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By Mason Steinberg
College is synonymous with Fraternities and Sororities for some students. Unfortunately, in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in deaths due to hazing and binge drinking. In a Fraternity or Sorority, pledges are often forced to partake in excessive drinking, as well as other life threatening activities, such as drunk driving and daredevil stunts. Many of the acts the pledges are forced to complete humiliate them and often go against all of the good values that the Sororities and Fraternities were founded on. The good will Fraternities and Sororities were originally founded on have been replaced with insensitive and dangerous behavior. In 2016 alone, there were 67 Fraternities suspended, and four deaths attributed to hazing. The frequency of hazing related deaths has alarmed school administrators and left parents searching for answers. The most recent Hazing related death occurred on November 3rd at Florida State University. Andrew Coffey, 20, a fraternity pledge was found dead in a home off campus in Tallahassee on Friday morning.This has caused the university to indefinitely suspend all Greek life on campus. University President John Thrasher said, “I want to send a serious message, I really do,” he said. “We’ve got a serious problem.” The hope is to end the indefinite suspension as student leaders will meet with school administrators to put rules in place to prevent any more deaths. Similar actions have been taken by schools after hazing deaths at large campuses such as Penn State. Many schools try to stop negative behavior before it causes something as serious as a student to lose their life by suspending specific fraternities and sororities or expelling students off campus. However, these strategies have failed, as incidents have occurred at a record pace. The fear among school administrators and parents is that these tragedies will continue to occur until serious action is taken to change the culture around Fraternities and Sororities. After every incident schools and parents around the country hope it will inspire change to prevent another catastrophe. Both Sororities and Fraternities have long been beneficial for their members. Members have friends for life and can build connections that can help them find jobs when they get out of college. Many of the negative stereotypes about Sororities and Fraternities have caused much of the country to forget the positives that comes with them. Hopefully, with cooperation between students and administrators Sororities and Fraternities can get back to their positive values and prevent any more tragedies from occurring. By Anna Lawson and Ryan Hack
Vehicle-related terrorist attacks are on the rise, as there have been at least thirty over the past decade around the globe. One third of all vehicle terrorist attacks since 1981 have occurred this year alone. This increase is due to their simple nature and difficulty of prevention. As more terrorist groups continue to see these occur, the rate of attacks will grow even more. To see the change of strategies that these groups are having since major terrorist attacks such as 9/11, previous recent attacks need to be closely analyzed. Most recently, on October 31, 2017, Sayfullo Saipov ran down dozens of people in a New York City bike path, injuring fifteen and killing eight. Saipov is a green card holder, originally from Uzbekistan, who pledged his allegiance to ISIS during the attack. He used a rented Home Depot truck in order to carry out this horrific massacre. The simplicity of planning attacks similar to this one make them appealing to terrorists. In addition, it is almost impossible to detect and prevent vehicle attacks in contrast to the easier nature of detecting bombs, such as the Times Square Bomber of 2010. Faisal Shahzad attempted to detonate a car bomb in the busiest area of New York City. However, his plan went askew when two street vendors notified security of smoke coming from his car. Fortunately, the bomb was diffused and nobody was injured. A couple of months before the New York attack, eight people were killed, and forty-eight people were injured in terrorist attacks in central London before police shot and killed three suspects. The alarming violence began when a van drove through a crowd of pedestrians on the London Bridge. The suspects then jumped from the van and made their way to Borough Market, a densely populated nightlife and tourist area, where they stabbed people in restaurants and pubs. Over 50 people were taken to the hospital. Glenelg students agree with the idea that these types of terrorist attacks will not stop anytime soon. When asked about these vehicle attacks Lucy Loazer, a Junior, said that “this is a big dilemma, since it is so easy to carry out an attack like this without detection by law enforcement”. Josie Stubs, a Junior, said that vehicle-related attacks are increasing because “there are so many drivers on the road, and it would be almost impossible to detect when one wants to commit an atrocious attack and run people over.” Because there is not currently a complete strategic procedure for preventing these attacks, they will continue to occur this way until a plan is developed to stop them. |
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February 2024
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