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20. Upsilon | Warning Signs of Hazing with Mike Ayalon
11 Plays13 days ago
Dr. Michael Ayalon recently defended his dissertation The Early Warning Signs of Hazing in College Fraternities and Sororities. Upon the unfortunate fraternity hazing death of Caleb Wilson, Mike discussed the findings of his research. He talked about unexpected findings, how the definition of hazing compares among campus National Interfraternity Council groups, National Panhellenic Conference groups, and National Pan-Hellenic Council groups. Mike also described the pressures and stress of student affairs professionals and his recommendations for identifying early warning signs of hazing.Resources:
- Episode 13 - Hazing Prevention with Jason Meriwether
- Episode 14 - The Psychology of Hazing with Leslie M. Brown and Von Eaglin
- Hank Nuwer's Unofficial Database of Hazing Deaths Database and Clearinghouse - hanknuwer.com
- Opinion by Dr. Walter Kimbrough on MSNBC - Caleb Wilson’s hazing death is a familiar cautionary tale
- H.R.5646 - Stop Campus Hazing Act
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hazing Research
00:00:00
Speaker
Unfortunately, here we are again talking about yet another death of fraternity and sorority life because of hazing. And for this episode, I invited Dr. Mike Ayalon on to talk about his research.
00:00:12
Speaker
dissertation that was recently published about the early warning signs of hazing. Now, I'm going to address an elephant in a room for those of us who are members of the Divine Nine. And that is you're going to notice that Mike is not a member of the Divine Nine.
00:00:28
Speaker
And so you may assume that his research may not have anything to do with the Divine Nine. However, it does. As a matter of fact, it doesn't matter which fraternity, which sorority, hazing is a problem, is a problem, is a problem, is a problem altogether.
00:00:45
Speaker
Keep in mind that the suspects who are arrested in the death of Caleb Wilson are subject to federal prosecution. Mike is going to talk about that during this interview. also want to point you towards a couple of resources.
00:00:58
Speaker
One is the website of Hank Neuer, Hank Neuer dot com. That link is in the show notes. You're going to see a very long list of people who have died and others who have been injured.
00:01:12
Speaker
as a result of hazing, not just in fraternities and sororities. There's also another resource that I'm going to put in the show notes, and that is a recent op-ed by Dr. Walter Kimbrough, who is an expert witness in hazing cases.
00:01:26
Speaker
And that link is about an op-ed that he did when he talked about the common thread that he sees in people who commits acts of hazing, particularly in the divine nine.
Motivation and Key Research Questions
00:01:37
Speaker
But again, this episode is about hazing in fraternity and sorority life, ri regardless of the type of fraternity or a sorority. It's episode Upsilon of Ethelcast.
00:01:52
Speaker
Joining me on the Ethocast is Dr. Mike Aylan. When I had him on the second episode of Ethocast, he was only Mike Aylan at the time, oh but now he's Dr. Mike Aylan.
00:02:05
Speaker
um And man, I really wish that we could have connected about this topic under better circumstances. I was going call on you anyway to talk about your dissertation and your research. But I mean, you know, with with the unfortunate death of Caleb Wilson, um this really speeds things up and and we got to talk about this now. um So, Mike, first of all, let's start off, number one, by congratulating you on ah successfully defending your dissertation.
00:02:34
Speaker
um And let's talk about what that dissertation is. So let's start with the title. What is the title of your dissertation? The title is The Early Warning Signs of Hazing in College Fraternities and Sororities. and what was the problem that you wanted to tackle in doing this research?
00:02:53
Speaker
So essentially what I wanted to do was I wanted to understand this phenomenon of hazing from the lens of the student affairs professionals. There's a lot of research that's out there right now.
00:03:04
Speaker
um And, you know, it's more quantitative research and a lot of it has to do with the students or the victims in this case of hazing. And I really wanted to understand it from the lens of the student affairs professional, ah but also really to do a a qualitative analysis. I really wanted to understand the feelings of the student affairs professionals about this phenomenon and really talk to them at length.
00:03:28
Speaker
because I think what you get out of it is much more rich data. You get their feelings around hazing and what it does to their psyche when they're in the industry for 5, 10, 15, 20 years.
00:03:41
Speaker
And I thought that that was just really groundbreaking and not something that anybody had done in the past. And really, i had asked three questions of all the student affairs professionals Number one, what is your definition of hazing?
00:03:53
Speaker
And the interesting part about that is, is that we started asking these questions in interviews in October. And then in December, the Stop Campus Hazing Act actually came into law, was signed into law by the president.
00:04:05
Speaker
And that was a bipartisan bill, by the way. And they actually now have a federal definition. But I was asking, what is your definition? Because the definitions were all over the place. The second part of it is, ah you know, what are those early warning signs of hazing? But I want you to tell me by counsel, because hazing looks very different depending on which counsel you're in.
00:04:26
Speaker
And then the last question that we asked is, at what point at a student, as a student affairs professional, at what point do you insert yourself to make sure that nobody gets hurt?
Differences in Hazing Practices
00:04:35
Speaker
So those were the three questions we were asking.
00:04:37
Speaker
So the part that I'm really intrigued by is how the definitions differ by council. um What did you find out? Yeah. So, you know hazing does look very different depending on which council you're talking about. So if we're talking about, let's say, the IFC, historically white fraternities, typically the hazing involves forced alcohol consumption. That is ah typically what you would see on the ground.
00:05:02
Speaker
The problem with that, and that's why you most often hear about hazing deaths within IFC or traditionally white fraternities, and the reason why is because 82% of hazing deaths involve alcohol.
00:05:15
Speaker
So that is the most dangerous form of hazing that you can possibly imagine is forced alcohol consumption. When you're talking about Panhellenic, let's say the historically white sororities,
00:05:25
Speaker
it looks a little bit different. Instead of the forced alcohol consumption, it's more of mean girls' behavior, it's a lot of body shaming, so it's a lot more of the mental abuse as opposed to the physical.
00:05:38
Speaker
And then when we start talking about the NPHC or the historically black fraternities and sororities or the Divine Nine, Typically, you're seeing a lot of physical hazing. So you see the the paddling as an example.
00:05:50
Speaker
Also, a lot of mental abuse as well. and And really what's happening here is you're testing the resilience of the members. And so many times when we're talking about an NPHC organization, many times the chapter size is a little bit on the smaller side.
00:06:04
Speaker
And that's not an easy road. You know that, Eddie. And so when you are in a smaller chapter, there's a lot of pressure on those members to do a lot of things, right? It's not just one job. You're doing two, three, four jobs.
00:06:18
Speaker
And it's a lot on top of your already busy commitments in terms of work and school and other relationships, et cetera. And so really they're testing the resilience of these members to say, hey, are you going to be able to actually do this? And so that's typically what's happening and why.
00:06:35
Speaker
But as you can see, it looks very, very different in terms of the hazing activity, depending on which council you're in. And the reason why I wanted to do this research was to figure all of this stuff out and put it into the interviews.
00:06:46
Speaker
So that way, if you're a new student affairs professional, and let's say you only have one experience, let's say you're in Panhellenic sorority and you only have that experience, you might not know what to look for when you are now advising a whole bunch of different councils that you've never been a part of and you don't understand how they work.
00:07:05
Speaker
And so you wouldn't know what to look for in order to prevent a hazing injury or God forbid, a hazing death. And what's interesting to me is I think that if you go from one council to the next, I can almost hear this coming from the students themselves, is that there's a yeah, but.
00:07:21
Speaker
And so you'll say, well, NPHC does it this way, NIC does it this way. And each one is saying, yeah, but we don't do that. and But there's there's a common thread.
00:07:33
Speaker
In all of these situations, abuse is abuse all the way around. The views expressed on EthelCast do not necessarily reflect the views of the hosts, guests, or any entities with which this podcast's participants are
Challenges in Hazing Law and Reporting
00:07:46
Speaker
affiliated. Questions, comments, email eddie at eddiefrancis.com.
00:07:52
Speaker
So with the student affairs professionals that you spoke to, what was their reaction to some of the results that you got? Yeah, I mean, i would say, first of all, they were very forthcoming. i was ah i know a lot of these student affairs professionals, many of them I've worked for or I've worked with at various points in my career.
00:08:11
Speaker
um So they gave us just incredible things. And there were a whole bunch of unexpected findings in there as well. And so I really encourage people to go and to read the research.
00:08:22
Speaker
ah We'll make sure that Eddie puts that in the show notes because it's on ProQuest now. So anybody can read that. But some of the unexpected findings, I think, are really, really interesting. The first one that I think was just fascinating to me is that we know that as part of the Stop Campus Hazing Act, there were three parts to that new federal law.
00:08:41
Speaker
Number one is here's the definition of what hazing is. So that's good. Now we have a federal definition. Number two is you have to do hazing prevention research, but basically ah hazing prevention education that's research based.
00:08:55
Speaker
So that's the the second part of it. And the third part of it is transparency. So that means that on your university website, you have to list All of the hazing cases that students were convicted of hazing behavior in your student organizations, that's got to be made public on the university website so that way students and parents can review all of that information and make decisions in terms of which organization they're going to join.
00:09:22
Speaker
that's part of the new law. So having said all of that, in one particular state, they were proactively doing this. They were proactively putting those cases onto the website. Wonderful.
00:09:34
Speaker
And when I did the interview with the student affairs professional, basically this person said this, that because he is a mandatory reporter on behalf of the institution, when students would come to the office and speak to the student affairs professional,
00:09:49
Speaker
about hazing that's going on, immediately the student affairs professional has to say, time out, I am a mandatory reporter. So anything you tell me, I have to run that up the flagpole here in the administration.
00:10:00
Speaker
So what when the student affairs professional says that to the student, what happens to the student? they immediately just clam up. They yeah immediately are like, zip, I'm not talking because I don't wanna get in trouble and I don't want my organization to get in trouble.
00:10:14
Speaker
So what was this university doing? They were sending these students to an external hazing prevention expert, somebody outside of the university. and hoping and praying that that was gonna be resolved outside of the university.
00:10:28
Speaker
But the university had no window into whether or not that issue was resolved. They're just hoping this expert is gonna handle it for them. And so what did not happen in this scenario? It never made it onto the website.
00:10:41
Speaker
Right. So essentially, universities are circumventing the law by hiring external partners to resolve these hazing cases. And I had absolutely no idea. So that was one of the unexpected findings. This is why you do the research, because you really just don't even know what we're going to
Emotional Burden and Prevention Recommendations
00:10:57
Speaker
find.
00:10:57
Speaker
And so some other things that, you know, would come out of this research is number one, you know, the circumvention of the law, but number two, are the laws actually encouraging students to come forward or are we suppressing students from coming forward based on this law?
00:11:13
Speaker
Also, there's a lack of data in the profession. How are we tracking organizational membership nationally? There should be some national database of all fraternity and sorority members So that way we know who are the alumni who can help, who are the advocates, who is a member of which organization. um and if somebody was removed for hazing behavior, now we have a database to go to to figure out, hey, they just transferred school. Should I allow this person into my fraternity?
00:11:41
Speaker
Right. There's no there's no database in order to figure all of this stuff out. And then the final unexpected finding was the emotional birthplace. burden that's being placed on the student affairs professionals, that was very alarming to me. And it really comes through in those interviews.
00:11:57
Speaker
but Describe some of that emotional burden. What were some of the things that they told you? Yeah, one of the things that really stood out to me that was just almost alarming, and again, if you read the interviews in the research, you'll come it'll jump off the page at you.
00:12:09
Speaker
But one of the things that one student affairs professional said that really just made me shake in my boots was ah this student affairs professional said, Mike, these students are making life and death decisions every single weekend.
00:12:24
Speaker
And, you know, and when, when you hear that and you internalize that because, you know, I've never, I've worked for a university, but never in that capacity advising fraternities and sororities on a daily basis, I usually just come in and come out. Right.
00:12:37
Speaker
Um, and so when I heard that, I'm like, oh my God, there's mercy, emotional burden that they carry with them is heavy. It is really, really heavy. Um, and so i think, you know, as a result of the research, I think there's a whole bunch of implications for institutional policy that we need to do as administrators, you know, if we're we're thinking about the university president, we have to do something to to relieve that emotional burden. Otherwise, it's going to be this burn and churn.
00:13:07
Speaker
We're going to be putting people into that capacity and then they're going to leave because there's high stress and low pay and a lot of hours that they're working. So we have to do something as administrators in order to fix this problem.
00:13:19
Speaker
So some of the implications ah for institutional policy in the research are, number one, let's create some greater awareness of these federal laws on hazing that encourages students to come forward.
00:13:30
Speaker
So how do we protect individuals who report hazing from retaliation? How do we protect organizations who openly admit that there's hazing going on and want to remove the perpetrators of that hazing from their organization?
00:13:44
Speaker
Can we create a functioning hazing prevention task force on campus with campus-wide representation? Why is it only up to the Fraternity and Sorority Life Office to deal with these problems?
00:13:56
Speaker
It should be everybody. It should be athletics. It should be student affairs. It should be the ROTC and military. It should be judicial. I mean, there's so many pieces to this.
00:14:06
Speaker
We really need a functioning hazing prevention task force that is campus wide representation. We also know about the transparency that we're being asked in terms of the universities of this hazing reporting.
00:14:17
Speaker
But what about the national organizations? we should be able to look it up on a national organization website and actually see all of the chapters listed and any hazing activity that the students were found guilty of, that should be on the national organization website as well, to have that level of transparency both at the university and on a national organization level.
00:14:37
Speaker
ah We talked a little bit about creating a national database of fraternity and sorority members to help advocate for the community. ah I think we need to invest more resources and staffing for the Fraternity and Sorority Life office.
00:14:49
Speaker
How is it okay that that... student affairs professional that has all of that emotional stress is one person or maybe two for 7,000 students. I mean, go and look up the the staff listing of athletics as an example and look at all the resources.
00:15:04
Speaker
Pick any university, all right? I'm not even telling you which university to choose. Pick your favorite university and look up athletics and look at the staffing page. look at the resources they have for nutrition and exercise and all of the things.
00:15:17
Speaker
And then you look at the fraternity and sorority life office for really impactful students that are doing a ton of the community service work that have the highest retention and graduation numbers for all students, but yet they only have one or two people for 7,000 students.
00:15:31
Speaker
How does that work? um And then finally, i think we need to start educating on hazing prevention. We are almost too late as somebody who is an educator on hazing prevention, working on college campuses every single week.
00:15:44
Speaker
I'm almost too late because the reality is a lot of these students have experienced hazing. 47% of students experience hazing before they even got to college. OK, so that means that they've seen it already in athletics. They've seen it in the band. I've even seen it on church retreats in high school. And then they bring that activity into the college fraternity or sorority.
00:16:05
Speaker
So we need to start educating on hazing prevention in K to 12. And that is, I think, a unique opportunity for universities that are having trouble attracting students.
00:16:16
Speaker
um That's a great opportunity for universities to get in on a high school level and start talking about the college experience. And oh, by the way, this is what hazing looks like. You might have seen it here on high school. And this is kind of what it looks like. And this is how we can prevent it going forward.
Identifying Early Warning Signs
00:16:30
Speaker
So that's a unique opportunity, I think, for universities as well as fraternities and sororities that want to start talking to students about that experience before they even get to a college campus.
00:16:41
Speaker
So your dissertation is about the early warning signs. So what are some of the early warning signs of hazing? Yeah. you know It's interesting because that's really what I wanted to delve into. you know and you have to A really good researcher will allow the interviews and the research to go where it wants to go. yeah and You have to take yourself out of it and all of your biases and all of your expectations out of it. and so It's interesting where the research went. You just have to let it go where it wants to go.
00:17:09
Speaker
um and I did. and and Some of the things that came out of it in terms of ah The early warning signs, I think, you know, we have to look at GPA. I think that's something that I think is really, really important for administrators to look at.
00:17:21
Speaker
We can benchmark where a chapter's GPA is over time, over the last five years, 10 years, in terms of the chapter GPA, as well as the new member GPA. And if you suddenly see that the chapter GPA drops like a rock,
00:17:36
Speaker
You need to be inserting yourself into that and say, hey, I noticed something very strange that suddenly chapter GPA is dropped like a rock. Why is that? um And so I think we have to start asking some questions, but you have to know what to look for.
00:17:49
Speaker
You have to know that, hey, let's benchmark all the chapter GPAs and let's let's mark this over time. And if we see something precipitously falling, then that is an issue. um I think you know communication is extremely important. um And same thing you know for the Fraternity and Sorority Life Office.
00:18:06
Speaker
Do you typically have a lot of communication going on with the chapter and suddenly communication stops? right We have no window into what's going on with this chapter suddenly with maybe new leadership or something like that, or maybe somebody graduates and then suddenly that now it's like a black hole. like We have no idea what's happening in there. right so um So I think those are you know some things to look out for.
00:18:30
Speaker
Certainly any kind of strange behavior. um i think if you start seeing, let's say, ah members all dressed the same, ah new members especially dressed all the same, but then The brothers or sisters are are dressed casually.
00:18:44
Speaker
ah You know, there are certain things that you have to like be just paying attention to to figure out what's happening here. um So I think all of those are examples of things that administrators can look for.
00:18:56
Speaker
and that are early warning signs that, hey, maybe there's a problem here and you need to start asking questions. It's really all about communication and sharing what it is that you're seeing with the students and then asking for explanations in terms of why is this happening?
00:19:11
Speaker
um And I think if the more we have that communication going back and forward and forth, the earlier we're going to be able to spot that there's a problem and get help. So I want to dig a little bit into the dressing the same part, because for some fraternities and sororities, there is, quote unquote, a uniform for an intake process. um And this is a legally sanctioned ah intake process by the organization.
00:19:33
Speaker
And so in cases like that, what's the difference between that and another type of dressing the same that winds up being a warning sign of hazing? Yeah, I think understanding the culture of the organization is extremely important.
00:19:46
Speaker
you know i will tell you, like for example, i've I've been on college campuses and I've done this hazing prevention presentation on certain campuses, and I'll see a historically white fraternity, an IFC organization,
00:19:58
Speaker
and all of the members are dressed in t-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops. And then the new members come in and they are dressed you know to the nines. They're basically in suits, they have ties, ah you know the whole thing.
00:20:13
Speaker
And you know I understand that we want our new members to look good. This is a representation of our chapter and all of that. But if that is true, then why are all the members not dressed up? Like if you really believe that you know you want to look good. And I get I like looking good too. I like good clothes just as lot much as anybody else does. Eddie will tell you, I love looking good, right?
00:20:34
Speaker
But the issue is is that if that really is important to you, then why is not all the members dressed up for ah you know the speaker or what have you? and so I think what we want to do is we want to create, the the whole key to all of this is to create chapter unity.
00:20:51
Speaker
And I think that's part of the problem. I hear a lot about pledge class unity, but that's not really what we want to build. If we want to have a solid organization, that means that everybody is working together.
Impact of Hazing on Chapter Unity and Power Dynamics
00:21:02
Speaker
If we're trying to create pledge class unity, there's a couple of problems with that. um Because number one, you don't want to have four or eight clicks in your organization. That is not an effective organization.
00:21:14
Speaker
Okay. And interestingly enough, Aldo Simino, he's a researcher and he studies human behavior. What we're talking about here with hazing, this is just human behavior. This is not something that fraternities and sororities invented. This has been going on since the beginning of time all over the world.
00:21:31
Speaker
And so I think if you look at Aldo Semino's earlier research, he actually saw four sociological factors that contribute to hazing in fraternities, sororities, or organizations.
00:21:42
Speaker
Number one, dominance or bullying. Unfortunately, this is kind of the way that we as humans are wired. ah Number two, that solidarity, that the new members need to be unified somehow. ah Number three, commitment, that they have to earn these letters.
00:21:56
Speaker
um But I might argue that that system of earning the letters actually creates entitlement and apathy after they join the fraternity. And now suddenly they're like, hey, I worked my butt off.
00:22:08
Speaker
as a new member. So now i'm just going to coast and I'm going to put my legs up on the desk and just relax and have all the new members do all the work. And then finally, preventing the exploitation of group benefits.
00:22:19
Speaker
So we all know that there are benefits for joining fraternities and sororities. We have socials, we have brotherhoods, we have all how all kinds of fun events. to do. And so really one of those sociological factors that contributes to hazing is preventing the new members from exploiting all of those group benefits.
00:22:35
Speaker
um And then all those symptoms later research in 2022, he actually looked at, does hazing actually increase group solidarity? So there's this myth out there that somehow the hazing is going to increase group solidarity.
00:22:48
Speaker
And his findings, he actually followed a bunch of members that were being hazed in a fraternity and ask them interview questions all throughout that process. And he found that there was no strong connection between fraternity hazing and chapter solidarity.
00:23:02
Speaker
The relationship was high between fun experiences and feeling of chapter solidarity. So if you want to build chapter solidarity, have fun with the new members. That does not look like mental or physical abuse.
00:23:16
Speaker
All that's doing is trauma bonding the new members. but that is not increasing the feeling of chapter solidarity, which is the actual goal. So what we're finding here, um going back to the chapter members being in T-shirts and shorts and flip flops and the pledges being in suits is that there's a power dynamic being created. Right. and And so it sounds like and I think we I think I talked about this a little bit ah with your friend of mine, Jason Merriweather, on episode 13 when he talked about hazing prevention. So it sounds like what what we're what you're getting at here is that.
00:23:52
Speaker
the chapter members are saying, I don't have to dress up. I'm already in, but you do. And so there's a power dynamic being created there where they are taking privileges um rather than saying, hey, you know, as a chapter, we're all in this together. So we're all going in suits.
00:24:09
Speaker
And so, okay. So that, okay. Gotcha. That makes sense. This two tier system where somehow we're looking at the pledges or the new members as lesser than. Right.
00:24:20
Speaker
And so I think that's really the key. If we are all saying that we want to look good, then let's all look good as a chapter. And I'm all for that. But the issue is when you start creating these power dynamics to say, well, I'm a brother,
00:24:32
Speaker
And I'm going to walk up in shorts and flip flops and you're going to get dressed up to the nines. See that now we're creating this this power dynamic where somehow you are on a lesser level than me as a brother.
00:24:45
Speaker
And that's creating problematic behavior. and i And I don't have to adhere to any rules. That's right. But you do. But you do. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So going forward, um let's look at a couple of things. What kinds of recommendations? And I think you went over some of these, but let's let's go over them again. If you did.
Prevention Strategies and Conclusion
00:25:03
Speaker
What are some of the recommendations that you have on the student affairs side and or the chapter side? Yeah, I mean, really the key is is that we as universities um and as chapters, I think we need to create greater awareness of the federal laws on hazing that encourages students to come forward. So we have this new Stop Campus Hazing Act.
00:25:22
Speaker
As a university, what are we doing in order to promote the awareness of this new federal law? a lot of people don't, students, they don't even know that there's a new federal law that was signed in, you know, at Christmas by the President of the United States.
00:25:35
Speaker
Super important for us to talk about that. And also, i think we also need to have a policy on hazing. Some all of the student affairs professionals that I spoke with said that they don't even have a policy in the student code of conduct on hazing. What?
00:25:50
Speaker
I mean, we absolutely need to have a definition in the student code of conduct. We also need to know what is the process for looking into for investigating hazing and the judicial process. What does that look like?
00:26:03
Speaker
And also, how do we report hazing? All of that, those three pieces, need to be in the student code of conduct. And if you don't have that, then you need to advocate for that. And there are some universities today that really do not have a complete hazing policy in their student code of conduct. That has to change.
00:26:20
Speaker
And somehow we have to protect individuals who report hazing from retaliation. And also we need to protect organizations who openly admit hazing and want to remove the perpetrators. Unless we do that, then we are going to find that students are not going to be willing to come forward.
00:26:35
Speaker
So we have to figure that out. um We also talked about creating a hazing prevention task force with campus-wide representation. We talked about the transparency in hazing reporting. That needs to be there.
00:26:47
Speaker
I would definitely advocate for a national database of fraternity and sorority members. I think that's super important. Administrators need to invest resources and staffing in the fraternity, sorority life office.
00:26:58
Speaker
They need a budget. They need more people. they need more help. And again, I think we also have an opportunity for universities to start educating on hazing prevention in K to 12. That's a wonderful way to increase enrollment at our university by talking about the university system, talking about the university experience, talking about student life, talking about fraternities and sororities and what we bring to the table, because I do believe it's the best leadership experience on a college campus when it's done right, ah but also talk about the downside, the hazing part of it.
00:27:30
Speaker
and educating the students on what hazing looks like while they're in high school. So that way they're not bringing some of those quote unquote traditions with them into the college campus. Dr. Mike Ilan, he just finished his dissertation or just successfully defended it. And he looked at the warning signs of hazing, the early warning signs.
00:27:51
Speaker
Mike, thanks a lot for the conversation. And we're going to keep pushing, man. We're going keep pushing so we can ah make a difference here. Absolutely. And I tell you what, that whole Caleb Wilson ah situation was just absolutely heartbreaking. So I'll do whatever I can to prevent that from happening in the future. And we have to work together to make sure that that never happens again. Thank you for having me. and You got it. Ethocast is a for our edification limited series. If you like what you heard, like and follow this podcast for more leadership insights for your fraternity or sorority chapter. To find out how you can bring followership to leadership or the Black Greek Success Program to your campus or a campus near you, email today. Eddie at EddieFrancis.com. Until next time, spread brotherly and sisterly love wherever you go.