New assistant director: Additional chapters possible in next year
For Jarod Holt, it was an easy decision to return home to South Carolina to fill a spot in the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life left vacant for nearly four months.
“When I saw the position become available, I was very excited. The community has a lot of opportunity for growth and a lot of standards of excellence,” said Holt, who is beginning his first full semester as assistant director of fraternity and sorority life. “It was a great opportunity to come to a university ... and a student body that I’m passionate for personally and professionally.”
The position was previously held by Keith Ellis, who stepped down in mid-July, nearly a year after fraternity recruitment was halted after six fraternities were accused of alcohol violations. Ellis, a doctoral student at the University of Kentucky, left his position to work on his dissertation on hazing.
Holt, who earned his master’s degree in higher education and student affairs from USC less than three years ago, returns to the South from Michigan’s Grand Valley State University, where he worked with a much “younger” and smaller Greek system, he said.
Recently, his main tasks have been advising the Fraternity Council, which selected new officers at the end of November, and helping oversee fraternity recruitment and the intake process for multicultural and National Pan-Hellenic Council fraternities.
“A lot of my time right now is being spent communicating with the chapters that are doing recruitment and making sure everyone is on the same page,” Holt said.
He is also working with Fraternity Council on an ongoing expansion process, which could possibly bring new chapters to USC in “a year-and-a-half to two years,” he said.
“We’ve identified three organizations that they are bringing on campus to interview as an entire delegation,” Holt said. “My hope is to challenge our men to make a strategic plan ... a five- (to) 10-year plan for sustainable growth in our fraternity and sorority community.”
He said that Fraternity Council would be meeting with these three groups in the near future to determine what fraternity expansion could look like.
If all three groups were to be approved, there would be 19 fraternities at USC within a few years — 20 after Alpha Tau Omega returns to campus next January — and those groups could outnumber sororities by a ratio of nearly 2-1.
Holt also hopes to create a stronger partnership between fraternity student leaders and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life.
“This office is a resource,” he said. “We can build those relationships and have those conversations that will help propel our community forward. I want to understand where they’re coming from as organizations and how we can move forward and work as a collective.”