By Steph Shirk, contributing writer
Susquehanna students participated in National Hazing Prevention Week during the week of Sept. 24 to Sept. 28. The nationwide movement’s purpose it to remind us that hazing, in every form, is wrong.
Susquehanna students participated in the campus’s first Walk To End Hazing on Sept. 27. The event started at 9 p.m. and took place in the field house due to weather conditions. Participants walked around the indoor track, which was lined with candle-lit memorial bags, each dedicated to a life lost to hazing.
Event coordinator senior Nicki Hagarty provided hazing facts throughout the walk. This event was open to everyone on campus and allowed for Greek life and non-Greek life students to come together for the cause.
To register, participants were required to make a minimum payment of $3 to receive a ticket, though some donated more. Tickets were available for purchase from the Walk to End Hazing table in the lower level of Degenstein Campus Center throughout the week leading up to the event. Alpha Delta Pi sister senior Kaitlyn Tempalsky helped organize the event and spoke of her experience with hazing during the walk.
In February of 2017, Tempalsky’s boyfriend Timothy Piazza, an engineering student at Penn State, died due to a fraternity hazing ritual. In 2017, Tempalsky spoke alongside the Piazza family during Hazing Prevention Week.
All of the proceeds raised by the walk will go to The Timothy Piazza Foundation.
“It was amazing, we raised over $1,000 in one night,” Tempalsky said. Susquehanna’s anti-hazing efforts make her feel as though “we all have a unified front.”
Senior Julia Gagnon also played a huge part in the walk’s success. She said a lot of the success was thanks to Hagarty’s quick thinking.
“[Hagarty] transformed the event within hours and made it extremely successful,” Gagnon said. “She made use of what she had and decided to use the indoor track.”
“My best friend Kaitlyn lost her boyfriend to hazing,” Gagnon continued. “Because of that, this cause is something very close to my heart. I did not know him, but seeing the affect it has had on Kaitlyn makes me extremely passionate to make a change in our country.”
The Walk to End Hazing is anticipated to occur again in 2019 during Hazing Prevention Week. Tempalsky said she hopes the event had a big impact on those who participated.