Dr. Eddie A. Holloway "Dean's Challenge"

Dr. Eddie A. Holloway
Dean of Students
The University of Southern Mississippi 

About the Dean's Challenge:

Most "chapter-level awards" from the Office of Greek Life have been dissolved and replaced with a new series of awards.  These awards are labeled “the Dean’s Challenge.”  This challenge, named in honor of our current Dean of Students, Dr. Eddie A Holloway, will contain a maximum number of five (5) potential awards that any chapter can attain. Dr. Holloway consistently challenges our fraternities and sororities to improve their operations every year.  He emphasizes quality, responsiveness, flexibility, and excellence in all pursuits.  We find it fitting to honor his legacy through this annual series of recognitions. 

In the previous award structure, chapter’s competed against each other.  In the new structure, chapters compete against themselves.  Greek Life will track your attainment on the calendar year, and benchmark it against your attainment from the previous calendar year.  If we are to achieve greatness, we must be better this year than the last.   

The goals of these changes are four-fold:

1. To promote excellence and continual improvement
2. To recognize more chapters for their hard work and efforts
3. To eliminate areas of competition between groups, and
4. To provide meaningful, transparent targets, specific to each chapter, from which goal setting can flourish.  

Does this tell me which chapters are 'good':

In a word, no.  Every chapter at Southern Miss is "good" in their own right.  Because the chapters are not compared to each other (meaning each has its own targets to obtain), you cannot compare chapters to each other based on stars. It is best to think of stars as a measure of improvement.  If a chapter obtains a star, it means they improved in that category. Certainly, a "5-star chapter" demonstrates improvement across the board. Does that mean they're better than a 4-star chapter?  Not at all.  

Because each chapter has different membership size, values, priorities, and expectations, we simply ask that they work to improve themselves each year.  Simply put:  A good chapter is one that is improving. A great chapter has improvement woven into their very core, and shows consistent improvement year in and year out.  That is what we ask of all of our chapters, and the members who comprise them.

How are the target criteria for the Stars set?:

GPA:

• Chapter will improve its cumulative annual composite GPA by .05 from the previous year, or
• Chapter will attain an annual composite GPA of 3.0 or greater.

2012 Dean's Challenge Final Report

• GPA: 2.87 avg. chapter [ 8% growth from 2011 ]
• Recruitment: 687 members [ 5% growth from 2011 ]
• Retention: 88% [16% growth from 2011 ]  *Not finalized until April 2013
• Service: 43,748 hours [ 71% growth from 2011 ]
• Philanthropy: $292,158 [ 24% growth from 2011 ]

# # # 

As of March 27, 2013, here is the current level of attainment.  Cells highlighted in "Gold" indicate the chapter has qualified for the award at the 2014 Greek Award Ceremony. The “Target” columns reflect the minimal growth/expectations to qualify for award. The corresponding “Attain” columns indicate progress toward these targets to date.  These figures reflect data self-reported by the undergraduate chapter.  The reporting period is January 1 - December 31.

	GPA Attain	GPA Target	Recruit Attain	Recruit Target	Retain% Attain	Retain% Target	Serve Attain	Serve Target	Phil$ Attain	Phil$ Target
		2.98		32				843	53	7,393
		2.98		33			802	2,911	763	2,643
		2.70		19			72	26	91	126
		2.50		21				267	39	7,043
		3.00		57				2,128	56	46,205
		3.00		56				2,357	13,166	59,044
		3.00		51				3,597	70	17,329
		2.88		26				5,241	4	14,456
		2.93	2	18				2,350	53	47,916
		3.00		7				382		80
		3.00		55				3,100	53	38,002
		2.50		19				3,067	40	1,976
		2.68		1			109	169		153
		2.65		17				1,182		5
		2.66	6	15				2,504	55	3,134
		3.00		58				2,200	68	28,575
		3.00		66				3,493	282	31,122
		2.50	1	37				580	150	2,118
		3.00		25				4,880	62	1,257
		2.78		23				50	62	5,871
		2.75		21				650	64	5,696
		2.59		1			22	102		5
		2.93	1	19				1,050	51	2,333
		3.00	1	34				1,609	71	5,789
		3.00		16			133	1,247	19	952