The whole point is to bring the pledge class together, there's a couple different thought processes of how you can achieve this. The best way is to give the pledge class a common goal that they have to work for as a class. Stress the importance of helping each other as that will make them better active members overall. You don't need to beat them with paddles or light them on fire to make them better brothers in the future. Also, forced drinking is a bit of a liability. All it takes is one guy who has never really drank before or is on medication you don't know about to land you and your fraternity in a lot of trouble. How you want to make them achieve this goal is up to you. Things that are as simple as pledge class projects can really help unite people. This can be anything like building some new beer pong tables for parties or whatever yall could use.

You can also go a more traditional route which sounds like you want to do but don't necessarily have the support for. You can think of it like this: pledges are forced to be on a "losing" team which requires them to bond around a perpetual world of shit. Demand absolute perfection. Give them impossible tasks that result in punishment when not throughly completed. An example would be to give them a test with questions involving quantum physics or translating languages like Peshawar or Cantonese. Anything that makes them fail. Have them bond around losing and have then pick each other up. It will be very easy to see who are the team players and leaders you want in your fraternity by how they act when they are constantly being held to an impossible standard.

One of the most important things however, is to have a plan and be STRUCTURED. You will fail if your education plan looks dumb or is totally unorganized. Even the dumbest of pledges should be able to figure out that you are trying to unite them and teach them the core values of your fraternity because that is what pledging is about; taking stupid freshmen and making them the great brothers your founders envisioned for your fraternity.