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If you want to stir up a controversial debate eclipsed only by such topics as abortion, politics and religion, try discussing pledging at the next registered cocktail party you attend. Chances are, you'll get the full gamut of reactions -- from Greeks fondly recounting memories of their own pledging process to naysayers and nonbelievers expressing disgust that people would subject themselves to such initiation rituals.

The problem here is people too often equate "pledging" with "hazing." While there is no denying that the line is sometimes blurred, a well-structured new-member education period is crucial to the sustained success of any brother- or sisterhood. Without one, a chapter will slowly disintegrate as its members become more detached and less invested in the best interests of the house.

Defending the pledging process is not an easy battle to fight. It is simple for people who oppose pledging to reference any one of the dozens of hazing incidents over the past 30 years in which fraternity pledges have died or been hospitalized. The point of this column is not to defend hazing -- I am not pro-hazing by any means -- or to claim that pledging never gets out of hand. Clearly at some schools, including the University of Pennsylvania, pledging does cross the line from time to time, sometimes with tragic consequences. However, many college administrators across the country have failed to recognize that hazing is the problem, not pledging. As a result, they have been barking up the wrong tree.

Penn has been particularly progressive, at least in its own mind, in curbing this seemingly heinous process of pledging. Though well-intentioned, I think the University's policies towards pledging are falling short, if not actually compounding the problems they are intended to combat. Since I arrived at Penn, the official length of the pledge process has been shortened from 10 weeks to just six. My freshman year, pledging lasted right up until Spring Fling; this year's pledge classes will be initiated prior to Spring Break. I am in no way bitter that the newest members of the Greek will pledge for significantly less time than I did -- in fact, I would argue that I actually had it better. Why, you ask?

It's a simple case of common sense. The University, in noticing an undeniable downward trend in freshman grades from fall to spring semester, decided that shortening the pledging process would help reverse this pattern. Unfortunately, there are two major flaws in this logic. One is that the downward trend is a natural one -- pledging a fraternity or a sorority represents a significant extracurricular time commitment not present during the first semester. The second is that nearly all fraternity and sorority initiation rituals have existed for generations, and most chapters will not amend or change these traditions out of fear their organization will become a watered-down version of the original. Consequently, new-member educators are forced to fit 10 weeks' worth of events into six. Imagine trying to learn a 13-week semester's worth of course material in eight weeks. Without the benefit of extra class time, it would be nearly impossible.

Instead of having a bearable time commitment spread over 10 weeks, Penn's modern-day pledges are forced to cram their fraternal learning into a six week period, leaving them stressed out and likely worse off in their classes. This is a classic example of a seemingly good idea gone awry. The problem was never the length of the pledging period; if anything, it was that there were not enough University-mandated study hours required of every new member class. While there is now an inordinate amount of study time, the concentration of the six-week time commitment means that new members rarely have time outside these hours to complete assignments.

At the end of this academic year, the administration will likely observe a similar downward trend to years past, as it unwittingly handed the freshmen they intended to help an incredibly burdensome time commitment.

The ideal situation would be a 10-week pledge period, with a significant amount of required study time. This was never experimented with; instead, the InterFraternity Council was handed a six-week period with mandatory study hours.

Pledging is designed to create lifelong memories among a group of people in a very short period of time. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience as a fraternity pledge -- it was without a doubt the most fun I never want to have again. That being said, I cannot imagine having had my process condensed into six weeks. It might be true that size doesn't matter, but length definitely does. In this case, 10 is better than six.

Conor O'Callaghan is a senior in the Management and Technology program from Scottsdale, Ariz. The OC appears on Fridays.

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