace student life works on welcoming its new students in the “best ways possible.” Freshmen and transfer students are introduced to Pace by being welcomed to a new residence hall, a convocation ceremony, and to multiple events and activities the first 50 days of school. The National Hazing Prevention Week is another way Pace works on welcoming new students to its organizations. If hazing were present in any of Pace’s teams or clubs, it would not be tolerated according to the figure heads of the athletics and student life programmers.