Boulder – An aggressive anti-hazing message was delivered to more than 1,000 members of the University of Colorado’s Greek community who packed into the university’s Macky Auditorium on Monday night.
Just one year after 18-year-old freshman pledge Lynn Gordon “Gordie” Bailey Jr. was found dead from alcohol poisoning in his off-campus fraternity house following a night of heavy drinking, the hour-plus-long program marks a new direction in how CU’s embattled Greek system is ramping up efforts to reform its party image from within.
The presentation, mandatory for CU’s estimated 200 new fall pledges, was sponsored and funded by CU’s Alumni Interfraternity Council and featured a short film about a Massachusetts fraternity member who died of alcohol poisoning in 1997. It was followed by a speech from David Westol, a national expert who lectures on the perils of college drinking and hazing nationwide.
“We need more young men and women to be courageous and stand up and say, ‘This is wrong,”‘ Westol said.
The presentation also was an effort by the Greek community to repair relations with the university. Last spring, CU officials severed ties with its fraternities after all 16 chapters rejected an agreement requiring each house to have a live-in director and to defer rush until January 2006.
The agreement, initiated by the university’s Greek Affairs office and the vice chancellor of student affairs, was meant to combat growing concerns over rampant binge drinking and hazing within CU’s Greek culture.
CU’s sororities and the Multicultural Greek Council both signed the agreement.
“The guys feel they’ve been stepped on by the university,” said Marc Stine, a spokesman hired in August by members of the Alumni Interfraternity Council as a liaison between CU’s Greek community and the university.
“I think this will show the university that we are a responsible community,” said Ryan Lynch, 21, a member Sigma Nu and internal vice president of the Interfraternity Council.
