After a night of partying in early February 2002, then-university student Daniel Reardon fell into a coma. Six days later, the 19-year-old died.

Jeffrey Novotny Jr. was there that night — the night they were joining the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.

“What was meant by the chapter to be a get-to-know-you evening turned drastically for the worst, for the campus community and certainly for Daniel’s family,” said Novotny, a 2005 university alumnus.

Now, as an adviser for this university’s chapter of Phi Gamma Delta, Novotny focuses on making the new member process “important, rigorous and enriching,” while also doing so safely.

Alumni, faculty and students discussed what hazing is, why it occurs in student organizations and how they can work to prevent it in a panel held Tuesday as part of National Hazing Prevention Week.

“It’s not just a Greek thing. It’s not just a band thing,” said James Bond, assistant director of the Office of Student Conduct and member of the hazing prevention coalition. “It cuts across the student experience. Pick an organization or a type of organization, and hazing practices could exist there in some form.”

The event included a presentation from Scott Roberts, director of undergraduate studies in the psychology department, and a discussion with three panelists: Novotny, Michelle Espino, assistant professor in the college of education and a member of Latina-based sorority Sigma Lambda Gamma, Matt Quigley, a 2012 alumnus who participated in club soccer and club rugby.

Espino, who worked with multicultural Greek organizations at Southern Methodist University and rewrote the new member education program for Sigma Lambda Gamma, said she doesn’t believe instilling sorority and fraternity values requires hazing.

“It angers me when we talk about earning our letters,” Espino said. “What are you, as a current member, doing to keep those letters? Are you getting a good GPA? Are you getting that prestigious internship? Are you getting a good job? Are you representing your organization in a variety of events on campus?”

Quigley said he joined the club rugby team as it was trying to recover from a previous hazing incident. The club had been kicked off the campus for a year after an incident involving drinking.

“Hazing has become a big part of sports,” Quigley said. “It was never really seen as hazing, it was seen as a tradition.”

He said students need to learn where the line between hazing and “rite of passage” is, and be careful not to cross it.

“We as humans need to justify the effort we put into doing things. We need to justify the suffering we go through, and … the things that we do to other people,” Roberts said. “We have to make it okay in our own heads, and what’s scary is we are very good at manipulating the facts to make ourselves feel better.”

Last year, Roberts and other psychologists sent a hazing survey out to 5,000 students. The survey found that 55 percent of respondents had experienced some form of hazing behaviors, but that only 10 percent considered what they experienced to be hazing.

After the psychologists showed the students this university’s definition of hazing, students were more likely to identify their experiences as such. Roberts proposed adopting a more straightforward definition: “If it feels like the group is bullying you, it’s hazing.”

Alexandra Broseker, this university Panhellenic Association president, said she enjoyed the presentation, particularly Roberts’ comparison of hazing to bullying.

“Somebody said it may be an oversimplification, but I think that’s a great way to get your foot in the door,” Broseker said.

Senior kinesiology major Brooks Leitner and senior finance and marketing major Nick Madormo attended the panel because they are on the executive board of their fraternity and said they found the event informative and helpful.

“I’m the pledge educator for our chapter and I really support [hazing prevention],” Madormo said. “I’m not for putting people in uncomfortable situations.”

Roberts also said that while this panel and the events of National Hazing Prevention Week are a step toward progress, work must continue because of the severity of the issue.

“Because at the end of the day, it’s killing people,” he said. “It’s abusing people. It’s harming people.”