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URMIA Matters
URMIA Matters
Stop Campus Hazing Act
In this episode of URMIA Matters, host Julie Groves, Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University, interviews Stevan Veldkamp, Executive Director of the Piazza Center at Penn State, and Lori Hart, Director of Educational Initiatives for Holmes Murphy, about the recent Stop Campus Hazing Act and what needs to be accomplished before the implementation deadline. Stevan and Lori discuss the newly enacted Stop Campus Hazing Act, its implications, and actionable steps colleges and universities can take to eradicate hazing. They cover the impacts of hazing, how hazing has changed over the years, effective prevention programs, and the importance of creating a campus-wide culture of respect and safety throughout the entire student population. Learn about how a comprehensive and intersectional hazing prevention programs foster a safer college experience for everyone.
Show Notes
- Register for upcoming URMIA Webinar “Understanding the Stop Campus Hazing Act"
- Holmes Murphy Amnesty Policy Template
Guests
- Stevan Veldkamp, Executive Director, Piazza Center - Penn State
- Lori Hart, Director of Educational Initiatives - Holmes Murphy
Host
- Julie Groves, Director, Risk Services - Wake Forest University
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URMIA Matters Podcast: Season 6, Episode 1- “Stop Campus Hazing Act” Transcript
Jenny Whittington: Hey there. Thanks for tuning into URMIA matters, a podcast about higher education, risk management, and insurance. Let’s get to it.
Julie Groves: Hi everyone. I'm Julie Groves, the Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University, and I'll be your host for this episode of URMIA Matters. Today, I’ll be discussing the relatively new Stop Campus Hazing Act, which was signed into law in December 2024. Joining me are Steve Veldkamp, Executive Director of the Piazza Center for Fraternity and Sorority Research, and Lori Hart, Director of Educational Initiatives for Holmes Murphy. Welcome to the podcast. Before we dive into the discussion, I just think Steve and Lori, I'm going to get you to just tell listeners a bit about. So, why don't we start with you, Steve?
Stevan Veldkamp: Thank you, Julie. Long time campus-based practitioner working directly with college students and leadership development, student government, advising student organizations and fraternities, and sororities. So, come through this through a practitioner-based lens and changes that can happen with students and population level change, especially at larger institutions. And seeing that working with students, they actually listen and actually pay attention and they actually do the things we actually ask them to do, which then can lead to having safer lives. Kind of very much a practitioner lens, but then also turn researcher later on in life. So, that's me.
Julie Groves: That's encouraging to know that. You think students are listening. That’s fantastic. Good. And Lori, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Lori Hart: Yeah. Steve and I have grown up in higher together. we grew up before there was actual research and we were all guessing the research. And David Anderson often says, like 30 years ago, we were guessing and now the cool part is we actually have research. And it's people who need to lift it. And so, I love being in Chapter 2 of this, with Steve watching research. But I grew up, I've always loved college students, even when I was in college, I was fascinated by college students. I was a typical student affairs major before there was one and worked on college campuses for 10 years. Then kind of turned right, turned left, and I worked for a men's national fraternity doing risk and prevention for 17 years and really learned the science as the science was growing. Also, throughout that time was a college speaker. So, got to see the fun stuff and the practical side of students and the things that make people laugh. And Steve says, you know, students listen. I think both of those jobs help me believe that. Today I still do college speaking and I do a lot of work with universities on policies and how policies impact the work, but I also, in my 18 jobs, for the last eight years, I've worked for Holmes Murphy internal practice, which is the largest insurance broker, and I work with our clients on just the education prevention side of the work. And we are big fans at Holmes Murphy that prevention and does reduce claims and we'd rather invest money here with our clients than on the other side.
Julie Groves: Well, great. It's great to have you both here today and I think your experience is going to really help in this. So, you know, as I mentioned a minute ago, the Stop Campus Hazing Act was signed into law on December 24th, 2024, Christmas Eve, I believe. And the Act basically amends the Clery Act for the first time in over a decade, and it introduces a number of requirements for higher education to report hazing incidents and implement comprehensive prevention programs. So, could you just briefly go over some of the key points of this new act?
Lori Hart: Yeah, I'll happy to do that. I think the key points, I'm not sure if universities, when they hear the key points are like, “Oh gosh, we're not doing this.” I think the good part about this is this is not a shocking law. This is a law strengthening the work that we should be doing collectively. There's four key points to it. The first is a Clery act named after Gene Clery, 1987, who died, Lehigh and the work of her parents. And the Clery Act reporting what it's going to do, it's going to require universities to include data on their hazing incidents as starting in 2006 for the annual report. It will be confidential, names not listed, but it will allow parents, prospective students to understand what those numbers mean and what they look like. The second thing it does, it requires, it's a statement of hazing policy. The bill requires universities to draft a statement of current policies related to hazing, how to report hazing, the process used to investigate the incidents. They must include information on the laws, and I think for the most part, you know, our universities, we are seeing that they do have hazing laws. That's good. I would also say it's time for you to dust off those current policies, not laws, current policies, and really look at the federal law and make sure it's all lining up together. That has to be done six months after the bill was enacted. So, this summer.
Third thing is prevention programming. Universities have to have a statement of policy regarding their prevention and awareness, related to hazing, including a description, and here's where this is good. It starts getting good. A description of research informed campus wide prevention programs that are designed to reach students, staff, and faculty. Keyword in there, I think, is research informed and it's where people I think need to start over and not just keep lifting what they're doing. And then the fourth thing is the campus hazing transparency report. What this does, it requires a new reporting mechanism for the universities. And what they're going to start doing collecting information July 1st, this summer, they start posting that information publicly on their website, within one year of the bill’s enactment. So, that will list the name of the student organization, a general description of findings. Will not list individuals, but it will list the dates of when the incident. So again, people can make informed decisions when they, or their children, or their grandchildren, or their neighbors are choosing to join organizations.
Julie Groves: So, you know, institutions have a couple of months to really start getting things together. I mean, hopefully they already have plans in place like you said, but for the actual reporting that needs to really, that really needs to be ramped up and start basically this summer, right? And then you said they have a year to kind of get things really before it's officially has to be reported, is that correct?
Lori Hart: For the Clery?
Julie Groves: Yeah, for the Clery. Yeah.
Lori Hart: Yeah. For the Clery, it’s a year. And then other things, they’re going to start collecting.
Julie Groves: OK. So, we have a little bit, we have a little bit of a break before people need to start getting their ducks in a row, so this is very timely. So, thank you for that information. I think that's helpful as we move through our discussion. So, Steve, why don't you tell us a little bit about the Piazza center and how it came about?
Stevan Veldkamp: Yeah. Thank you, Julie. The center started at a previous Big 10 institution in the mid-70s, with a thought that fraternities and sororities can really be a positive adjunct to what's happening in the learning environment of colleges and universities. From that time, we did some great work in that space, but we popped up and moved to Penn State in 2019. Really because of a resounding story of the tragedy of Tim Piazza. And so, refocusing on prevention and what prevention can be in collegiate environments to really reduce hazardous drinking, violence, and this thing called hazing. And so, the center is focused on that and it and really applying what we are learning from research. So, Lori already said, had mentioned that we now know things in the second chapter, we were guessing. Now we know things and now we need to apply those things, which is where the build comes in with the Stop Hazing Act, and saying, “Hey, research informed means let's look in the literature. Let's pull those prevention concepts and let's apply them in our campus environments. So that we can address this issue.” The other moment that I've said this in a string of it's not just hazing, right? It’s violence. It's always paired with something. It's always paired with hazardous drinking, so when you're looking at hazing prevention, you're actually looking at a lot of the different prevention issues and public health issues that campuses are dealing with. So, I would say instead of thinking this is an addition or an add on, this should be kind of an orchestrated effort for the other issues that you've been dealing with and should be dealing with head on, given hazardous drinking rates in college, given violence, and then bracing that with hazing prevention.
Julie Groves: And Lori already talked a little bit about this but how did you get interested in working in higher education?
Stevan Veldkamp: Well, I would say kind of like Lori, undergrad and really looking at student leadership, both my own, as well as my, very concerned about what my friends were doing and how they're engaging in the campus and taking on leadership roles. So, I had a very engaging fraternity experience and student life experience as an undergrad, and then parlayed that into a job. My parents always question that I was still in college, you know, years after and that I've never quite graduated, even though I had some now advanced degrees in this work, right? And so, kind of really never left the collegiate environment. And so, I was always fascinated by student leadership development and the power that students have to create critical change. And really, creating a campus environment that is safer that they flourish in and those types of things, so that's how I got my start as well.
Julie Groves: And you both have mentioned a little bit about the fact that we're in a really better place now because we have a lot of research to look back on than we did, you know, 20 years ago. So, can you tell us a little bit more about the research that's going on at the Piazza Center?
Stevan Veldkamp: Yeah. Thank you. And first and foremost, I'd say we've looked at the adjacent prevention literature, areas of literature. The hazardous drinking prevention, the violence prevention. There's not a ton of work that's been done on hazing prevention. University of Maine and Stop Hazing has been a leader in this space for years. But if you also look to the right and look to the left in terms of drinking prevention, especially the work that NIAAA has done and the College Aim and the summary of what looks, hazardous drinking prevention looks like. And then you look to the violence prevention on the other side of things and then you pull that together with the work that's been done and the hazing prevention space. You start to really build out a full complement of what research-informed practice starts to look like. And so, that's been a journey that we've been on and to push more literature and condense that literature into some usable forms. So, the center's been focused on that, as well as applying that literature. And so, one of our signature studies right now is the application of what we know that is born out of research-informed practice. And partnering with campuses to then apply that, get really good at a cycle of improvement, so that their hazing prevention programs are working, which is actually the title of the study, the WhatWorks for training sort of safety and success. That literally breathes into that space. And then how campuses are taking that and are also applying it to other high-risk student organizations, not just our fraternity/sorority communities.
Julie Groves: And so, I would ask both of you just based on your, you know, current roles and your experience, what advice do you have for campuses about preventing hazing and hazardous drinking? Lori, you want to take that first?
Lori Hart: Yeah. Let me take that one first. And I'm going to kind of open the curtain for a little bit of the Holmes Murphy claims and the trends that we're seeing. When we look at Holmes Murphy, all of our clients kind of dump them into one bucket and really look at what are our challenges, we can certainly see that we have more men claims than women claims, but we certainly are starting to see women's claims kind of trickle up. And we're starting to see women's drinking rates trickle up. Like I think we used to in higher education put men over here is risky, women not risky. And I would say that day is over. But when we look at all of our claims together in a bucket, I will say it is a compelling story of what causes claims and the story is it is hazing, it is assault and battery, and it's sexual violence. Now when I say those 3 words are those phrases, I always let our clients look at that, or members, like undergraduates. And I'm like, what does this have in common? Hazing, assault and battery, sexual violence? And they all look at me and then somebody will get it, they’re like, “This is all violence.” I'm like, “Correct.” So, what we also know from our claims is that 90% of our claims involve alcohol and this is not just talking about men. This is looking at women's culturally based groups, like 90%. So, I think my charge to universities is this #1. We have a violence and alcohol problem. I think if you looked at your conduct records, if you uncovered all of that, you would start to see those themes. And so, don't just start with starting anew. Start with what's not working. What policies do we need to scrap? What do we need to get rid of? What's the real problem? And I don't think hazing alone has to, it doesn't have to sit as a single public health issue. I think this work can be done intersectional right now, and I would also say my biggest statement is compliance is not commitment. I appreciate everybody and their learning management systems. It's not changing behavior, so we can get 90% compliance, but if people are still doing the problem, we’re not doing the work. So, be bold enough to look at the things. Figure out what you want to do, but then the last question is always, is this working? And if it's not, don't do that. Like think of new ways to do it. I, again, worked for 17 years for a men’s national fraternity and I, I still have so much hope that people will change. And I watched it, I observed it, but it is done in relationship with our students. It is not done because they did an online class.
Julie Groves: Well and before I asked Steve for his thoughts, I wanted to just circle back to something you said. You may not know the answer to this, but why do you think, you know, you mentioned you used to put men in one category and women and the other, but now that's becoming a lot more equalized. I guess why do you think that is? Do you have any idea?
Lori Hart: Well, if we look at history of, I mean just let's just go back to my own. I always tell this story with college students, like when my mom was at University of Georgia in 1960, she didn't drink alcohol like she didn't drink alcohol, not because she was, I mean, she was a moral good person, but the house director when you walked in, if there was alcohol in their breath, they would remove them from school, right? So, women, we weren't an equal opportunity campus as it related to alcohol. When we look at alcohol use disorder from NIAAA, I think it's since 2003, alcohol use disorder, for 80, has gone up 87% for women. So, I think it's just equal opportunity. I mean, I think parts of that and it's a growing rate. It's a trend and I think our women are showing up. I mean, I have students’ clout. I mean, I’m always like, “Give me a clap if like you drink with your parents.” You know, and all the students. And then I like, take it like, “Give me a clap if you've shots with your parents.” And then I'll take it to another step, “Give me a clap if you've done shots with your grandparents” like. And they all clap. And I'm like what? These are the people we require acquiring. And they don't come in less risky. And I know, I know, the Pew Research says, like, I mean, all the data says like, they're drinking less. I just, in my places and spaces and I again, I operate in sort of attorney world. I don't think that data applies to how I work with the students.
Julie Groves: Well, for the record, I have never done shots with my parents or grandparents.
Lori Hart: Thank you.
Julie Groves: So, just saying. OK. So, Steve, back to you. You know, what advice would you have about how to help institutions prevent hazing and hazardous drinking?
Stevan Veldkamp: Yeah, Lori said a magic wood. The intersectionality, right, of these public health issues that a campus is already grappling with. And so, we're already doing a lot. Now, how do we do that in better ways and more research-informed ways? And I don't think it's discontinuing anything, I think it's building, it's connecting and it's connecting the dots for students about some of these issues. So, knowledge and knowledge driving knowledge towards what is hazing and how to report are very essential things. Those are good things we need to keep going. We need to add to that and it needs to be multilayered, it needs to be multi-strategy, the good old sociological model is applying, has been applied here. And so, when we start to think about what this research-informed looks like, I frame it as we got to do one spinning plate, second spinning plate, a third and a fourth, and a fifth. And that's where the magic starts to happen is when you get four or five spinning plates. Now the challenge is how many campuses are resourced for that conversation and how are they adding critical staff in some strategic areas of the institution, especially in your AOD, your prevention, your health and wellness, your student development space. Versus asking one area of the campus to say, “Hey, you do this all.” Especially, if campus is a prominent size, the fraternity and sorority community is, they’re the culprits here. They're the reason. We have these issues. Versus really addressing that, these are societal issues that are being at hot spots all over the campus. They're in athletics, they're in the band, they're in ROTC programs. They're in some interesting spaces around your college campuses, and so I added a couple things here.
Intersectionality is one thought. Second thought is this has to be abroad effort, and not just a targeted effort in one specific subpopulation of your campus community. I think the other important thing is leadership and a champion that someone has got to be in charge of this, can coordinate, and really conduct a whole lot of resources and work across different little boundaries of the campus community. And so, I think risk managers especially can provide that, especially enterprise risk managers, can really lean in at the cabinet level and say, “Hey, how are we orchestrating a beautiful prevention program that's going to help all these issues. And how we're going to resource these things?” And especially if they're leaning over the table, looking at their VP of Student Affairs and saying, “All right, I got your back in this conversation. Let's develop a systematic way we can approach that with good data. We can apply towards doing more than one thing. What are the resources that we can partner with you and make a proposal for, so you can actually build out what a research-informed prevention, comprehensive prevention program actually looks like?”
Versus only one spinning plate. Because when you only spin 1 plate and then it doesn't necessarily do all the things you wanted to do. No kidding. It's only one spinning plate. The research says you have to have multiple things happening at multiple levels for it to be effective. So, that's where I would say the risk management folks lean over and helping the student affairs folks with some of that research planning and that policy work that Lori was referencing is really important. It's actually, I would say, essential, if we're going to really build out what prevention looks like, 'cause if we don't, then I think it going to b, even though the law is passing, right? But folks, and again, Lori mentioned of this is if we just report out what we're currently doing and say, “Yeah, that's good enough, that's what prevention looks like.” We're destined to fail and then we're destined to say this is an unsolvable issue. And it's solvable. These are things that are preventable, especially when we consider the tragedies that have befallen way too many campus communities. And so, we can literally attach this to the lifesaving activity when you build out a comprehensive research-informed hazing prevention program.
Julie Groves: As you've mentioned, hopefully institutions already have a lot of these plans in place. Even though this is a relatively new law, have you all encountered any shining examples of institutions that have implemented research-informed and comprehensive, you know, campus-wide hazing prevention? Anybody want to give you any give Gold Star out to anybody?
Stevan Veldkamp: Lori, you want to go first? Then I'll tack on.
Lori Hart: Yeah, I'll go to the tee up to that. In my work, I am not a public health expert, but I grew up trying to understand it. Steve always says, I'm a practical researcher because I'll call him, I’m like, “Here's my gut.” And he’s like, “Yes, the research supports that.” I’m like, “Excellent.” I work with universities on this process called 3P2E. It's this idea that the philosophy of the institution, the philosophy of the staff, the philosophy of the President, the mission of the institution, all of that drives what your policies should say, which are short to the point. Don't need to be 18 pages. Policies drive your procedures, your resources. Procedures drives education strategy. Education strategy drives enforcement. As Steve and I have been working together, because he really is the launcher of the WhatWorks and how it's working, I've often found that universities need to do that clean up before they can actually do prevention. Because if you are buried in crap policy, if you are buried in resources that were from 1999 and you can see it on the PDF that students have to come into the you know the center and pick it up. Like, I think this six months for me should be the time that we are cleaning up. What is the philosophy as it relates to violence?
I'd also say as a parent who has kids in college, I think we have a lot of work to do around the philosophy that safety is everyone's job and bringing parents into it. I hope none of my friends listen to this because I'm so tired of walking into holiday parties where they're like, “Oh, my God. My son came home with cigarette burns.” And it's like, so casual. Like, you're saying what? What's for Thanksgiving? Like what we doing about men's safety like that you think this is okay? So, I'm like the big and bold. Like, how do we, philosophically, lift this law into our world so that people believe that safety is our responsibility? And so, that's where I'm the pie in the sky. Like, let's get to the policy and let's get to the plates. Steve is correct. But let's take some time and think about where our barriers and our gaps are. Talk to old students. Listen to parents. And if they say, “Well, I just didn't know to report.” Like fix that. Those are just the “mind the gap” things in all of this. That's my kind of tee up to Steve who I think I know what school he's going to say. I hope my son is in school there, so let's go.
Stevan Veldkamp: All right. Well, and actually that Lori just set me up for that. What my initial thought, Julie, is going to be that a lot of schools are doing this well and that well and I wish we could kind of have a moment where we can pull these practices together and cross campuses, but unfortunately, we can't do that, right? But especially the folks in our WhatWorks project and we're in our second cohort, we're advertising a third cohort. And looking at their practices and some of the great examples that are coming out of that are that they're building in-person bystander intervention programs. They are having a dramatic effect when they educate students about the policies and about where to report. Huge increase in the number of reports to conduct, which is a positive, and you again need to be prepared for that and coaching about that, especially your President and your board. Right, that those numbers are going to increase, but when you can start to track the severity of those incidents going down, that's the magic. Because we were hoping for more to get hazing on the run, if you will. And so, some campuses that are, I would say, James Madison University has done an amazing job with knowledge and how to report, as well as some bystander intervention activities. Bowling Green is working their tails off for educating their campus, entire campus community. Tennessee and Knoxville is again deep into working with all of their faculty and staff, or almost all of their faculty and staff on what hazing is, where to report hazing as well as some really innovative conduct programming around alternative sanctions that are helping partner with students and building prevention within the accountability program.
So, those are few quick examples of campuses that we have a ringside seat to watch them develop their programs that work. And most of all, it's using data. And so, diagnosis data, implementation data, as well as really focus on efficacy data, and making sure that these programs are changing students’ attitudes, their motivations, and then ultimately their behaviors. Which is again different than just “did we do it?” checklist compliance. Is it effective? Which I would say back to the idea that someone championing this work, and specifically when we think of risk managers and championing this work. If we can start to think about that, it's not just compliance “are we doing it?” But the effectiveness and the integrity of the program. And so, does compliance start to actually take on that role and responsibility to say, “Hey, is this effective? Are we having a moment of integrity here that what we are doing is actually making the difference that we want?” And I think when that starts to happen, and we've got a lot of forces on the campus that are really dedicated to making sure we're changing the culture. And then hazing is on the run and we're starting to see a curb. And we're starting to see it being prevented. And sob really living into prevention actually means right. So, that's my long-winded response there in terms of some campuses that are doing the work. We're framing them as pacesetters because we need pacesetters in this space, in particular so that some campuses can maybe figure it out before some others and then share those practices, so that we can learn together and then all about tries to a good rising tide.
Julie Groves: Well, and I will say that I've been in higher ed for a while, myself and I do think that all the folks in higher ed really do want to support one another. I mean, there's no reason for people to reinvent the wheel, so you know, if you have things that work. effective policies at other institutions can use. I mean, I think by all means we should share if we can. So, Steve, you kind of mentioned, you know, there's a difference between just checking a box and actually like, you know, moving forward, and being compliant, and doing that well. And so, what advice would you have for campus leaders to really excel and lead an effective prevention, you know? To your point of, you know, they could check the box, but you know how, how can you suggest things for these folks to do, to really excel in this kind of prevention? And Lori, you may have thoughts as well.
Stevan Veldkamp: The first thing, Julie, that I can think of is the conversation at the highest level possible. And say, and this goes also what Lori has been sharing, right? What is your philosophy? How does this connect to the institutional mission of who we say we are? and I frame this as if one of those words is we’re educators, we’re here to educate students, then let's create a partnership with students. Nothing for them without them and pulling students into the conversation as a number one. Well, two things there. Top level as well as pulling in students. So, that's a major thought. The other is the capacity. So many of these prevention initiatives we hear are given to already taxed assistant director, in fraternity and sorority story life and say, “Go, you do it. And do it for your community as well as, oh, if you do it well, we can expand that out.” Which is fantastic in some ways, and it gives a lot of trust to entry or mid-level to entry-level staff, But also it potentially puts them in a chaotic situation, because did you take anything off their plate? Or did you just add to that?
So, I think staff capacity is absolutely critical in this conversation to say if we're going to do this well, what are the resources that need to be given to student affairs to build out their prevention program? And should that be in fraternity/sorority life? Or should that go over in health and wellness? Should that be attached to some mental health strategies and things like? Should that go over in your AOD space or does it kind of travel between those three areas? And then how again does that get built out? And then who's overseeing that to make sure that it's effective? And so, these are some complex things that institutions, given their size, dynamics, and resource dynamics, really need to wrestle with. And again, right size it to what they're doing already. But how and who is going to help coordinate and lead that effort?
Julie Groves: I mean, there's just a lot really, I think, to unpack. We could probably talk about this for another 30 or 45 minutes. I will just mention that URMIA is currently working on putting together a hazing prevention checklist specifically for risk managers. So, be on the lookout for that. And when it's ready, we will post that in the show notes here. And also, Stevan and our friend Andrea Stagg, from Grand River Solutions are going to be talking about this in a URMIA hosted webinar on February 26th. And I think sign-ups for that are already online, so look out for that. So, any other thoughts you guys want to share here before we wrap up our great conversation?
Lori Hart: I’ll end on a few things, as everyone was talking that came to my mind. I remember years, I mean, once you sit around, you're like, oh, this all feels the same and all feels different. We used to, but ten years ago, there was this big push for students to call 911, because people weren't calling 911. And we would social norm the heck out of that and we tell people to call 911,911. Well, guess what? 911 calling went up. You know, like people started, like students listened. And then we got mad at them 'cause they were like, “Oh my god. There's so many people being transported.” I'm like they did exactly what we asked to do. I think there's been a lot of brave and bold parents, including Tim Piazza's parents, who have been traveling the country for years and putting their hearts on the table, asking people to report. and the groovers and the list goes on and on of parents who I admire and respect and don't know how they do this work.
They have been begging people to report. Last year, there was like a NASPA listserv, and somebody on Facebook was like, “When is this hazing reporting going to stop?” I'm like, “They're doing exactly what we asked them to do.” So, this isn't just about this federal law. This is about beefing up your investigation process, your conduct process to make sure that it is fair and equitable and working and effective. It is also about looking at individuals versus groups because we tell groups all the time to hold people accountable. We need to take that into account, and if it's three people and they've removed the three people, why are we sanctioning them for a whole year like, right? Why is there not real due process going on? So, I say take the time in this to really look at that whole line of how this is going to work. Philosophy, policy, procedures, education, and enforcement, and then also the intersection of your amnesty policy and Holmes Murphy, Steve, and I worked on an amnesty policy template that is frankly fantastic because I, Steve took my work and made it more fantastic. Because he put research to it. So, we'll share that as part of the podcast. Holmes Murphy, we also have template language sitting on our website. Like I that was my COVID project. I became a fake policy. So, you got to clean your stuff up if you really want to do this work, and that's my plea to you to make this work, because they will report. And that's the good news of this.
Julie Groves: So, to your point, we have 6 months, people. Get on it, get on it. and get this stuff cleaned up. So.
Lori Hart: That's right.
Stevan Veldkamp: And Julie, I would say that change is absolutely possible. Yes, this is a complex issue and it's complex because it always is commingled with another public health challenge, right? And it is imperative that sub-populations within your campus communities are honored because hazing is going to look different for this subpopulation versus that subpopulation. So that the commingled thing gets married to right is going to change. Violence over here. Hazardous drinking over there. Some have violence and hazardous drinking on top of each other, right? And so, it's really crucial that one-size-fits-all approaches aren't practiced. We need to really be nuanced for those subpopulations to really center those students in the conversation. And so, we again, it's an equity moment, but it's also really important for prevention to get that right.
So, change is absolutely possible, but we gotta have nuanced approaches at the same time, which then gets into, you need the bandwidth to be able to do this work and do it well. So, if there's a, you know, any take away for risk managers, it's the partnership with student affairs to make a proposal together. To move something forward and to have each other’s backs in this conversation to really get the positive change. Versus, I would say, the Groundhog Day where like these issues are presented again. One of my staff just sent me this week a news article from Louisiana from 2019 or excuse me 1920 and 1920, literally, if you picked it up and put it in as I just did with my dyslexia, flipped those numbers around, you would have sworn that it was a more recent article about it. Seriously, it was about hazing, and it was literally about we're getting more serious about hazing prevention. It was from 1920. So scary, right? This has been around.
Julie Groves: Wow. Scary.
Stevan Veldkamp: This is a social issue that hasn't been addressed in meaningful ways, but as Lori has said, we now have research that we never had before, so we're at a different place in this and in what a beautiful place to be in and for building out pace setting campuses that have effective hazing prevention.
Julie Groves: Well, hopefully we've gotten a little better since 1920.
Stevan Veldkamp: Yes.
Julie Groves: Hopefully. Well, you know. We will put your contact information also in the show notes. So, if people you know when they listen to this have additional questions, they can reach out to you all. So, thank you both so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And if you're interested again in learning more about it, check out our sign up for our webinar on the 26th and look out for our hazing prevention. So, thank you both so much for being here. This is a great and helpful conversation that I hope will really help our folks who listen to it kind of move towards doing great things for their institution. And this wraps another episode of URMIA Matters.
Narrator: You’ve been listening to URMIA matters. You can find more information about URMIA at www.urmia.org. For more information about this episode, check out the show notes available to URMIA members in the URMIA library.