Category Archives: Higher education

The blog goes academic

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Just got this request this morning:

Dear Mr. Warthen:
I am teaching Political Sociology next term and I’m putting together readings for my course packet. I follow (and enjoy) your blog and and read with interest your post “Where have all the reporters gone. . . duh.”  I would like to save it as a .pdf and include it as one of the supplemental readings for the section on media, politics and democracy. Please let me know if this is acceptable.
Best regards,
Tracy
Tracy Burkett, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
College of Charleston

To which I said sure; go for it. I’d offer to come speak to the class, but I don’t get down to Charleston as much as I’d like. I never pass up a chance to further confuse the leaders of tomorrow, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience me…

Benjamin wants to put new law school on Main St.

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It’s going to be interesting having Steve Benjamin as mayor. His mind is just going a mile a minute spotting opportunities, making connections, such as this one reported by Mike Fitts:

Columbia already has the right major tenant to go into the former SCANA Corp. space on Main Street, according to mayor-elect Steve Benjamin: He wants the building to be the new home of the University of South Carolina School of Law.

Benjamin hopes the school could work out a long-term lease with the Palmetto Center, the building that now has about 450,000 vacant square feet in the heart of downtown. A long-term tenant such as the law school should be appealing to the owners, Benjamin said, and would keep the building in private hands and on the tax rolls….

If the school were there, it would be surrounded by the offices of many of the state’s biggest law firms and several courts, including the S.C. Supreme Court, Benjamin said.“It’s a perfect place for law students,” he said.

Benjamin said he has met with the building’s owner and real estate agent to pitch the plan. The building could be bought by a new owner and renovated for substantially less than it would cost USC to build a new school, he said.

Moving it there “would mean giving Main Street a big old shot of adrenalin,” Benjamin said. He compares the potential impact on downtown to what the Savannah College of Art and Design has brought to that city….

Already, this idea is creating a lot of buzz. Mandi Engram posted something about it on Facebook and has kicked off a lively discussion there.

What do y’all think?

Graham not so ‘cool’ now on global warming

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Back in late February, Tom Friedman wrote the following about our senior senator:

And for those Republicans who think this is only a loser, Senator Graham says think again: “What is our view of carbon as a party? Are we the party of carbon pollution forever in unlimited amounts? Pricing carbon is the key to energy independence, and the byproduct is that young people look at you differently.” Look at how he is received in colleges today. “Instead of being just one more short, white Republican over 50,” says Graham, “I am now semicool. There is an awareness by young people that I am doing something different.”

But today, we have the following  release from some of his erstwhile young fans:

Youth Activists Demand S.C. Leadership on Energy and Climate Legislation

(Columbia, SC) – Responding to Senator Lindsey Graham’s withdrawal from federal energy legislation and the offshore oil disaster, youth activists in South Carolina have called on the Senator to renew his leadership.

“Students at Clemson were proud to stand behind our hometown Senator in pushing for federal energy and climate legislation,” says Gabriel Fair, co-president of Clemson University’s Student for Environmental Action. “Lindsey Graham’s leadership really encouraged the young people who are fighting to cut carbon pollution and create a clean energy economy in this state.”

Over the previous months, Graham has led in federal energy and climate legislation. In February editorial in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman quoted Graham saying, “I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate.  It’s a value.  These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment – and the world will be better for it.”

Senator Graham’s withdrawal from the federal energy debate has disappointed students across South Carolina. “We’d like to stand behind our Senator again and hope he comes back to the table and strengthens the bill further,” says Fair.

Students in South Carolina are looking for the jobs comprehensive energy and climate legislation would produce. According to Winthrop University student Lorena Hildebrandt, “Young people face the highest unemployment rates in this country right now. Like many of my friends, I’ll be graduating college soon and looking for a job.  That’s why building a new clean energy economy is so important to young people. It’s absolutely necessary we pass comprehensive federal legislation to create a clean energy economy.”

Graham’s backing away from the process occurs at a crucial time for federal energy legislation.

In light of the unfolding oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans are reconsidering our country’s dependence on oil. Recent polls have indicated that the Deepwater Horizon explosion has actually bolstered support for federal climate legislation, while support for drilling is falling.

According to a poll conducted last week by Clean Energy Works, 61 percent of Americans now favor a climate bill that would cut carbon pollution.  Meanwhile, CBS News reported this week that forty-one percent of Americans feel the risks of offshore drilling are too high, up from twenty-eight percent in 2008.

Students on the coast are worried about what Graham’s pulling out will mean for federal legislation on energy and climate. “We’re disappointed here on the coast that Senator Graham walked away from federal energy and climate legislation,” says Marissa Mitzner, Sustainability Coordinator at Coastal Carolina University. “Especially with the oil disaster in the Gulf unfolding and our own South Carolina coasts vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and the threat of oil drilling, we need Senator Graham’s leadership more than ever.”

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Face it, senator: You’re not even “semicool” now, not with the kids.

As for what a cool guy like me thinks, well, I’d certainly appreciate a better understanding about why the Dems’ recent moves on immigration mean you can’t lead on this.

Oh, and kids — Tom Friedman didn’t write that in “and editorial.” It was a column. He doesn’t write editorial.

What does Innovista success look like?

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How will we know when Innovista is succeeding? Well, to begin with, we won’t be at the point where we can call it a complete success for many years, at best. But along the way, there will be signs.

Some of them will be big, such as the new baseball park and the Moore School moving to the geographic area that is central to the Innovista movement. Or the eventual construction of the waterfront park that makes the area more inviting. Most important will be the development of high-tech start-ups that you won’t even be aware of at first, but that will grow and feed off each other as the dynamic starts working.

But there will also be other less obvious signs. Here’s one small, but definite, sign that jumped out at me in recent days…

Have you heard the radio ads for Thirsty Fellow Pizzeria and Pub? The part that jumps out at me is when this eatery/watering hole announces that it can be found in USC’s Innovista. I’m never in a position to take notes when I hear it, but here’s what the Thirsty Fellow says on its website:

Owners Willie Durkin, Chuck Belcher, Dean Weinberger and Terry Davis want you to join the Thirsty Fellow family. Located in the USC Innovista area, we have a comfortable atmosphere, a great menu, a full bar and plenty of televisions. Open for lunch, dinner, late night and Sunday brunch, put Thirsty Fellow on your “to do” list.

“Located in the USC Innovista area.” Whether you take that as a boast — a desire to be associated with the idea of the Innovista — or merely as an acceptable way of giving directions (thereby suggesting that everyone knows where the Innovista is), this is a small-but-telling sign of the concept moving forward, taking hold in the marketplace.

Let me say that again: In the marketplace. You know, that place where Gov. Sanford and the Policy Council don’t want USC to go messin’, the place where they believe, with all the fervor of their secular anti-gummint religion, it is doomed to fail.

And yet, the place where, in this tiny way, it is taking hold…

Making Innovista work going forward

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Don Herriott speaks about Innovista to Columbia Rotary Club recently.

Had breakfast this morning with Don Herriott, USC’s new honcho for Innovista – a guy with a tough job cut out for him.

Innovista has always been a huge challenge. So many things have to go right for it to work – not specific things, not necessarily things you can plan in advance. So much of what will make Innovista work will involve players yet unknown, engaged in activities yet unenvisioned. And those who seek to make it happen, to encourage this process along, have to keep the vision of what Innovista can be in front of so many, fostering and growing the idea.

Under the best of circumstances, you have to overcome a lot. You have to sell the idea of Columbia as a place to live and work to established researchers, to students, to investors, to entrepreneurs, to developers, to so many, so that you can draw in the people who will be at the core of the process – while at the same time keeping all the local incumbent players (business, political, civic) energized and encouraged to keep doing their part to keep the whole thing moving in the right direction.

That’s much tougher to do when there are setbacks, such as the mess that has ensued from entanglements with problematic partners, and buildings that have become a focal point to the extent that many people erroneously think those buildings ARE Innovista.

It’s made far harder when the political leader with the state’s bulliest pulpit is absolutely opposed to what you are doing, and wants you to fail. And when he is supported by a well-funded chorus of naysayers. And make no mistake: Mark Sanford and the S.C. Policy Council, to name but one of his cheerleaders, don’t merely object to the decisions that have been made in the name of the Innovista. Their problem isn’t the overemphasis on hydrogen, or the investment in “spec” buildings. They are opposed to the VERY IDEA of the university and local and state government being engaged in trying to build the local and state economy. No matter what was done in the name of Innovista, they would be against it – especially if it looked as though it might succeed.

The thing I like about what Don Herriott’s trying to do is get everyone refocused on what Innovista has been from the start. It’s not a building or set of buildings, it’s not a specific grid of city blocks, it’s not just hydrogen (much less the much-derided, but much hyped, electric cars). It’s about sparking and sustaining a dynamic that leads to the creation of high-paying, new-economy jobs so that Columbia and South Carolina – instead of being behind every curve – will actually be well-positioned in the “New Normal” economy of the 21st century.

It’s a movement, a concept, a vision. Like the Vista before it, a lot of people will have to believe in it, and invest in it in many ways over a course of years and decades, for it to achieve its potential. And like the Vista, it’s a goal that neither government nor the private sector can make happen alone.

Don’s a little frustrated that when he has good news to tell – such as the fact that some high-tech companies associated with Innovista are moving into the Wilbur Smith building – it gets played like this: “A major tenant planned for USC’s struggling research campus, Innovista, is instead moving into a downtown Columbia office tower several blocks away.” That lede was based on the fact that these companies had planned to be in an Innovista building that didn’t get built as planned. So instead of just withering away or going to another city, another state, they’re locating as close as they can so that they can still be a part of the Innovista movement – which should be great news. But it didn’t play that way. It played as a “coup” for Matt Kennell’s City Center Partnership, and a loss for Innovista – as though they were in competition, instead of dependent on each others’ success.

Yes, as Innovista moves forward and succeeds, the vacuum of that territory between Assembly Street and the river will naturally fill with Innovista-related people, structures and activity. That gaping void of pure potential in the heart of an urban center is one of the great advantages Innovista will have over other research centers around the country. As Mr. Herriott says, “Silicon Valley doesn’t have a street where it begins and ends.” The idea that the Wilbur Smith building, two blocks from the heart of the USC campus one way and three from the Vista proper in the other, is not a part of this movement, this dynamic that he is trying to foster, is absurd.

But a lot of people don’t understand that. And that’s bad because local folks need to understand when Innovista is moving forward in order for it to be able to continue moving forward.

For that reason, one big challenge Don Herriott doesn’t really need – that of renewing and maintaining the local buy-in that Innovista enjoyed when the concept was first unveiled – is as big as any other.

I know a lot of you out there aren’t cheering for him to succeed. But I am. And I hope at some point you will too. Because the stakes for Columbia are enormous, and making Innovista work is an all-hands-on-deck job for this community.

What’s a Florida Atlantic anyway?

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Something I’ve been wondering about since I read my paper yesterday morning. There was something on the front page, superimposed over one of those huge football pictures, like “USC 38, Florida Atlantic 16.”

I forget exactly what it said — I don’t have the paper in front of me. But the thought I had when I saw it was, “What’s a Florida Atlantic?”

Presumably it’s an institution of higher education (most likely located on the eastern side of the state) that has a football team. But I once lived in Florida — I went to high school there for two years — and I think this was the first time I ever heard of something called “Florida Atlantic.”

Probably everybody knew about it but me. Probably a real powerhouse, both academically and athletically. But until yesterday, I had missed it.

Was I the only one?  Probably.

Higher education funding in S.C., by the numbers

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By BRAD WARTHEN
brad@bradwarthen.com


For once, let’s start off with some numbers and dates:

· 17 percent – the amount of the University of South Carolina’s funding that now comes from state appropriations. Our state’s major research universities now get less than a fifth of their funding from state appropriations. In recent years, those in the know have stopped calling them “state institutions” and started calling them “state-assisted.” We’ve now reached the point at which even that seems like an overstatement.

· 1st – South Carolina’s ranking in percentage of higher education funding cut last year. South Carolina, before the December and March reductions, had cut 17.7 percent from higher education budgets. (After those cuts, it has slashed higher ed budgets 24 percent.) The second worst state was Alabama, at 10.5 percent.

· 38th – Our state’s ranking for higher ed funding before the past year’s nation-leading cuts.

· 1995 – The last year that state appropriations, as a dollar amount, equaled the current level, before adjusting for inflation.

· 1973 – The year that matches the current level of funding, once you adjust for inflation. (Think for a moment what North Carolina and Georgia have done in higher education since 1973, pulling light years ahead of South Carolina.)

· $29 million – The value of one grant (from the National Institutes of Health) brought in by a single one of the 13 endowed chair holders at the Medical University of South Carolina.

· 25 – New technology companies started by USC faculty in the years since the endowed chairs program started, which places the university 19th among public institutions in the nation in number of start-ups.

· 50,000 – S.C. jobs provided directly or indirectly by USC.

· 11 percent – South Carolina unemployment rate in February.

· 43rd – South Carolina’s national ranking for percentage of adult population with college educations.

Those are a few of the figures I picked up from the presentations that Clemson President James Barker, Medical University of South Carolina President Ray Greenberg and USC President Harris Pastides (joined by Garrison Walters, executive director of the state Commission on Higher Education) made to a joint meeting Wednesday of two Senate panels that deal with higher education funding, such as it is.

They were there to try to stop the bleeding, and to send the message that dealing a further blow to these institutions’ already last-in-the-nation funding by not accepting federal stimulus funds would be beyond insane (my wording, I hope you’ll note, not theirs).

In some cases, they had requests that bore specifically upon their respective institutions. For instance, Dr. Greenberg’s wish listed included a request that if tuition is capped, graduate and professional programs will be exempted. But in keeping with the extraordinary collaboration that has marked the interaction of the three presidents in recent years (which is no less than miraculous, given the petty, wasteful, tit-for-tat competition that characterized the decades that went before), he also cited priorities shared by all: Regulatory relief (which President Barker has explained as minimizing cost by requiring the schools to jump through two or three hoops instead of six every time they make a move); a state bond bill for capital needs; and passing the cigarette tax increase, with a major portion of the revenue going to Medicaid. OK, so maybe that last one has the most immediate effect on the medical university, but its benefits to the entire state are so obvious as to absolve it of parochialism.

And they had a sympathetic audience. “You’re number one in the country,” in budget cuts, Sen. Nikki Setzler noted. “If that isn’t a challenge to this committee to carry forward to the full General Assembly, then shame on us.”

Of course, Sen. Setzler is a Democrat, but that doesn’t count for as much of a difference in the S.C. Senate as it does in some venues. And when it comes to the federal stimulus upon which the GOP leadership is completely dependent for keeping essential state services running, there are only two sides – on one is Gov. Mark Sanford and a few allies to whom ideology is the only reality; on the other the vast majority of lawmakers.

Republicans don’t come more conventionally conservative than Senate Education Chairman John Courson, to whom Ronald Reagan was a demigod. And here’s what he had to say about the stimulus: “If we don’t accept that money, it does not go back to the Treasury; it goes to other states.” Which is just common sense, of course – nothing ideological about it. But this is a moment in South Carolina history when commonsense statements are in pathetically short supply, so every one uttered takes on added value. In an interview later, Sen. Courson explained the rationale adopted by most Republicans whose top priority is not posturing for national media: He opposed the stimulus bill when it was being debated in Washington. There’s a lot in it he doesn’t like; if he had been a member of Congress he would have voted against it. But that’s all over now. It’s a fact, and South Carolinians are going to be paying for it along with everyone else. Therefore, not taking the money makes no sense at all.

Tuition cost was on the senators’ minds, and well it should be, now that the bulk of higher education costs is on students and their families rather than state taxpayers. “I am pledging to keep any tuition increase for next year to a minimum,” said Dr. Pastides. “I’m keenly aware of the burden that a tuition increase would put on students and their families.”

But what happens with tuition depends upon the General Assembly’s actions – and the governor’s. “Will tuition and fees increase next year?” President Barker asked rhetorically. “The answer is: Almost certainly, but the level of increase is very dependent on what happens with state funding. Tuition is Clemson’s last-resort response….”

Mr. Barker pointed out that the effect of stimulus money on tuition is not direct, since he, like the other presidents, would use stimulus money for one-time, not recurring, expenses. But when asked by Sen. Harvey Peeler the expected effect upon the institutions of not accepting the stimulus money, the Clemson president said it “would be devastating.”

Other senators, seizing upon that word, asked other witnesses whether they agreed with it, prompting Dr. Pastides to oblige them by saying for the record, “It will be devastating, and it will have an effect on tuition” if the stimulus is blocked.

Normally, I’m not what you’d call a numbers guy; words are my thing. So I appreciate that the senators were groping for just the right word to describe the situation. But in this case, for once, the numbers impress me more. We are so far behind in our state. And if our governor has his way, we’ll take an additional giant leap backward.

This is my first weekly online-only column after leaving The State. Watch for more here on bradwarthen.com.

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.

Sorensen on my last column

Former USC President Andrew Sorensen had the following to say about my last column in The State:

Dear Brad:

As one who has just embarked on a marked change in professional responsibilities, I wish you well in the next stage of your career, whatever that may be.

Thanks very much for your stimulating op-ed piece of March 22nd.  Although I was tempted to respond to each paragraph as well as the concluding suggestions, in the interest of brevity I’ll comment only on (1) “Improve our schools” and (2) “Let our colleges and universities drive our economy.”

(1)I couldn’t agree more with your recommendation that we “stop talking about nonsensical distraction, and fix the schools.”  We South Carolinians ought to be profoundly embarrassed by the quality of schools in our economically depressed communities.  It is imperative that all South Carolinians have an opportunity for the quality of education afforded at the many first-rate schools throughout our state.  Your suggestions for restructuring, if implemented, would do much to correct our current imbalance in facilities and human resources.

(2)During the past several years, the presidents of USC, MUSC and Clemson have made extraordinary progress in collaborating on the “cutting edge of wealth-creating innovation.” During this period of profound fiscal crisis the temptation is great to hunker down and look upon investment in this area as one of high risk that will yield principally future benefit, and is unlikely to be manifest in the next few weeks or months.  That admission will cause detractors to argue that investing in these programs in the midst of economic stringency is counterintuitive.  But the economic future of our state is heavily dependent on the highly skilled and scientifically sophisticated youth of today who will become the leaders of our state’s economy tomorrow.

All the best to you.

Sincerely,

Andrew A. Sorensen