The Daily Gamecock

Gant represents others, encourages involvement

Student leads multiple organizations, looks to serve others

Being idle is not Jasmine Gant’s forte, and since she is involved in Fraternity and Sorority Life and the Association of Minority Pre-Health Students, or AMPS, she doesn’t have time to be.

Serving as the president of AMPS and Zeta Sigma Chi sorority and being the vice president of sororities for the Multicultural Greek Board, Gant thrives on having an active lifestyle and giving back to others through service and leadership.

“What motivates me is that I’m an intrinsically caring person,” Gant said. “Giving back motivates me to continue to give back and do work the way that I was raised.”

One of the biggest ways that Gant gives back is through an annual event, One Mic Night, which is a forum that touches on the topic of domestic abuse. Since her second year, Gant has seen the small forum grow to fill the Russell House theater.

“We wanted to put on a quality event,” Gant said. “Being that domestic abuse is sort of a ‘hush hush’ topic, we wanted to do something that was more than an open forum.”

She said the event, which is held each fall, allowed AMPS to be creative in how it approaches the topic of abuse and allowed participants to feel empowered by stories that are told through creative talent and diverse voices.

“To have One Mic on a campus such as ours where we’re constantly hearing how we’re diverse and how sexually conscious and gender inclusive we are — we also hear the more quiet reports like robberies, crime and sexual abuse,” Gant said. “It’s wonderful to celebrate university achievement, but if we’re not taking on things that impact our students and community in a negative way, providing students with a safe environment not just to live but to think, the university is giving students a disservice.”

As the topic of inclusion continues to evolve at the university, Gant hopes that One Mic Night will continue to do the same. Looking back on the program’s start, she sees incredible growth for the event in the future. Eventually, she said, she’d like to see it move into the Koger Center and draw local leaders like Mayor Steve Benjamin,

Gant is also no stranger to commitment and deadlines, unafraid of trying something new. For example, serving as president of Zeta Sigma Chi sorority wasn’t something that she saw for herself years before.

“I’m one of those people that once I decide to make that decision to join a lifelong sisterhood, I took that decision seriously,” Gant said. “I was very fortunate to meet some genuine people that embodied and lived their principles every day. By seeing their example, how could I not aspire to be like that?” Gant said she would continue to work toward goals of inclusion, awareness and community after she leaves USC. As she prepares to graduate this August, she encouraged others to get involved and to take advantage of what college has to offer.

“It’s not enough to just do,” Gant said. “I want to be able to say that what I did touched somebody, helped somebody or got someone to see something in a different perspective.”


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