All campus administrators face issues of hazing, some with more
urgency than others. Southeast Missouri State University faced a worse
crisis than most in 1994 when twenty-five-year old Michael Davis — a
journalism major — died after two weeks of hazing at the hands of his
Kappa Alpha Psi brothers.
At that time, a horrified campus held countless discussions about
what the college as a whole knew or should have known — and realized
it did not know nearly enough.
Today, Loren Rullman, director of the university center with
responsibility for Greek life, says confidently, “There is not hazing
that is taking place. I really believe that.
Rullman, who came to Southeast Missouri six months after Davis
died, has spent a great deal of time working with fraternities and
sororities, both Black and White, to get to the point where he can be
so confident.
Whether other campuses can duplicate the procedures that has made
him so confident is an open question, he says. The unfortunate death of
Michael Davis gave the entire campus “an incredible sensitivity” to the
issue of hazing.
“We have never forgotten that, but it isn’t something you can program,” he says.
Still, he says, other campuses can learn from the experience of Southeast Missouri.
