Hazing Prevention Resources

Findings and Reports for Policymakers and Practitioners

We produce findings, reports, and guides that students, professionals, and volunteers can use to create stronger and safer fraternities and sororities.  How we move from identifying the problem to creating chapter, community, and cultural change is critical to the future of fraternity and sorority life. Our results leverage positive change.

Guides to curb and prevent hazing

The following resources are aimed at quality hazing prevention that will reduce the number and severity of incidents and increase student safety and wellbeing. Together, we can work towards a safer and more respectful community.

• Piazza Center Horizontal Campus Hazing Model
  The explanatory hazing model is a comprehensive view of the interplay of individuals’ engagement in hazing, intergroup dynamics, and group relationships in communities. The model is an organizing principle of the  below monograph.  Practitioners can use the model to inform prevention and interventions.

• How to Use the Horizontal Hazing Model in Prevention
  This guide supports campus-based and organizational professionals and volunteers to think about and apply the model at the individual, organizational, and community levels.

• Employing Situational Strength in Hazing Prevention 
  The concept of situational strength (Meyer et al., 2010) suggests that environmental cues signal individuals and organizations about what behaviors are accepted and valued.

• Strategies for Enacting Change at All Levels of the Horizontal Hazing Model
  This guide reviews six individual, six organizational, and six community levels strategies to enact change to reduce hazing.

• Steps to Develop an Organizational or Campus Amnesty Policy
  The intention of Amnesty Policies is to remove barriers to a student or an organization seeking help. This guide is intended to help you think through fundamental questions, provide template language, and provide research to help drive the process. 

• Steps to Develop a Peer Mentor and Mentee Program
  Peer mentoring, when done well, has admirable benefits including increase belonging, positive mental health, persistence, and retention to both organizations and campuses. This guide is intended to help campuses and organizations devise positive programs.  

• Detecting Signs of Hazing
  While we now know more about why hazing occurs, practitioners often struggle with applying the “why” to understanding and detecting when hazing occurs. This guide is intended to help practitioners reflect on the early indications of hazing activity in student clubs and organizations. 

• Chapter Advisors Hazing Prevention Guide
  This practical guide shares advice from researchers and advisors on curbing hazing mindsets in chapters.

• Four Uses of Data for an Effective and Comprehensive Hazing Prevention Program
  Researchers are using the following descriptions to categorize campus data that informs hazing prevention programs: diagnosis data, implementation data, efficacy data, and data use. This guide defines four activities that help us improve hazing prevention. The following guide is taken from the study: Creating Communities of Practice to Address Campus Hazing and Hazardous Drinking in Fraternity and Sorority Life,.

• Implementation Fidelity for Hazing Prevention Programs
  Quality hazing prevention is a process that must involve rigorous assessment. This guide highlights the concepts of assurance, capacity, and saturation in building and implementing an effective hazing prevention program that can reduce the number and severity of incidents.
  
  While we now know more about why hazing occurs, practitioners often struggle with applying the "why" to understanding and detecting when hazing occurs. This guide is intended to help practitioners reflect on the early indications of hazing activity in student clubs and organizations.

• Piazza Center Horizontal Campus Hazing Model
  The explanatory hazing model is a comprehensive view of the interplay of individuals’ engagement in hazing, intergroup dynamics, and group relationships in communities. The model is an organizing principle of the above monograph.  Practitioners can use the model to inform prevention and interventions.
  
  Citation: Veldkamp, S., Sasso, P. A., Biddix, J. P., Joyce, B., Perlow, E., & Maxwell, T., (2021). Horizontal campus hazing model. Penn State University: Timothy J. Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research and Reform.

• Piazza Center Hazing Prevention Matrix
  The prevention matrix is a review of hazing prevention and intervention literature on the efficacy of strategies for campuses and organizations.  Future work is being conducted to add enhance the matrix including adding a policy section and summary of the current literature for each strategy.  Practitioner can use the matrix to develop hazing prevention programs informed by research.  

• Evaluating Hazing and Related Behaviors, Intervention, & Prevention Efforts: A Solutions-Based Approach 
  The monograph (comprehensive review of literature) is an expanded view and understanding of hazing and hazing prevention from high school to college and college and associated student groups. An organizing principle of the monograph is based on the interplay of individuals’ engagement in hazing, intergroup dynamics, and group relationships in communities. Features to highlight in the monograph include a Hazing Prevention Matrix, rich practical Case Studies, and a comprehensive explanatory Model of Horizontal Campus Hazing (the Piazza Center Model, see the Matrix and Model below). 
  
  The Piazza Center engaged Dr. Pietro Sasso, Piazza Center Research Fellow, and Dr. Bryan Joyce, Piazza Center Scholar, in January of 2021 to develop an exhaustive review of hazing prevention literature.  In the fall of 2021, the Piazza Center partnered with Dr. Patrick Biddix, University of Tennessee, to expand this work as a result of the vision and support of the North American Interfraternity Conference. Dr. Emily Perlow, Worchester Polytechnic Institute was also added to the Piazza Center team. 
  
  Citation: Biddix, J. P., Sasso, P. A., Perlow, E., Joyce, B. & Veldkamp, S. (2022). Evaluating hazing and related behaviors, intervention, & prevention efforts: A solutions-based approach. The University of Tennessee Knoxville, Penn State University Piazza Center, and North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC).

• University Fraternity and Sorority Staffing Practices: Effect on Student Success
  The preliminary findings in this report are an early indication that there is a potential relationship between staffing models and chapter level outcomes.