The hazing incident that erased a prestigious Queen’s Commerce club

This article contains descriptions of hazing, mention of traumatic injuries and may be disturbing to readers. Those who have experienced hazing may reach out to the Hazing Prevention Network by calling 1-888-668-4293.

As the night of hazing began, members of a high-profile commerce club were unaware it would be the club’s last.

The newest recruits of Queen’s Finance Association (QFA) convened with club leaders in anticipation of their initiation on Oct. 4, 2022. Meanwhile, club members armed with solo cups awaited the new members’ arrival at a house in the University District. The night would lead to rounds of drinking games like “stack cup,” and indulgent rounds of alcoholic shots.

In the early hours of the morning after initiation, peers found Spencer* lying on the floor of a campus building, intoxicated and extremely vulnerable.

The 18-year-old student was glassy-eyed and nearly unconscious, according to an email sent from a peer’s parent to The Journal and Smith School of Business Dean Wanda Costen. Queen’s staff confirmed details of the incident via email.

Queen’s staff and campus security came to the scene, according to a statement from the University. The peer’s parent claimed Spencer didn’t receive medical attention and was left under the supervision of their peers.

The very same night, new member Alex* was accompanied home drunk. They don’t recall much from that night, but said they vaguely remember an older student tucking them in and putting water next to the bed.

The next thing they knew, Alex hit their head in the bathroom. The headache lasted two to three days.

The social was “celebratory,” Alex said, happy to be involved with QFA. They admitted to drinking “more than [they] probably should.”

More hazing incidents

QFA’s hazing incident didn’t happen in isolation.

There’s a culture of initiations at Queen’s extending across faculties, according to Spencer. Socials are part of building a club’s culture at Queen’s, and they called dangerous experiences “bad one-offs.”

Hazing usually happens in three stages, and is proliferated by exclusivity, hazing expert and psychologist Susan Lipkins told The Journal in an interview.

The first stage of hazing is fun and involves activities students are more familiar with, Lipkins said. In the second stage, the activities usually escalate. Near the end, existing members continue to use increasingly psychologically and physically dangerous tactics.

An itinerary document planning a hazing event in a different commerce club in October 2022 that was leaked to The Journal mirrors these stages. It details students going house-to-house in the University District and consuming copious amounts of alcohol.

The first-year students would initially present to other members in Goodes Hall, the commerce building. Then, a member impersonating an Uber driver would pick up club members from Goodes Hall, leading the unsuspecting recruits to believe they were headed to the leader’s house to sign the club’s contract. The driver would be drinking from a mickey of alcohol that was actually filled with water.

While in the car, the plan indicated current students would pretend to repeatedly ask to be let out, before getting dropped off at the club’s first hazing location. The first-year students would then be blindfolded and instructed to chug alcoholic coolers.

The leaders planned to drive the first years to different students’ houses and complete various challenges, including a “chug run” into the ARC and a “spin & hit” game which, according to the itinerary, “need[ed] a baseball bat and shitty cans.”

At the end, the first years would be put in a “strobe shed” and forced to drink alcohol potentially combined with milk out of a rubber glove with a hole in one finger.

The rest of the plan included other drinking games, laden with tequila and “jungle juice.” A leaked alcohol shopping list for the event totalled more than seven standard drinks per club member.

The anxiety surrounding what will happen next is part of the psychology of hazing. The key is for new members to be unaware of what lies in store, Lipkins explained. There’s “no free will” in hazing, she said.

Members of this club were enthusiastic about the plan to initiate new recruits, according to group messages leaked to The Journal.

The current leader of the club asked, “What if the frosh puke on their suits?” to which the leader at the time responded, “[it’s] encouraged.” Members responded with heart and laughing emojis when another member commented “reservation for 2 at KGH [Kingston General Hospital].”

The emergency room at Kingston General Hospital (KGH) currently doesn’t maintain statistics on hospitalization related to hazing.

Dr. Tim Chaplin, program medical director for the emergency department at KHSC, said while alcohol poisoning is always a risk during hazing rituals, it can sometimes be minimal in comparison to bodily traumas such as broken bones, lacerations, and assaults.

More commerce clubs host socials filled with hazing activities. A current commerce student told The Journal he witnessed a club social where members had to drink upon failing challenges set out by club leaders.

He piped up and told the incoming students there was “no pressure” to keep drinking. The room went silent, he said, shrouded by awkwardness.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, these clubs are your gateway entry to a lot of very prestigious jobs,” the student said. The professional relationships that emerge from clubs add to the pressure, he added.

As rumours spread across the commerce program about the incident leading to QFA’s disbandment, the student said hearing peers say “worse things” had already happened in other clubs scared him. The student heard rumours that those who experienced hazing at QFA faced invasive medical interventions such as stomach pumping.

When a patient presents to the hospital after overconsuming alcohol, stomach pumping is rarely used as a line of treatment, and supportive management is the primary method of care given instead. Dr. Chaplin said pumping a stomach is a procedure fraught with risk and increased potential for harm.

None of the hazed QFA students had their stomach pumped that night.

Hazing is fundamentally about identity, according to Lipkins. After leaving the comfort of family and friends behind, university students are especially susceptible to wanting to fit in, turning to groups like clubs to fill the gap.

“[Students] feel like that group will have their back and will protect them. The issue is that during the hazing, that group in fact is not protecting them—it’s doing the opposite,” Lipkins said.

It’s seen as a rite of passage. Tolerating hazing traditions is a way for new members to prove they’re worthy of being in the group, Lipkins said. Before hazing even starts students understand the group is exclusive—they’re either in or out.

The Journal reached out to ten other students believed to be involved in QFA, all of whom declined to comment on the hazing activities of October 4, 2022. Dozens of commerce students declined The Journal’s request for comment. Most students who spoke on the record only agreed to speaking anonymously to protect their safety.

Hazing adheres to a strict code of silence. Isolation and retribution from the group are scarier to students than any legal or academic consequences, Lipkins said. The threat of social alienation is enough to keep students involved in hazing quiet.

A history of hazing at Smith

Peer pressure in commerce clubs was implicit and unspoken, a Comm ’22 alumna told The Journal in an interview. Her hazing experience included a scavenger hunt and a night of heavy drinking games directed toward new members.

The alumna never felt unsafe and said she had a positive experience with clubs while attending Queen’s. But the amount of alcohol consumed at hazing socials “doesn’t fall into the bucket of safe,” she said.

“It’s really your first impression on a lot of these more senior people who have connections … or just the nature of that they’re older than you. There’s a bit of a power dynamic there,” the alumna said.

Another alumnus, Comm ’90 , mostly encountered hazing during his orientation “frosh” week.

The alumnus called commerce a “hazing program,” and said his initiation was akin to being indoctrinated into a club, like in the film Dead Poets Society. Team-building was central to the experience, and challenges were meant to bring students entering the program together.

Hazing included students being tied together on a rope and wandering downtown Kingston, making a “public spectacle,” and worshipping the Beer Store.

He also remembers late-night parties “going wrong” during the first few weeks of school.

Drinking strong mixers masking the taste of alcohol with Kool-Aid was popular, and many students vomited excessively—especially as most were inexperienced drinkers. The alumnus noted other programs were “even worse” at the time, like Queen’s engineering program.

“I felt like some of those people weren’t asking for that, and weren’t interested in that,” he said. “They just sort of got sucked into it.”

Even familiarity with alcohol doesn’t make drinking any less dangerous, expert Lipkins said. After spending her career studying hazing incidents, she has seen the worst outcomes.

“If there is one thing I would like people to know, … it’s that part of the hazing is purposefully to get [students] drunk, and some portion of those kids die,” Lipkins said.

“They die because they have been purposefully given too much alcohol.”

The QFA Aftermath

The finance club disappeared within weeks after the incident. The website was taken down, the LinkedIn page scrapped, and the Instagram page removed.

In a statement to Queen’s Commerce students in November, Dean Wanda Costen acknowledged a “serious incident” involving alcohol led to the dispersion of the club.

A Freedom of Information request allowed The Journal to understand the wide-ranging internal conversations in the days following QFA’s closure. Originally, the University claimed a third-party exemption under section 17 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. After a months-long appeal process—involving mediation through the Ontario Information and Privacy Commission—the University released all sections previously redacted under section 17.

With a Non-Academic Misconduct investigation underway, the club’s disbandment was handled by the University, rather than the student-run Commerce Society (ComSoc).

According to email records, QFA club members appealed the initial decision in the misconduct investigation. The Student Code states that student groups and leaders are responsible for code violations of those they oversee—regardless of if the misconduct is sanctioned or not, according to section IV.

The decision to suspend all QFA activities on November 3, 2022, was made after a “thorough investigation” by the Student Conduct Office, according to a statement from the University.

The society’s typical procedure for de-ratification wasn’t followed, as it usually is discussed in the society’s assembly, according to a former member of the assembly. Club Co-Chairs and Commerce Society executives were informed that the club had been disbanded by October 28, 2022, according to an email from Arcan Nalca, associate dean (undergraduate program).

“The Smith School of Business administration unilaterally took action to remove QFA from the Society,” ComSoc President Mahir Hamid said in a statement to The Journal.

The club’s disbandment deprived students of finance opportunities built on QFA’s alumni network, Spencer said. The consequences imposed on QFA had a dual impact on commerce culture—some positive, and others negative, they added.

“As much as de-ratifying the club may have helped change culture, it ruined a lot of opportunities,” Spencer said. “You could have had the same implications with a smaller impact on the community.”

The club planned to hold two major events, with attendance from high-profile alumni. One was a visit from CIBC’s CEO Victor Dodig, for its “Road to CEO” event planned for November 2022. CIBC’s event was cancelled.

The other event, a stock pitch competition, was set to take place in New York in early 2023. As one of the oldest undergraduate finance associations in the country, QFA had large corporate ties and sponsorship deals with companies like National Bank.

Though QFA was disbanded by the business school, its financial obligations weren’t erased.

QFA had a contract with the Omni King Edward Hotel in Toronto which carried a $48,000 cancellation penalty. A $7,556 bus fee had already been paid. The hotel for the club’s New York trip also had a $5,784 cancellation fee in addition to a $1,000 deposit.

Managing the Narrative

In the days following QFA’s closure, the University embarked on a carefully coordinated communications strategy to contain the release of information.

Amber Wallace, Smith’s director of communications and external relations, said managing “the story” after the Non-Academic Misconduct process would be a priority.

To prepare for alumni reactions to the hazing incident, Wallace emailed Dean Costen, suggesting they work with Development and Alumni Engagement teams.

Engaging with Stephen Smith, Sci ’72—the distinguished alumnus after whom the Smith School of Business was named and who donated $100 million to the Faculty of Engineering in 2023 —would necessitate “special stakeholder engagement,” according to Wallace’s email.

Regarding the cancelled Road to CEO event for QFA, Smith Executive Director (Marketing and Communications) Nancy Evans said she expected CIBC to not respond on the issue—including a non-response to The Journal.

Internally, there were questions about how Costen was handling the club’s disbandment.

“I think Dean Costen’s concerns could be over-cautious, but she felt that Principal’s Office should be made aware,” Norma Barrett, director of student conduct, said in an email.

Barrett said Dean Costen was “unequivocal” in feeling that events needed to be cancelled as a consequence.

Looking Forward

The “blueprint of hazing” is a cycle where the victims become the perpetrators, expert Lipkins said. Members feel a right and duty to initiate new members like how they were in the past. To change the hazing culture at Queen’s, students need to take it down from the inside, according to Lipkins.

“The most severe hazing will be reduced when the members who are being hazed join together as a group and say, ‘we’re not doing this anymore, we’re changing the tradition,” Lipkins said.

Always having to explain why she’s not drinking, Comm ’25 Emman Azam believes changing commerce culture is about safety and inclusion. As the leader of a club, Azam aims to make culture more accessible—without drinking at the centre.

One example is “sober socials,” where members can bring drinks, but the main activity is centred around something else, like painting or watching a movie.

Azam was previously part of a club that tallied strikes for students who missed socials. When she did attend, she was confronted with the expectation of drinking. Drinking culture is so deeply entrenched in certain clubs’ traditions that Azam claims not drinking would hamper her work success in those clubs.

“You feel like you have to overcompensate for the fact that you’re not drinking,” Azam said. “If I said no to drinking socials, people would have a problem—and they would say it to my face.”

Working an investment job over the summer, Azam was surprised to find no one batted an eye when she didn’t drink alcohol at after-hours socials. The corporate world is changing, and the culture in Queen’s Commerce needs to keep up, she said.

Universities are targeting the wrong people in attempts to address hazing, according to Lipkins. Adults on campus, not only students, need to know how to recognize hazing and report it. The University should offer students amnesty and rewards for coming forward, she added.

In the commerce program, Spencer said members are more caring, and there’s less pressure to drink. Socials are a really good way of breaking down walls and growing closer with peers, they said.

Spencer believes things are changing.

*Names changed for safety reasons

Tags

Alcohol, Commerce, hazing, Journal Investigation, scandal

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