Last week, engineering students stripped down to their skivvies and crawled across Ryerson’s slushy skating rink, in the name of earning their society’s coveralls. 

Students braved the -10 C temperature in nothing but their intimates, while their frosh-tested peers aimed water guns at them, and passing strangers snapped photos. And then they shimmied in a conga line to Yonge-Dundas Square. Still half naked. Oh the horror.

Led by the Ryerson Engineering Student Society (RESS), the event was a voluntary act of vulnerability, intended to initiate frosh leaders. But it ultimately outraged Ryerson president Sheldon Levy.

Levy released a letter online denouncing the initiation as “an assault on the dignity of your fellow students and a black mark on your school.” 

Frosh leader Urshia Nasir told our reporter Touria Izri that the annual event is not forced upon anyone.

But when does initiation become hazing? Our feelings at The Ryersonian are divided.

Students entering high school have no choice but to participate in orientation week initiation, because their senior peers perceive this as a condition to gain social acceptance. Often, this ideology leads them to believe this generational practice of initiation is not hazing. But chances are, they have it much worse than getting sprayed with a water gun.

Shaming seems to be a norm in university engineering culture. On most campuses, engineering students are frequently defined by their quirks. They have been known to partake in actions that embarrass all engineering students — not just the inexperienced ones. 

“Engineers love to freak people out,” wrote one student in the comments below Levy’s letter (posted on the website GenuineWitty). This makes it hard to believe the event intended to haze.

We’ll have faith in the RESS when they say it was meant to “build community.” It certainly binds the new and returning engineers as a kooky bunch. Our RyersonianTV cameras were at the event and, quite honestly, students appeared to be having a good time. Why the fuss if everyone had fun?

The most common defence to criticisms concerning last week’s frosh initiation is that the event was voluntary. Students chose whether or not they wanted to participate, just as students chose whether or not they wanted to be in their underwear.

But arguing that it was a matter of choice doesn’t mean the activities weren’t humiliating. In high school, you have no choice but to participate; however, in university, you’re under pressure to participate. 

“It’s not a requirement but it’s strongly encouraged,” Nasir said. Opting out then seems to carry a certain stigma that will separate those who didn’t do it from those who sucked it up and did. 

Things get questionable when a photograph surfaces depicting a female student being slapped on the ass by a male. She might have agreed to being scantily dressed and targeted with a water gun, but nowhere in that agreement should it have been OK for a person, especially of the opposite gender, to slap her in the company of a crowd full of observers and peers she’ll work with. There’s no real free consent when freshmen and sophomore are a little naive. 

This story was first published in The Ryersonian, a weekly newspaper produced by the Ryerson School of Journalism, on March 27, 2013.