Built in the 1950s as USC's first fraternity dorms, the McBryde Quad saw its share of keg parties and frat boy shenanigans back in the day. McBryde's reputation for rowdiness eventually gave way to more serious conversations among its residents in later years. Now, as the last of McBryde's buildings are slated for replacement, it's an auspicious time to consider the long arc of McBryde's story.
TRANSCRIPT
Dustin Struble: “If I hadn't worked in McBryde, if I hadn't worked with those three fraternities, and if I hadn't worked on those men's engagement programs, I don't think they would've hired me. So, I think in some ways, McBryde plays a pretty big role in where I am now. I don't think I've thought about that in those terms before our conversation today.”
That’s Dustin Struble who 15 years ago was a residence hall director at the University of South Carolina. Today, he’s Dr. Dustin Struble, having earned his Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Kansas. But long before he earned his doctorate, he received a less formal, though perhaps equally important education as the residence life coordinator for the McBryde Learning Community at Carolina back in 2011 and 2012.
Welcome to Remembering the Days, where we explore the stories and talk with the people who are part of the rich history of the University of South Carolina. I'm Evan Faulkenberry. On this episode, we’re learning all about the McBryde Quad. Yes, McBryde, those buildings, the residence halls between Thomas Cooper Library and Blossom Street, the ones that have perhaps seen better days. But I’ve been looking into McBryde’s history for a while now, and I have to tell you, McBryde’s history is so much more than that of some old buildings past their prime.
Dustin remembers McBryde not having the best reputation on campus, and he wanted to change it. Other dorms had learning communities, but not McBryde. Dustin proposed creating one — an atypical one. Since McBryde was all-male and three fraternities still called McBryde home, Dustin proposed a learning community based on men and masculinity. He wasn’t sure what would happen, but it took hold, and luring students with free pizza, they had regular “man chats” throughout the year, tackling tough subjects.
Dustin Struble: “We would have monthly programs that I called 'man chats.' We would put up signs throughout the building promoting them and offering free chicken wings and pizza, and so they would show up for the food and then they would end up staying for conversations around masculinity. We probably did probably somewhere between eight and 10 man chats throughout the year on different topics. Some of them were just about men in the media, we did sessions on mental health, spirituality, we did one for our fraternity community … and we really used that as a way to have a conversation around how do we change that reputation?”
Dustin’s story isn’t all that unique when it comes to McBryde. I’ve talked to several people who want to rehabilitate McBryde’s reputation before it’s replaced with new dorms. For Dustin and so many more, McBryde was a place that helped them grow up, to mature, to find community and to become a more well-rounded person.
McBryde’s history goes back a long way. The name honors John McLaren McBryde, a president of the university during the 1880s and up until 1890. Skipping ahead to the 20th century, in 1937 with funds from the New Deal, two wings were added onto the men’s dormitory Thornwell College, and the northern wing was named for McBryde. In the years following World War II, the campus expanded at a breakneck pace, and much of campus life revolved around the fraternity and sorority social scene. But not everyone got into a fraternity, and independent social clubs became popular. One was the McBryde Brotherhood, which began in 1949 operating through its wing of Thornwell College. They held dances, played sports, and for years, the McBryde Brotherhood helped build the tiger for the annual Tiger Burn on campus.
As fraternities kept growing, the university needed somewhere to put them. In 1955, with no signs of Carolina’s postwar growth slowing, the university opened Fraternity Row aka Fraternity Quadrangle. A local architectural firm designed seven, three-story buildings forming a U-shape around a pedestrian-friendly quad. The buildings were made for fraternities to live all together with lounges on the bottom floors. In 1968, the university renamed Fraternity Quad for McBryde, but students often kept referring to it as the Quad. For decades, until the construction of the Greek Village in the early 2000s prompted most fraternities to leave McBryde, the Quad was a center of campus life. On any given day (or night), you’d find fraternity brothers and residents grilling, playing music, lounging, tossing footballs, and yes, during those occasional quieter moments, studying.
William Hubbard, who’s now the dean of the Joseph F. Rice School of Law, tried to study when he lived in McBryde for three years during the 1970s.
William Hubbard: “It was not air-conditioned and at one point there was a, I mean, there was a construction project. The extension of the Thomas Cooper Library took place during the three years that I lived on McBryde Quadrangle. I can still hear the ringing in my ears of the pile drivers every morning, just pound, pound, pound. I mean the whole building would vibrate. Your ears would ring because they had to put a steel curtain basically with pilings to keep Thomas Cooper Library from falling into this humongous hole because they were taking Thomas Cooper Library down four levels into the ground.”
Two decades later, Joel Campbell, now the family and small business program manager at the law school, remembers how excited he was to get into McBryde.
Joel Campbell: “I ended up at McBryde from pledging. And I remember I got my bid for Kappa Sigma Sept. 1 of 1994, and I was initiated into the fraternity in February. It was on the 12th of 1995. Pledge periods now are way shorter than that. Three weeks for some, maybe as many as six I think now, but back then it was a full semester and a little bit into the next semester before you were fully made a member of each organization. But people were excited after that first year for spots to open up in McBryde Quad to live there. It's really interesting because all of the people that lived there way back then it was probably the most inexpensive dorm on the campus. The fees when I was a student for the entire semester to live in McBryde was $775. And you can look me up on that one. That's exactly what it was in an old booklet that I remember.”
He's right. Another fraternity that has its history intertwined with McBryde is Alpha Phi Alpha. A historically Black fraternity, the Alphas obtained a floor on McBryde in the mid-1980s, and they fought to keep it. Dante Pelzer was an Alpha on McBryde during the mid-2000s when many other fraternities had left for Greek Village.
Dante Pelzer: “For us specifically, being the only Black organization in there, it was a place of community and a place where other community members who were Greek, or part of Alpha, could come and gather. We would have cookouts for the campus community, particularly the Black community. So, a welcome back cookout, end of the year cookout, tailgates. We had a grill there. There's no other place on campus where you can have 400 people in your backyard, and you get to play loud music and have fun. You can't do that in a residence hall. You can't do that behind the Russell House without a permit and going through a programming approval process. But in McBryde, if I wanted to wake up on a Saturday morning, say, ‘You know what? Everybody put in five bucks. We're going to go to Sam's and get a whole bunch of probably not real meat, like hot dogs and hamburgers, and throw it on the grill.' And play telephone and just call people and tell them to pass the message that 'We're throwing a party tonight.' That happened.”
McBryde has more often than not been a residence hall for men, but that’s not always been the case. Many women have lived there, too, including Jessica Eastridge, who lived in the music community on McBryde C between 2006 and 2008.
Jessica Eastridge: “I remember just the community of people. Our doors were always open. Everyone worked together. Everyone was friends with each other. We would often all pile into each other's rooms. There would be 20 people in a room, and we would watch a show or just play games. The memories are so different because this was all before we all had smartphones, too. It was right before smart phones became a thing. So we weren't in rooms staring at phones or anything like that. We were just constantly with each other and interacting with each other. Those are the memories I have. I feel like we were just always with each other and it was okay because we wanted to be with each other. And I would do it again. I would live in the gross dorm again for those experiences.”
The "gross dorm." I’ve heard that a time or two when talking with people about their memories of McBryde and its reputation on campus. No doubt, students are due for an upgrade, and after 70 years, according to the latest master plan, McBryde will soon give way to upgraded residence halls. But before McBryde is gone, it should be remembered not just as buildings made of brick, mortar and concrete, but a place where young people grew up. We think of college as classes, grades, degrees, but a lot of informal education goes on within dorm rooms, too. Take those "man chats," for example, that Dustin Struble talked about at the beginning of this episode. They paved the way for the establishment of the Carolina Men’s Community in McBryde that lasted for years, where members referred to themselves as McBros.
Cody Dunlap, who is now the associate director of fraternity and sorority life housing at USC, was McBryde’s residence life coordinator from 2018 to 2020. Sensing that the students in McBryde needed community and wanted to learn about tough topics, he made it interesting and started a program called — wait for it — Sex and Fried Chicken.
Cody Dunlap: “This is the space and place to do that. This is the community where you can come and you can talk about all the issues that you're facing, because I guarantee you, you're not the only one facing them. And we got to bring in some really great folks. We got to bring in Dr. Sarah Wright. We held a program multiple times over because it was so popular, but it was a program called Sex and Fried Chicken, two topics that men loved during my time there. And we would partner and we would order in fried chicken and chicken tenders, and Dr. Sarah would come in and have honest conversations ... and help students challenge their mind and their thoughts about those topics, and help them grow. It came to always at the end of the year, the community was always strong.”
The community was always strong. Whatever McBryde may look like on the outside or the inside, it’s been a place of community and growth. The buildings may come down soon, but its memories and importance to generations of students will live on.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Remembering the Days. On the next Remembering the Days, put on your swimsuit and goggles as we explore the history of USC's swimming and diving team. The team was making a splash long before there was a swimming pool on campus. That's next, on Remembering the Days.