This text comprises references to sexual assault and suicide.
Doing a military crawl whereas coated in molasses, uncooked eggs and woodchips. Happening a nude run. Climbing up the roof of a silo.
These are among the rituals college students say they undergo to affix a secret society at Western Sydney College.
Referred to as HAC, the student-run collective relies on the college’s Hawkesbury campus north-west of Sydney.
The identify harks again to Hawkesbury Agricultural School: the unique faculty that occupied the campus, earlier than it merged with Western Sydney College in 1989.
Patrick (not his actual identify) is a member of HAC, which nonetheless does among the actions and traditions that date again greater than 130 years.
“Clearly, we do have events, we do get drunk … there’s a energy dynamic, however I believe it is much more teaching-based,” he stated.
One in every of HAC’s traditions is a ingesting recreation the place first-years are quizzed on the historical past of the campus, and should drink in the event that they reply incorrectly. Supply: SBS
HAC is corresponding to a fraternity you’d see at an American faculty, Patrick stated.
As a third-year scholar, he is on the prime of the hierarchy: his job is to provoke the first-years into the group, which is named motting.
“The third-years have this form of energy over the first-years,” he defined.
A part of the initiation is a trivia-based ingesting recreation, the place you will be quizzed on the historical past of the campus. Reply incorrectly and you will be made to take a swig of booze.
Patrick seems to be again fondly on his personal time as a first-year.
“I am a younger male, I’ll have some drinks, and this was only a good excuse,” he stated.
When you cross the initiation, Patrick says you’re given a nickname and are formally a part of HAC.
Lately, the group’s pranks and occasions have included mock marriage proposals, placing on expertise exhibits and filling different members’ dorm rooms with sawdust or balloons.
Mock marriage proposals are a part of HAC’s traditions, the place college students ‘suggest’ to one another and one of the best couple is married in a pretend ceremony. Supply: Equipped
Then Patrick says there are the “battles” between the girls and boys. With the boys wearing button-up shirts and the ladies in skirts, they every attempt to seize as many shirts and skirts as attainable from the alternative gender.
“It might probably are inclined to get a bit of bit violent actually, however everybody loves it,” Patrick instructed The Feed.
“One of many individuals a 12 months above me broke his finger at considered one of them, however he doesn’t remorse it … he brings it up as a enjoyable story for positive.”
Patrick says lately, the group has gone additional underground due to the college’s hazing and motting ban.
“Anybody who’s related to the group on the primary event, they instantly have a six-month suspension, and on the second event, they’ve a right away expulsion from the college,” Patrick stated.
Patrick says he was virtually suspended in his first 12 months for collaborating within the group’s rituals throughout his initiation.
He additionally says he was evicted from his on-campus lodging.
Previous pranks have included members filling one another’s dorm rooms with sawdust or balloons. Supply: Equipped
“That was truthfully one of many hardest intervals of my life, as a result of the quantity of housing insecurity that brought on,” he stated.
“I believe the college’s cracked down on it within the unsuitable form of means.”
The Feed requested Western Sydney College about HAC and its actions.
A spokesperson stated whereas HAC shouldn’t be technically banned as it is not a registered membership, the college takes a powerful stance towards motting.
“College students related to HAC have beforehand engaged in motting and hazing actions, with college students subjected to numerous usually harmful or publicly-humiliating actions by which they’re pressured to participate or incur penalties,” the spokesperson instructed The Feed.
“We’ve got a transparent coverage in relation to motting and hazing and misconduct — taking a zero-tolerance method to any behaviour that endangers college students by putting them in coercive, sexualised contexts and actions throughout which medicine or alcohol are consumed.”
Hazing nicknames at the moment are banned on campus, however the nicknames of scholars from previous a long time are scrawled underneath the college’s rugby union scoreboard. Supply: Equipped
The college has additionally banned HAC nicknames, believing they “usually have underlying sexualised or derogatory associations”.
Patrick stated whereas the nicknames are sometimes sexual puns, today they’re randomly taken from an inventory and are not primarily based on a scholar’s private traits.
What’s hazing ?
Hazing is a type of initiation required to enter a bunch — a few of those that do it say it encourages bonding however others say the actions can generally be humiliating or degrading.
Aashish Srivastava, a senior lecturer at Monash College, has researched the tradition of hazing. He says in Australia, it largely happens inside college residential faculties and the defence pressure.
“Hazing is a dominance of energy … the senior members of a bunch, they really need to present their superiority and dominance over junior members or new members who be a part of the group,” he stated.
A gaggle of first-year college students collaborating in motting in 1955. Credit score: Western Sydney College Archives Assortment: Ref. D16/1470597
The not-so-secret society
HAC’s motting rituals weren’t at all times finished in secret — they was carried out overtly when the campus was an agricultural faculty.
“It was undoubtedly a longtime tradition. The campus used to run actions on O-week (orientation week) that plenty of our traditions are primarily based on,” Patrick stated.
Based in 1891, the campus was a wilder place in earlier a long time. In Western Sydney College’s public archive, you may nonetheless discover pictures of the group’s rituals.
One custom concerned dropping off college students as much as 200km away to seek out their very own means again to campus. When it was an all-boys faculty (it accepted its first feminine college students in 1971), they’d generally be stripped of their garments.
College students, like this group from 1962, had been taken kilometres away from the campus and needed to make their very own means again. Credit score: Western Sydney College Archives Assortment: Ref. D19/413627
Throughout orientation week, senior college students had been additionally assigned roles corresponding to King, Queen and Sergeant Main, and first-years needed to obey their orders.
A research of scholar behaviour on campus from 1979, discovered within the college archives, described the function of Sergeant Main:
“He dragged round on a string his ‘pet’, a piglet lifeless for 3 days. Some initiates had been later to be ordered to kiss or drag round this lifeless pig,” the authors wrote.
Initiates needed to obey orders from the older college students nominated “King” and “Queen”. Supply: Equipped / Western Sydney College Archives Assortment: Ref. D16/1470765
Previous initiates additionally rowed in mud and kitchen slops, acted like sheep and had been “auctioned” off to the best bidder.
Some former college students argued the initiations broke down class divides and improved bonding.
“It introduced everybody right down to the identical degree, and when it was throughout, the hand of friendship and comradeship was at all times prolonged to all freshers by all of the older college students,” one former scholar instructed the Hawkesbury Agricultural Journal in 1971.
Mots “rowing” in a mix of mud and kitchen slops in 1962. Credit score: Western Sydney College Archives Assortment: Ref. D19/413627
The tradition on campuses has shifted since then — with most Australian universities now having anti-hazing insurance policies.
Western Sydney College’s spokesperson stated: “We make no apologies for taking a really robust and principled stand on what is appropriate behaviour, each on campus and inside our scholar residences.”
“Anti-social behaviour and on-campus rituals haven’t any place in right now’s trendy Australian college.”
The darkish historical past of hazing at universities
Whereas some hazing rituals are seen as innocent enjoyable by some college students, for others they are often damaging and harmful.
In 2017, the Australian Human Rights Fee launched a report on sexual violence at Australian universities. It discovered many hazing practices at universities concerned components of sexual assault and harassment.
“Hazing practices and faculty ‘traditions’ facilitate a tradition which can enhance the chance of sexual violence,” the report stated.
Disturbing hazing practices had been additionally uncovered inside Australia’s college residential faculties in a report by Finish Rape on Campus Australia in 2018.
On the College of Sydney, some hazing rituals concerned male college students masturbating into feminine college students’ shampoo bottles and red-headed residents setting their pubic hair on fireplace to realize management positions.
Aashish Srivastava says initiation rituals at universities have usually concerned college students consuming extreme quantities of alcohol.
Aashish Srivastava is s senior lecturer at Monash College who has studied hazing rituals in Australia and abroad. Supply: Equipped
“Particularly more energizing ladies or girls … they’ve been coerced into ingesting alcohol. And sometimes it has additionally led to sexual harassment and sexual assault by different male members or senior members of the group,” he stated.
At Western Sydney College, Patrick says he is at all times had a selection in ingesting, even throughout initiation.
“Though individuals had been saying the phrases ‘you need to drink’ … I knew they weren’t going to crack my mouth open and pour it in my mouth,” he stated.
Nonetheless, he has heard of different college students being coerced into ingesting lately.
“I believe undoubtedly there have been a number of individuals who get energy hungry, and there have been individuals who have been bodily pressured to drink,” he acknowledged.
Initiates being put in cages and apparently having liquid thrown on them in 1957. Credit score: Western Sydney College Archives Assortment: Ref. D16/1470761
Patrick stated HAC is now actively making an attempt to alter its tradition, together with eliminating controversial hazing rituals just like the silo climb and molasses military crawl.
“[We’re] not making an attempt to abuse any energy or something, simply actually specializing in the enjoyable features and the educating features as a substitute of the ‘you need to do that’,” Patrick stated.
“The general public, they do not need this soiled shit taking place — they need individuals to have enjoyable. And I believe the college actually will get in our means with that.”
Patrick says Western Sydney College’s zero-tolerance method to hazing and motting makes college students really feel conflicted about reporting incidents the place they really feel unsafe.
He alleges he was groped at a frat social gathering, however did not report it to the college, fearing he could be punished for collaborating in a HAC occasion.
“I felt like I could not go to the college… they’ll say, ‘effectively, okay, why had been you at this social gathering?’,” he stated.
“One time we had come dwelling from the bar and considered one of my mates was lacking, and we knew he was drunk, and I wished to name the residential assistant to test if he is in his room or not.”
“However I knew that if I did that, I might get suspended.”
To lots of the different college students on campus, HAC stays a closely-guarded secret.
Niruban Dhanasekaran is the SRC consultant for the Hawkesbury campus. Regardless of learning on the college for nearly two years, he hasn’t heard of any HAC occasions or actions.
“We have not [been] contacted from anybody about any points associated to HAC,” he stated.
“In the event that they attain out to SRC, undoubtedly we’d tackle no matter issues, queries, what they face at our campus.”
Brothers and sisters for all times
Patrick says when he first arrived at college, he struggled with social anxiousness and his psychological well being.
He fearful about not making mates, however by HAC, he met his companion and made loads of good mates and it is a massive a part of why he is vouching for the group.
“These third-year boys, they taken care of me … even once I was having some self-destructive moments,” he stated.
“A lot of my life could be so completely different — and for my part, for the more severe — if I did not have these individuals.”
“As soon as a mot, at all times a mot”: former fraternity members stay a part of the brotherhood or sisterhood even after they’ve left uni. Credit score: Western Sydney College Archives Assortment: Ref. D16/1470786
Patrick stated the college’s consideration meant it has been tough to organise HAC occasions in current months.
“There was a bunch of people that’d organise common events and common actions … none of that is taking place anymore,” he stated.
“I actually see the advantage of the group … it is only a nice disgrace to see one thing that is been happening for 130 years and benefitted so many individuals’s lives simply go to waste.”
Readers in search of disaster help can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, the Suicide Name Again Service on 1300 659 467 and Youngsters Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for younger individuals aged as much as 25). Extra info and help with psychological well being is out there at beyondblue.org.au and on 1300 22 4636.
In the event you or somebody you realize is impacted by sexual assault, name 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, textual content 0458 737 732, or go to 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, name 000.
