Christian association, source: Lotte Smithuis
Member USC near fraternity building, source: Lotte Smithuis
“They must spend the night in suspense and fear, waiting to find out when and where they will be punished, and play along with this.” This is one of the many tasks committee members carry out during the initiation period for Dutch students who want to join, in this example, the female student association UVSV–NVVSU. There is an entire world of fraternities and student associations that occupy students alongside their academic lives, of which we know little.
The registration period was the most intense part, according to Dutch student Livia Froitzheim. She joined the Dutch student association Veritas at the beginning of her academic year. She spent her morning waiting in line alongside hundreds of other students. “There were five rooms in this process of getting registered,” she told me while trying to be careful not to spoil too much.
These initiation periods are surrounded by a strong sense of secrecy. This secrecy remained intact until, in the final weeks of August, RTV Utrecht, a Dutch local broadcaster, found the script for UVSV–NVVSU’s initiation week. “This script is secret! Don’t let it wander and never send it to others,” read the cover of the script, which would keep students in anticipation for weeks.
The tasks of these committee members are mostly to be snappy and treat the students as what they are: freshmen joining the association. Livia noticed this too. “Room one was mostly about standing still, but room two was worse.” In the second room, Livia underwent questioning. The interviewer was snappy and curt with her, actively questioning whether Livia wanted to go home. “This is how they try to figure out if people really want to be in the association,” Livia explains. “I spent approximately five hours in the rooms, which was short compared to others. Some spent up to nine hours in the registration process.”
The Dutch psychology magazine writes about what could possibly be wrong with these older students (corpsleden) and why students would participate in these initiation rituals. “In a group, you quickly conform to what the rest are doing, even if something happens that you wouldn’t normally approve of,” they write. Prospective members feel they have to go along with it. Research shows that “having a place where you belong” is a key motivation for joining a student association. In the end, everyone who has participated in one of these initiation periods lives to tell the tale and often describes the experience most accurately as “trauma bonding.”
