The parents of Tim Piazza, Max Gruver and Marquise Braham — young college students who have recently lost their lives due to alcohol-related hazing — delivered a tear-jerking speech to a room of about 500 fraternity members.
Love, Mom & Dad,, a keynote address given Evelyn and Jim Piazza, RaeAnn and Steve Gruver, and Maille and Rich Braham, was presented at the 83rd John O. Moseley Leadership School in front of a crowd of approximately 500 undergraduate students.
via The Record Online:
As a sign of their promise, everyone stood and recited our creed, The True Gentleman, and committed to:
– Recognizing and admitting when the chapter has a hazing problem and seeking out the resources to help stop the behavior before things go too far.
– Identifying and eliminating unproductive or unhealthy traditions and having an honest conversation to create alternatives to ineffective traditions.
– Recruiting the right people and putting the right people in leadership positions.
– Having more opportunities to provide intentional and open discussion relating to getting to know the “whole self”, the “real self.”
– Respecting every brother, no matter how long they have been a member, and engaging the older brothers to set the example and enact change in the culture.
– Creating positive brotherhood-building activities by bringing in positive alumni activities, increase transparency of brotherhood-building activities, partnering with other fraternities and sororities to create a healthy campus-wide Greek practice.
– Stop minding my own business and hold our members and members of other organizations accountable for their actions, because the actions of one reflect on everyone.
– Taking what I have learned home to our brothers, our chapters, our Greek systems, and communities starting today because it starts with ME.
Following the conclusion of the program, the parents urged those in attendance to understand that “this feeling you have right now will fade” and that “words without action are meaningless.”
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