Background materials for tomorrow’s column

Being a creature of habit, I’ve written a column for tomorrow. It won’t be in The State, but it will appear here at bradwarthen.com (I hope that makes y’all feel special).

It’s based on the joint meeting of the S.C. Senate Education Committee and the Senate Finance Committee Higher Education Subcommittee on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. The heads of the state’s three research universities and of the CHE testified regarding budget matters.

One of the cool things about being unemployed is that I actually have time to go out and do legwork, which I haven’t been able to do for years. I hadn’t even set foot in the Statehouse complex this year before Wednesday. And it’s been many years (perhaps going back to my reporting days in the late 70s) since I was able to sit all the way through a two-hour public hearing.

It was nice to be able to get that sort of perspective for a change. Anyway, I thought I’d provide y’all with some background material for the column. I don’t have electronic copies of CHE head Garrison Walters’ presentation, because it didn’t occur to me to request it, since I had a hard copy from the meeting. Likewise with MUSC President Ray Greenberg’s remarks, since he gave me his personal copy afterwards. But I did ask for USC President Harris Pastides’ and Clemson President James Barkers’ via e-mail, and here they are:

Let me know if you have any trouble opening those.