Email tip leads to hazing investigation

Last Thursday evening, Apr. 19, an anonymous email was sent to the Office of the Dean of Student Life reporting hazing activities that have been occurring and will be coming in the near future. As a result, all sororities and fraternities on campus are currently under investigation by Dean of Student Life Susan Boswell, Associate Dean Dorothy Sheppard and Director of Student Activities Rob Turning.
"It really is just a gathering of information," Turning said. "So myself, Dean Sheppard, Dean Boswell, we are kind of involved in this. And we had very little information to go on because there just wasn't much information other than hazing was occurring. Period. That's kind of like all they gave us. So that's really what we were able to react to."
The following Friday, Turning sent an email to the chapter presidents, as well as new members and pledges of all the on-campus Greek organizations in response to the report.
"The Office of the Dean of Student Life has received information from parents about hazing activities that have happened and that are planned in the near future. Dean Susan Boswell, Associate Dean Dorothy Sheppard and I will be investigating these allegations immediately," the email stated.
Attached to the email was a list that outlined some actions that were considered hazing including but not limited to: "Deprivation of privileges granted to other members", "Requiring new members/pledges to perform duties not assigned to other members", "Socially isolating new members/pledges", "Name calling", "Expecting certain items to always be in one's possession (i.e. matches, coins, condoms, lighters, etc.)", "Expecting new members/pledges to perform personal service to other members such as carrying books, errands, cooking, cleaning etc" and "Sleep deprivation."
Turning emphasized that the single report they received was extremely vague and that it will be difficult to target one specific group due to the lack of information.
"We're not even sure from the email that we received if it was a fraternity or a sorority," Turning said.
The person reporting the incidents of hazing expressed that they wished to be anonymous and did not reveal his or her identity to the Office of Student Life.
"With the very limited information we had, we didn't really have any identifiable information for one particular group. We are not even sure that it was a parent [who sent the report]. We're assuming that the email address that it came from wasn't their standard email address. We are pretty sure it was an email address they had created to make this report," Turning said.
Turning said in a later conversation that the only indication that the person who reported was a parent was that the email referred to the victim as their "child" and "student." Although hazing on campus is something to take very seriously, Turning is optimistic and sees this email as responsible and a strong attempt against hazing.
"The good thing about this is that I would consider it to be a proactive email in that they said they said things were going to occur, they weren't sure what. It was probably no more than three or four sentences long. Hopefully this particular investigation will conclude because these hazes will not occur," he said.
The investigation, which started this past Monday, will be examining all Greek organizations on campus. If caught hazing its pledges, the consequences could range from a formal warning from the University to expulsion of the group or affiliated individuals.
"Hopefully, the intelligent students that are the presidents of these organizations receive that email and understood that this could be something that they could go to the conduct board for and this is something that not only could their organization get throw off campus but they could be personally held responsible as president of the organization. . .So the presidents definitely have some stake in making sure the hazing doesn't occur," Turning said.
As the investigations continue, Turning says the Office of Student Life has been able to eliminate certain organizations based on their initiation date. A fraternity or sorority without any more pledges to haze most likely did not trigger the report.
"We were able to, obviously, eliminate some groups from consideration," Turning said. "SAE was one of the groups that would have been eliminated because they initiated their new members over two weeks ago. So we were fairly reasonably assured it wasn't SAE because they've been brothers for two weeks now. The four Panhellenic sororities have been initiated for probably over three weeks now, so we were eliminating groups as we went along because we knew that their pledge programs had ended and their new members had been initiated."
Although initiation may typically be the time for hazing, initiation dates are not the only clues to when and where hazing is occurring on campus. When The News-Letter brought this up, Turning agreed.
"I guess there is [the possibility of hazing post-initiation]," Turning said. "If somehow they're thinking that initiating them into the brotherhood or sisterhood you know through the national organization and then they're hazing them. Hazing is hazing whenever it happens."
The Office of Student Life has also received help from Hopkins security and off-duty Baltimore police that watch the campus. They have been given the list of actions considered to be hazing and will also be watching out for more information.
While all of Hopkins-affiliated Greek life is in question, some fraternities have little concern over the investigation.
"We know hazing is illegal. It's a pity they're looking into it for so long, and hopefully it's not a problem on our campus and no one's been hurt. But no one here is concerned. We don't really see any negative consequences because we don't haze. So there's really nothing," sophomore Elias Rosenblatt, President of Alpha Epsilon Pi, said.