CHARLESTON, S.C. (courtesy charlestonsouthern.edu) — The Charleston Southern University College of Business announces the launch of the CSU Center for Personal Financial Management in association with the Ron Blue Institute.

The Center for Personal Financial Management is training and equipping CSU students and the greater CSU family with biblical principles of financial wisdom and money management. More than 600 students are participating in its programs this fall.

“We are excited about the Center for Personal Financial Management and the impact it will have on our students, alumni and the community,” said Dr. David Palmer, dean of the College of Business. “Our commitment to the well-being of students is foremost in the minds of the faculty and leadership of the College of Business. The center, and its association with the Ron Blue Institute, shows we are dedicated to supporting students and providing the best possible financial literacy education available.”

CSU has been teaching a personal finance course for 11 years. Through the CPFM, the College of Business is elevating the course and broadening its reach. The center will focus on teaching topics that include a biblical view of money, stewardship, budgeting, debt management, investing, charitable giving and wealth management. The center began partnering with freshman seminar classes to teach freshmen about personal financial literacy this fall.

Business majors and traditional and online students can take the personal financial management course as an elective or as part of the liberal arts core in the social sciences. The textbook used in the course is Mastering Personal Finances, a Biblical Approach by Ron Blue and Boyce Smith. Smith is an assistant professor in the CSU College of Business and leading the efforts of the Center for Personal Financial Management.

Ron Blue said, “We are so excited that Charleston Southern University shares our passion for preparing students to enter a world that will be challenging their faith with a clear understanding of what God‘s Word has to say about money and money management.”

Dr. Dondi Costin, CSU president, said, “At Charleston Southern, we believe that faith should permeate every aspect of our lives, including our finances. The Center for Personal Financial Management will equip our students with the skills to apply biblical financial wisdom, helping them live lives of purpose for the glory of God.”

CSU also has developed Buc$ense, a project to introduce basic financial literacy information and tools to students, parents, alumni and other stakeholders. Buc$ense is funded by a Title III Technology Grant.

In addition, the Center for Personal Financial Management is creating a peer-to-peer counseling service for students and will host nationally recognized personal finance speakers on a regular basis.

Blue said, “The Ron Blue Institute was formed for two purposes. One was that every student in a Christian university would be taught a biblical perspective on money and money management. God‘s word speaks more to money than any other topic, and I have had the privilege over the last 40 plus years of helping Christians plan and manage their finances according to a biblical worldview. Not only is a biblical worldview the most practical and rational way to manage money but also it is profoundly simple in its concept.

“The second purpose for the Institute is to move God’s biblical financial wisdom into academia for credibility and authenticity purposes. There are very few universities that share the passion of Charleston Southern for these two purposes, and I am privileged to be a part of the effort.”

CSU chose to affiliate with the Ron Blue Institute because of its mission to advance biblical financial education, enabling Christians to make financial decisions within a biblical framework. The Ron Blue Institute is hosted by Indiana Wesleyan University.

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (courtesy thetandd.com) — Claflin University has honored its long-serving former president by naming a building after him: the Henry N. Tisdale Molecular Science Research Center.

“I am delighted and humbled by the recognition, especially that the board acknowledged my action of educating students in the STEM disciplines, and chose this building to designate the honor,” Dr. Tisdale said during a Nov. 15 ceremony.

“It’s an honor to have a building named in your honor on any campus. But, it’s really special to have it happen on the campus of your alma mater, and one in which I was privileged to serve as president for 25 years. This has a special place in my heart and I hope the hearts of the alumni and board, and others as well,” Tisdale said.

Friday’s ceremony was held in the building, which is located on Tisdale Avenue, to officially mark its new name.

Claflin President Dr. Dwaun Warmack and James Lehman, chair of the university’s board, stated that the building was chosen to honor Tisdale due to his background in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

The center was constructed in 2010. It houses the Chemistry Department and a forensics science lab.

It was designated as a core research facility by the S.C. Research Authority.

“It is a fitting tribute in recognition of Dr. Tisdale’s amazing legacy at Claflin University,” Vice President for Administration Drexel Ball said.

During the ceremony, Tisdale discussed his journey as a student, and later as the leader of Claflin.

“I came to Claflin University as a pre-med student. In those days, everyone came as a pre-med student,” Tisdale said.

“I spent a lot of time in a building that some of you may not know was the science center at that time. We now know that building as Laymen Hall,” Tisdale said.

He spent his time studying the sciences, such as biology and physics.

Tisdale’s passion led him to make a change in his studies at Claflin.

“At the end of my freshman year, to the great disappointment of my parents, the home folks, I changed my major to mathematics after much reflection and discernment and because of the passion that I had for problem solving,” Tisdale said.

“I wanted to solve problems, but at the same time, I wanted to help others to understand the beauty, the challenges and the significance of mathematics,” Tisdale said.

In 1994, Tisdale became the president of his alma mater.

“In August (1994) at the first faculty meeting, I asked the question, I wanted to know from the faculty just where did we have apparent and unique strengths in the academics because I wanted to make academics the flagship for Claflin University,” Tisdale said.

The faculty responded unanimously that they believed that was in the sciences and mathematics.

“Given this overwhelming response, I declared, we declared, that we would establish a center of excellence in science and mathematics right here,” Tisdale said.

Several of the university’s STEM programs, including the chemistry, computer science and nursing programs, are nationally accredited and approved, he said.

Tisdale has entered a new phase since his tenure as Claflin’s leader ended.

“Since retiring, of course, we’ve gotten into a different mode of doing things. I appreciate the fact that there are fewer phone calls to answer. There are fewer emails to return. And even though I consider myself a great problem solver, fewer problems to solve,” Tisdale said.

“Mrs. Tisdale and I are enjoying our time to do some of the things we wanted to do in Charleston. So, retirement, we believe, is at the right time for us,” Tisdale said.

DUE WEST, S.C. (courtesy erskine.edu) — What do Reykjavik, Dublin, medieval literature, the Gap of Dunloe, and the Grand Canyon all have in common? They were all part of summer 2019 for Associate Professor of English Dr. Christine Schott.

Iceland, and especially the city of Reykjavik, is where Schott feels at home. “I love the language,” she says, “the history, and the land, which is wild, bleak, and beautiful….” Iceland is also where she spent a year completing a master’s degree in Medieval Icelandic Studies. This summer, she spent time there studying a 19th century collection of Icelandic proverbs, some of which date back to the Viking era. She wanted to learn about the proverbs’ derivation, including the specific regions where they originated.

In Dublin, Schott studied a digitized manuscript of a medieval poem written shortly before Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The manuscript is more than just a poem. It also contains marginal notes by multiple readers as the manuscript was passed from person to person, and each left ideas and interpretations behind.

This human aspect of manuscripts is part of what intrigues Schott, in addition to her academic interests. For her, examining collections of proverbs or medieval manuscripts reveals the individuals behind the pens, and the lives that they led hundreds of years ago.

“I love how working with manuscripts shows us aspects of ordinary medieval life that we wouldn’t see otherwise,” she says. “There are manuscripts repaired with pieces of other books, manuscripts made into sewing patterns when their text had lost interest for the owners, manuscripts where scribes drew cartoon dogs and dragons and people with silly hats.

“I love manuscripts with complaints written into the margins: ‘my fingers are cold,’ ‘I didn’t get enough to eat today,’ ‘it’s raining outside.’ Those are real examples from Icelandic manuscripts, and when you see them, suddenly these long-dead, nameless people become real to you. Manuscripts make the past come alive. … The world changes, but people don’t.”

This is one of the concepts that Schott tries to pass on to her students—that literature is not just a dead thing found in anthologies inside college classrooms, but is also evidence of the lives of others. She likes to show samples of manuscripts to her students whenever possible to connect students with those who wrote and studied the texts before them.

“Texts are much more alive and complex than we realize from seeing them in an anthology,” she says. “Centuries of work have gone into putting them in a form we can study today.”

Apart from her research pursuits, Schott took time off for sightseeing at the Grand Canyon and in Ireland. She particularly enjoyed a solitary, seven-mile hike through the Gap of Dunloe in southwest Ireland, surrounded by mountains and sky. “Being there takes your breath away with the beauty of creation and the privilege of being part of it,” she says.

For Schott, these travels are a way to grow as an individual. She says that “our experience of the world when we’re at home is by nature very narrow, and traveling takes the blinders off. It makes the world bigger, and it makes us bigger as a result.”

COLUMBIA, S. C. (courtesy PostScript – Columbia College Student News) — Deborah Wardlaw was recently announced as the new Athletic Director at Columbia College. No stranger to Columbia College, Wardlaw was a two-sport, NAIA All-American during her time at the school.

In an interview with Wardlaw, she recalled great memories of being a student athlete and how it shaped her as a person. The most vivid memories were of the trips to away games. These were the stories that were shared during her Hall of Fame induction at Columbia College in 2019. She stated that her experiences at Columbia College helped her to become a successful woman in the professional world. The structure of an academic and athletic schedule really helped to “prepare her for the real world.”

Wardlaw spent 35 years in Richland One as a physical education teacher, head basketball coach and athletic director at Lower Richland High School. She coached the girls’ basketball team to seven state championship titles. In her second season as head coach, she led an undefeated team to her first championship.

She became AD at Lower Richland in 2016 and became only the 10th female AD in the state of South Carolina. Wardlaw said she found her experience as one of the 10 women empowered her to be seen as a leader in athletics and not just as a woman.

“Being a woman, it can either go one way or another,” she said. “You can feel empowered or you can feel like you are trudging through quicksand all the time.”

She often was asked the question about being a female Athletic Director, and she would respond: “I would do [the job] like I am a man.”

She retired from Lower Richland this past summer, but still felt like there was more for her to accomplish. Columbia College is excited to have her back on campus.

COLUMBIA, SC (courtesy benedict.edu) — Benedict College is pleased to announce that Ceeon Quiett Smith, PhD is one of 20 senior college administrators selected by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) to participate in the year-long Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission program for prospective college and university presidents. The seminar-based program is designed to help individuals with the potential to serve as college and university presidents to clarify the alignment between their personal and professional values and goals and the missions of institutions that they might lead in the future. With a wave of retirements of university presidents on the horizon, it is especially important that individuals who become new presidents are well suited to the culture of the institution. The program aims to produce presidencies that are highly effective, long lasting, and satisfying to both the individual and the institution.

Participants, including Quiett Smith, will engage in two seminars, participate in consultations with experienced facilitators, and undertake a series of readings about the vocation of college presidents and the role of vision and mission in institutional leadership.

“The alignment of personal vocation and institutional mission emphasized in this program addresses a common pitfall of presidencies,” said CIC President Richard Ekman. “The program aims to help participants achieve great things for their institutions and to avoid being ‘the right person in the wrong place.’”

Smith has a unique combination of private and public executive experience coupled with academic leadership experience. Her research area involves a mixed method approach to investigating federal policies and new technology applications in crisis and risk matters. She has juried papers and conference presentations in crisis communication and framing narratives. Smith has taught courses in Homeland Security, Emergency Management and Crisis Communication. Smith is the first African American to earn a PhD from the Walter Cronkite School of Mass Communication at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona. She has served executive leadership experience in the City of Detroit and City of New Orleans (response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita); liaison for the U.S. State Department during the U.S. Donor Infrastructure Conference (Haiti earthquakes); and consultant to BP during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As Chief of Staff for Benedict College, her portfolio includes Facilities Management, HR, IT, Communications and the Business Development Center.

“Dr. Smith is an integral part of Benedict’s executive leadership team. Her knowledge, skill and experience make her an ideal candidate for this development opportunity and I am confident that when the time is right, a higher education institution will be very fortunate to have her as its President or Chancellor.” said Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis, President and CEO, Benedict College.

The CIC program’s approach to the preparation of new presidents has proven highly successful in the period that the program has been operating. Since 2005, 60 program participants (33 percent) have been named to college presidencies—a very high rate of advancement among leadership development programs.

The program is directed by Frederik Ohles, Nebraska Wesleyan University president and CIC senior advisor. For more information about the Presidential Vocation and Institutional Mission program, which is generously funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., visit www.cic.edu/VocationMission.

GREENVILLE, SC (courtesy furman.edu) — Furman University is among 27 academic institutions that will receive funding from PepsiCo Recycling for campus sustainability efforts.

Now in its third year, PepsiCo’s Zero Impact Fund (ZIF) allows representatives of eligible colleges or universities to submit proposals to create or strengthen green initiatives on campus. A panel of judges then votes on the most impactful projects, with winners receiving up to $10,000 toward making those ideas a reality. Furman was the only school in South Carolina chosen to participation in the 2018-19 ZIF program.

Furman’s proposal, which addresses food waste and food insecurity, was recognized as one of the most unique projects among the winning group this year.

Furman’s project will assess the extent of food insecurity across campus among students and staff; look to limit over-ordering and over-production of food for catered events; develop and pilot a text notification system to redistribute excess food from catered events, particularly to those who are food insecure; expand and enhance a food recovery system for remaining foods from catered events to be distributed to a food pantry; and calls for composting any remaining food waste at Furman’s organic farm.

Wes Dripps, executive director of Furman’s David E. Shi Center for Sustainability, commented on the collaborative project between the Shi Center for Sustainability, Bon Appétit Management Company, The Furman Farm, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. “Food waste and food insecurity – two issues that appear to be at odds with each other – are growing problems on college campuses. National studies estimate that 22 million pounds of food are wasted each year on U.S. college campuses, yet 20 percent of students at four-year institutions report low food security. This project will take a comprehensive systems approach to addressing both of these issues at Furman,” he said.

“At PepsiCo, we believe that building a circular economy is the key to a sustainable future,” said Tom Mooradian, manager of environmental sustainability. “This year’s winning projects are largely focused on implementing circular economies on a small scale within college communities, demonstrating their impact in a highly tangible way. Projects of this scale within closed campus environments can create precedent and then build toward a model for implementation in wider society.”

PepsiCo Recycling aims to help colleges and universities pursue projects that will have long-term impacts on their communities, with the ultimate goal of closing the loop between environmental sustainability and economic stability.

Learn more about PepsiCo Recycling. For more information about Furman’s project, contact Wes Dripps at Furman’s David E. Shi Center for Sustainability at 864-294-3392, and weston.dripps@furman.edu.

ORANGEBURG, SC (courtesy claflin.edu) — For the third year, Claflin University is collaborating with Youth Service America and Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation to support Orangeburg Consolidated School District 5 Filling Station through the Packin’ and Snackin’ program. The program helps to provide students in OCSD5, who struggle with finding meals on the weekends, with individual “snack packs” containing prepackaged foods.

“Believe it or not, a large percentage of students go home from District 5 with nothing to eat over the weekend,” said Carolyn Snell, assistant to the vice president of student development and director of career development at Claflin University. “A number of these students are dealing with a hunger issue, then they can’t perform well, and most of these students are students of color.”

Claflin students, faculty and staff donated food for the cause. The food donated for the snack packs consisted of canned goods, ramen noodles, fruit snacks, and other foods that do not require the students to use a stove to heat them.

Once all the food has been collected and weighed, it will be delivered to OCSD5’s warehouse and divided into the packs that are given out each Friday.

Program Coordinator for Service Learning and Community Service at Claflin University, Jabian Cooper said the university’s goal was to donate at least 900 pounds of food; however, with the support of the Claflin University family, 1,321.51 pounds of food (1,797 items) were collected instead. Cooper, Kendall McCleod, project leader; and Tonyetta McDaniel, assistant program coordinator and administrative assistant, organized this year’s collection of donations. There were 202 student and six faculty volunteers.