HAZING IN CONFLICT WITH GREEK IDEALS, SAYS MOTHER WHO LOST SON

Hazing contradicts the positive ideals and values Greek organizations were founded on, a mother who lost her son to hazing said Wednesday at Southeast Missouri State University.

"Hazing just doesn't fit," Eileen Stevens told 600 fraternity and sorority members in a speech at Southeast's Academic Auditorium. "It's in conflict with everything you stand for."

Stevens' remarks strike a sensitive chord at the university, the site of a hazing death Feb. 15, 1994.

Michael A. Davis, 25, of St. Louis died pledging Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity following beating rituals customary for pledges of the black fraternity. Kappa was banned from campus and 15 members of the fraternity were convicted of hazing and seven others were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Davis' death.

Stevens story of her own tragedy had the audience listening to every word.

Chuck Stevens, a 20-year-old student at Alford University in upstate New York, died in February 1978 after being shoved into the trunk of a car in sub-freezing weather with two other pledges. He was forced to drink whiskey, beer and wine before being carried into the house of the fraternity he was pledging. He died a few hours later of alcohol poisoning.

"I had never heard of hazing before this happened," Stevens said.

Because of the subsequent university and police investigation calling her son's death an accident, Stevens founded CHUCK, an acronym for Committee to Halt Useless College Killings.

Since then, she has traveled the country speaking to college groups, attending conferences and lobbying legislators to make hazing illegal in their states. "Forty states have hazing laws so far," she says, sounding determined to convince the remaining states to pass hazing laws."

Stevens had a hand in passing Missouri's first hazing law, which made the practice a misdemeanor, and lobbied legislators last term to make specific acts of hazing a felony.

After hearing Stevens at a recent conference, leaders at Southeast decided to invite her to campus.

"We felt her message was one the entire Greek system should hear," said Jennifer Bertrand, president of the Pan Hellenic Council, the university committee which oversees Greek life.

But the entire Greek system wasn't present for Stevens' remarks. Fraternities and sororities with primarily white members were well represented, but not one of the 32 members of black fraternities and sororities attended Stevens' presentation.

"I think they might be intimidated by this," said Lisa Fedler, the university's Greek life coordinator.

Black Greek organizations "obviously would be uncomfortable" at a hazing discussion since Davis died pledging a black fraternity, Fedler said.

Other anti-hazing activities are planned for the Greek system throughout the year, Fedler said.