{"id":1231,"date":"2026-01-30T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2026\/01\/30\/2026-01-30-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:07:07","slug":"2026-01-30-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2026\/01\/30\/2026-01-30-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations\/","title":{"rendered":"Pledge changes after hazing\u00a0conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Anastasia Brown<\/a> · Community Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Zeta
Zeta Zeta Zeta sorority with their 2026 pledge class \u2014 MIA GALLAGHER<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have anti-hazing laws in place, and on Dec. 24, 2024, President Biden signed the Stop Campus Hazing Act, a national initiative which required transparency from colleges and universities regarding hazing incidents and hazing prevention policies and programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This act has resulted in several fruitful discussions between Student Life and Learning and the leaders of the Panhellenic and Inter-Fraternity Council leaders on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandie McCreadie, the director of student care, has been encouraged by these talks. Since the state of Pennsylvania already had hazing laws in place, the federal decision did not require any official policy changes for Grove City College. “Greek Unity Week itself hasn’t changed,” McCreadie explained. “Each group still makes their own schedules.” However, McCreadie and other members of SLL are also members of a national Association of Christians in Student Development, (ACSD) and after the federal guidance on hazing was released, the association participated in valuable conversations about the wide spectrum of activities that can be categorized as hazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One specific event that launches Greek Unity Week for all the sororities \u2014 “table pounding” \u2014 was brought into these conversations. Although McCreadie was aware of the event, she hadn’t attended in some time, and “as with anything that happens for a long time, different variations had become the norm, and different things had been added that were safety concerns.” After presenting these concerns to the Panhellenic Council, representatives of the sororities worked with McCreadie to develop a new plan for an activity to launch Greek Unity Week that would be more closely aligned with federal expectations for Greek groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCreadie sees this change as holding a greater value than simply rectifying safety concerns. She explains that it is one of her priorities to see Greek groups as places where true growth and leadership can be developed for students. “The new actives entering these communities have the right to ask, ‘why are we doing this?'” she explained. “Being able to answer that is a mark of a leader who is willing to grow \u2026 at the end of the day, Eric and I pray we are supporting these groups and what they are doing and also partnering with them in regularly assessing and asking, ‘what’s their why?'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Greek Unity Week activity has the added benefit of being more inclusive of current actives in Greek groups. While the previous ritual required being indoors, which limited the number of participants to only new actives and current leadership of Greek groups, the new outdoor event will include every new and current active. Unfortunately, this event was scheduled for Jan. 26, and had to be cancelled due to the snow. But McCreadie is already looking at the possibility of scheduling it for the kickoff of Greek Unity Week, the conversations sparked by the new federal guidelines have also resulted in a packet that will be given to every Grove City College student who may receive a bid. This packet lays out procedures for reporting hazing activity, Greek Unity Week guidelines and the federal and state laws in place to combat hazing. This increased education should ensure that new actives are better aware of their rights and the school’s policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCreadie has been pleased with the number of students who have been willing to approach her with questions about the changes they have seen this year, and she hopes to continue those conversations. She hopes that campus will continue to deepen its understanding of the purpose of these groups: to develop and enrich the lives of all students involved as they bring their own unique interests and goals to each of the groups. “Tradition is often a word thrown into many conversations as the absolute argument for approval \u2026 (but) we recognize that with each new class of students we welcome onto campus, we are bringing in a unique set of young adults with a unique culture and experiences that could and likely will shift the student culture on GCC’s campus.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have anti-hazing laws in place, and on Dec. 24, 2024, President Biden signed the Stop Campus Hazing Act, a national initiative which required transparency from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[210],"tags":[99,19,42],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-organizations","tag-anastasia-brown","tag-community","tag-issue-2026-01-30"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2026-01-30-12-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations-1.jpg",872,899,false],"thumbnail":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2026-01-30-12-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations-1.jpg",145,150,false],"medium":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2026-01-30-12-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations-1.jpg",291,300,false],"medium_large":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2026-01-30-12-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations-1.jpg",768,792,false],"large":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2026-01-30-12-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations-1.jpg",872,899,false],"1536x1536":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2026-01-30-12-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations-1.jpg",872,899,false],"2048x2048":["\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/09\/2026-01-30-12-pledge-changes-after-hazing-conversations-1.jpg",872,899,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have anti-hazing laws in place, and on Dec. 24, 2024, President Biden signed the Stop Campus Hazing Act, a national initiative which required transparency from","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1804,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}