South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities
A Voice for Independent Higher Education in South Carolina
COLUMBIA, SC — The SC Commission on Higher Education (CHE) will be hosting a College Access and Affordability Town Hall in Columbia at 5:30 pm on Thursday, February 1, 2018. This event will be open to the public and will be held at the Columbia Chamber of Commerce.
CHE Commissioners, CHE staff, and SCICU representatives will be in attendance at this town hall, as they want to hear thoughts and concerns from the public regarding college access and affordability in South Carolina. Columbia/Midlands area educational leaders, school guidance counselors, members of county legislative delegations, and business/civic leaders have been invited to attend the town hall and hear feedback from students and parents.
Audience participation from families and members of the community is needed at the Columbia town hall. If you know someone who would like to share their experiences with the current higher education system in South Carolina, please have them reach out now to Andrew Roof at CHE (email: aroof@che.sc.gov, phone: 803-730-5638).
CHE held a similar town hall in Greenville on January 11. Family and community engagement helped make the Greenville town hall a success. Per Dr. Karen Woodfaulk, CHE’s Director of Student Affairs, members from the community were open and willing to share their experiences and stories at the Greenville town hall. Presentation materials and supporting documents/information related to the Greenville town hall may be viewed here.
Students, family members, and stakeholders at our colleges and universities are encouraged to share their stories and provide input at the February 1 town hall in Columbia.
COLUMBIA, SC (courtesy thestate.com) — On the job for just 93 days as of Friday, Roslyn Artis is not sitting still.
The new president of Benedict College has been moving fast to make changes at the historically black college in downtown Columbia, and wants to see a bigger change in the next school year.
Artis says she plans to cap enrollment at Benedict at 2,000 students next fall. She also wants to slash the school’s $29,000-a-year tuition in a bid to make the 147-year-old school more attractive to new students.
The 47-year-old Artis sees the changes as part of a new era of cost cutting at Benedict in hopes of stabilizing the school’s financial situation.
“The board has been forthright about some of the challenges Benedict is facing,” Artis said in an exclusive interview Friday with The State. “Enrollment has fluctuated over time, and since we’re largely enrollment driven (in terms of revenue), that creates a bit of a problem. So when coming here, my first task was really to stabilize our financial picture, to be quite frank.”
In recent years, Benedict has dropped from a high of more than 3,000 students in 2011 to a little more than 2,000 today. In the same span of time, Benedict’s reported incoming revenue has fallen from $81 million in 2012 to $71.8 million at the end of 2015, according to IRS filings.
“The last chapter in Benedict’s book saw a president who was visionary and interested in expansion,” Artis said of her predecessor, David Swinton, Benedict’s president for 23 years. Swinton’s time in charge saw an increase in enrollment, new construction and expansion beyond the school’s Harden Street campus.
But that growth came at the cost of stretching the college’s finances.
“I’m interested in transitioning us from what was to what must be, frankly in order to remain solvent,” Artis said.
No more open enrollment
Changes in enrollment and tuition are meant to make Benedict both more attractive to incoming students, but also “create a sense of urgency” for those considering Benedict, Artis said.
“We have historically been known as an open enrollment institution, which brings with it a certain negative connotation. It does not speak to opportunity, which it was really intended to speak to, but it just means, ‘Oh, I’ll just go there.’ That’s not really how this works.
“If you want to choose Benedict, you should probably do that early, because we will close the door at a certain point,” she said.
Likewise, the lower tuition – which has yet to be set – is meant to make the school more competitive in the education marketplace. Today’s high price tag might discourage some students from even considering Benedict, while scholarships, discounts and subsidies mean the college only sees 41 cents of each dollar nominally owed to the school.
The cost also doesn’t match the community that Benedict serves. Sixty-four percent are first-generation college students, and 85 percent receive federal Pell grants.
“That doesn’t get these kids there,” Artis said. “They are borrowing money. We do not want those kids to leave here with a debt load that is oppressive. It’s not giving them a fair shot when they start out in the world if they have oppressive debt loads.”
‘I am going to be aggressive’
Artis said she is a big believer in the value of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) like Benedict. Growing up as a coal miner’s daughter in an almost all-white corner of West Virginia, Artis says she was “racially confused” before she attended historically black West Virginia State, becoming the first in her family to go to college in the process.
She first went to law school, then decided on a career in education after teaching a legal research class. At the end of the course, “my student left me a note saying, ‘You changed my life,’” she said.
She earned her doctorate from Vanderbilt University and went on to serve as president of Florida Memorial College, an HBC in Miami, for four years until this past summer.
“Amongst her peers, Dr. Artis is a star,” said Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, who sits on Benedict’s board of trustees. “She’s an educator, a lawyer and an expert in higher education finance, but her first priority is the students.”
J.T. McLawhorn, president of Columbia’s Urban League, was impressed with Artis after she gave a talk at his church.
“Dr. Artis has a passion for education, and she’s able to connect with the underserved as a first-generation college graduate,” McLawhorn said.
Part of Artis’s appeal to the board was her reputation as a fundraiser. At Florida Memorial, unrestricted gifts rose by 20 percent on her watch, and restricted gifts jumped 38 percent.
In comparison, Benedict received $12 million in outside contributions in 2015. Of that, Artis said only $2 million was gifted by donors, half by Benedict alumni and another $500,000 from Benedict-affiliated churches.
“We have not had what you would want to see from our corporate foundations, (or) from a private foundation standpoint,” Artis said. “We are a great bang for our buck. $1 million here is a significant, transformative gift when you think about the kind of kids we’re educating and the content of our budget.”
Artis points to a study that shows Benedict and its students had a $130 million impact on the surrounding community in 2014.
“If I’m doing business to the tune of $130 million, I ought to be getting something back from those businesses that we patronize and support,” she says. “So I am going to be aggressive and engaged with our business community.”
‘There’s a little fear of the unknown’
As part of her efforts to cut costs, Artis already has put some Benedict-owned off-campus housing properties – some as far away as St. Andrews – up for sale to consolidate Benedict’s students on campus.
The president says Benedict’s current faculty size – 116 full-time, 46 part-time – is the right fit for the newly capped class size. Her next step, she said, is to “update classroom technology and wireless infrastructure” to teach a more high-tech generation – as long as the faculty can keep up.
“There’s a little fear of the unknown, and that’s fine,” she said. “If you’ve been teaching one way for 25 years, you’re going to want to keep doing that.”
She has the support of her bosses to make changes. Benjamin says the board wants Artis to do a “full, top to bottom assessment” of the school.
“We are beginning a new chapter in the history of Benedict College. We are focusing very specifically on our core population and our core mission,” Artis said. “We are hopeful our business community will embrace our students.”
“And,” she added. “Send checks.”
ANDERSON, SC (courtesy andersonuniversity.edu) — Anderson University has received a grant of $200,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency to aid in the further development of the Rocky River Nature Park adjacent to campus. The funds will be used to clean up an industrial site (known as the Seabrook facility), which abuts the Rocky River wetlands.
The University has partnered with the Rocky River Conservancy, Upstate Forever and others in the development of the natural wetlands into a nature park and environmental education facility for the community. Whatever funds from the grant that are not needed for the cleanup of the Seabrook facility will be used for community outreach and education regarding the Rocky River.
“EPA is committed to working with communities to redevelop Brownfields sites which have plagued their neighborhoods. EPA’s Assessment and Cleanup grants target communities that are economically disadvantaged and include places where environmental cleanup and new jobs are most needed,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “These grants leverage considerable infrastructure and other investments, improving local economies and creating an environment where jobs can grow. I am very pleased the President’s budget recognizes the importance of these grants by providing continued funding for this important program.”
The conservancy previously received an additional grant to develop a boardwalk through part of the wetlands for public use. That project is underway.
COLUMBIA, SC — After weeks of negotiations, a Conference Committee of three members of the Senate and three members of the House agreed on a state budget for FY 2017-18. In a year when revenues were flat, legislators were challenged to find funding not only for the day-to-day operations of state government, but also for exceptional demands such as $150 million to shore up the underfunded state pension plan, $68 million for Hurricane Matthew relief, and almost $30 million to accelerate the replacement of school buses.
In the area of higher education, the committee fully-funded the merit scholarship program to include adding more than $14.5 million to cover the cost of additional students who qualified for scholarships after the high school grading policy was changed last fall from a 7-point to a 10-point scale.
The Conference Committee allocated $500,000 to the need-based Tuition Grants program and $500,000 to the state’s need-based grant program. The Tuition Grants Commission had requested $5.3 million to increase the maximum award from $3,200 to $3,650. CHE requested $1.1 million for the state program. The House version of the budget did not provide additional funds for either program. The Senate version recommended $1.3 million each for both.
The Tuition Grants Commission receives approximately 16%-17% of the total appropriations of the state’s need-based grant program; however, the modest increases to both programs are not sufficient to raise the maximum award above the current $3,200 figure.
After being shut out in the House budget, PASCAL, the higher education academic library consortium, was added as the #2 priority for up to $1.5 million in unclaimed excess lottery funds by the budget committee. The Senate had recommended PASCAL as the #1 priority.
Public colleges and universities and technical colleges received very little of their initial budget requests. The House did not include any additional funding in its budget compared to a $60 million recommendation by the Senate. The final Conference Committee figure is $12 million divided among 33 different institutions.
The House and the Senate return to Columbia on June 6 to consider the recommendations of the Budget Conference Committee. Once the appropriations bill passes both chambers, the bill goes to Governor McMaster for final consideration.
Neither the House nor the Senate is expected to alter appreciably the work of the Conference Committee. Although the Governor does have line item veto authority, it is unlikely that he will strike any of the higher education appropriations. The budget will be effective on July 1.
Dr. Robert E. Gustafson, Jr.
Interim President, Erskine College
Educational institutions flourish in an atmosphere of collegiality. Mutual respect between stakeholders in the college and seminary fosters the implementation of the school’s core values, which in the case of Erskine College and Seminary, are codified in the Associate Presbyterian Church’s “Philosophy of Christian Higher Education.”
Does this statement serve as your guide?
As the leader of both the seminary and the college, my role is to articulate the core values derived from this seminal document, and by creative application of these principles, lead the seminary and the college in a direction which best embodies the educational purposes expressed in this philosophical statement.
How do you lead the institution in that direction?
After close scrutiny of the great companies of the twentieth century, Jim Collins in his book entitled Good to Great outlines the importance of careful mission alignment in the practice of these successful companies. Collins’ book resounds with the principle that every stakeholder in the organization must first understand the core values of the company and then implement them at every level of the company’s work.
It is the educational leader’s role to articulate core values, not only to the faculty and staff, but also to other stakeholders. This process of mission alignment takes persistent articulation and implementation over time and leads to a coherent synergy within the organization which is both powerful and compelling.
A key element of your leadership focus, then, will be on mission alignment.
I cannot overstate the importance of clear institutional mission alignment, nor can I overstate the importance of how this process unfolds. Jesus articulates a core Christian leadership principle when he addresses the ambitions of the mother of James and John when she wanted her sons to obtain positions of power in Jesus’ coming kingdom. Jesus’ clarion response to her ambition is that leaders in Christ’s kingdom must understand the servant roles they play as they shepherd those within their respective organizations that they have been called to lead.
To quote Saint Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:15, “Speaking the truth in love” is part of that shepherding process. John Newton, the famous 18th-century Anglican clergyman who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” describes this type of spiritual leadership as “habitually tender” yet “boldly resolute.”
What elements of your experience as an educator in private Christian schools at the college preparatory school level will help most as you begin work at Erskine?
In the few months I spent at Erskine as a special assistant to the president in early 2016, the resonance of my leadership experiences in secondary education with the college environment was immediately apparent to me. Although I worked with students preparing for the college and university world, the daily routines, challenges, and issues of a head of school at that level are strikingly similar to my task at Erskine.
What are some of the similarities?
As in any excellent small liberal arts college, the internal workings of a secondary school also include the critical tasks of hiring the very best faculty, building a strong department-head “middle management” team, providing a challenging and innovative curriculum, and giving vision and guidance to foster a Christian ethos.
Likewise, my position in secondary schools afforded me the opportunity to build budgets and manage them with the help of the CFO, to work closely with a national Board of Trustees on strategic planning and issues of fiscal responsibility, and to raise the necessary funds to meet the goals of the annual fund and a variety of capital projects envisioned and completed on campus.
This short but illustrative list of similar responsibilities, whether I serve in a college preparatory environment or in a college environment, indicates how familiar leading Erskine will be for me.
What do you believe will be different here?
Each educational institution is unique. The history and ethos of schools vary dramatically as do the critical issues facing each educational enterprise.
Learning the unique elements of Erskine will involve an immersion in the ebb and flow of life on the Due West campus, a process that I find informative and exciting.
My time spent leading college preparatory schools affords me an educated eye trained by overseeing students who were constantly visiting and discussing various colleges and universities that interested them. As they prepared to make a transformational decision in choosing a college that would best prepare them for their vocational callings while nurturing their Christian faith, I began to form in my mind an image of the type of college community my students desired. This image gives me a lens through which I can observe and evaluate what I see at Erskine. Put simply, my experience of watching students search for the right college to attend informs my understanding of the Erskine academic community.
How do you see the role of interim president? Have you been given a mandate to make particular or general changes – or are you exercising stewardship in anticipation of the appointment of a permanent president?
If the phrase “a mandate” is changed to “the authority” in the question above, I would say I am excited to be able to do both. There are particular and general changes needed to help Erskine become the school outlined in our vision statement, “Philosophy of Christian Higher Education.” Those changes may be relatively small or rather significant, allowing Erskine to move toward embodying the values of a strong liberal arts Christian college that this vision statement describes.
The Board of Trustees has conferred upon me the full authority of the president’s office in my role as interim president, a prerogative which I felt was necessary if I were to use my time at Erskine effectively. How and when I use this authority will always be tempered by an understanding that any changes should conform to the vision outlined by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church as overseen by Board of Trustees.
By remaining within these parameters, restructuring and realigning particular aspects of the school’s daily work will enable the next president to build upon these adjustments. A good interim president stewards the educational institution while making wise, visionary, and coherent decisions that will ultimately facilitate a smooth transition to the next president’s leadership.
ANDERSON, SC — A recent visit from a delegation of The University of Wurzburg-Schweinfurt in Germany, including the president and chancellor Dr. Robert Grebner, resulted in the signing of a partnership between that university and Anderson University.
AU has agreements with universities around the world, but this is the first from Germany.
The delegation from the Bavarian university plans to cultivate a relationship with Anderson that will result in faculty and student exchanges as well as some joint programs in the future.
Wurzburg, the fourth biggest metropolis of Bavaria, is located at the riverside of the Main between Frankfort and Nuremberg. 10,000 out of 130,000 inhabitants are from 130 different countries. About 30,000 students keep the city vibrant and progressive.
Anderson was represented by Executive Vice President and Provost, Dr. Danny Parker.
CHARLESTON, SC (courtesy of csuniv.edu) — The United States Department of Education has notified Charleston Southern that the university has been selected to receive funding for a Title 3 project.
The $2,249,700 award will be administered over a five-year period and will fund Success Through Access and Robust Support (STARS), an initiative to introduce new best practice instructional models for distance education/blended education to solve capacity programs, expand access to programs and services and address weaknesses that hinder adequately serving students.
“This new funding opportunity will enhance our commitment to promoting academic excellence in a Christian environment. The faculty will receive new technology training and will extend that expertise to our students – whether they are online or on campus,” said Dr. Jackie Fish, vice president for academic affairs.
Dr. Patty Hambrick, director of academic technology and academic grants, said, “Charleston Southern has many excellent benefits as a recipient of the Title 3 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) grant including increased technology infrastructure to support faculty and student needs for more blended and online instruction due to CSU’s ever increasing enrollment.”
STARS will support three initiatives:
“Funds from this grant will enable our faculty to further enhance and expand teaching excellence and learning opportunities through technology,” said President Dr. Jairy Hunter Jr. “CSU recently received zero recommendations for improvement during the reaffirmation of accreditation process by a peer visiting team. I salute our faculty and staff for their commitment to academic excellence.”
CSU will receive the funds under the Department of Education’s SIP which helps eligible institutions become self-sufficient and expand their capacity to serve low-income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen academic quality, institutional management and fiscal stability.
Click here to read the original release on the Charleston Southern website.
ORANGEBURG, SC (courtesy Claflin.edu) — Claflin University and the South Carolina Technical College System (SCTCS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on September 23, 2016 that offers a seamless pathway for associate degree graduates to matriculate at Claflin to earn Bachelors of Arts and Bachelors of Science degrees. The agreement also allows students who have earned associate degrees to enroll in Claflin as juniors with the possibility of graduating with a bachelor’s degree within 18 months.
President Henry N. Tisdale and Provost Karl Wright represented Claflin at Thursday’s signing ceremony to officially launch the partnership. Dr. Susan Winsor, Interim President and Dr. Hope Rivers, Executive Vice President were the signees for SCTCS.
“This agreement is the result of the commitment and collaboration of both institutions,” said Tisdale. “Our partnership represents a historic outreach. Claflin has always established productive relationships with individual technical colleges throughout the state. However, we can now provide academic opportunities and access to deserving students from all of the 16 technical colleges in the SCTCS.”
Claflin has MOUs with several technical colleges in South Carolina including nearby Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College and Midlands Technical College in Columbia, S.C.
“Not everyone is able to leave home to attend a four-year college or university so technical colleges provide another option for students to achieve their dream of earning a college degree,” said Winsor. “We have agreements with other public institutions in South Carolina but Claflin is the first private school to have a partnership of this kind with SCTCS,” added Winsor.
Claflin is also the only historically black college/university (HBCU) in South Carolina to partner with SCTCS. The University’s commitment to attract students includes making tuition discounts available to students who enroll in Claflin’s evening and online programs.
“This agreement took two years to complete,” said Dr. Karl Wright, provost at Claflin. “However, we are starting almost at the same time Claflin received approval from the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (SARA) to promote and market our online program in more than 40 states throughout the country. We are expecting significant growth in our enrollment as we expand access to Claflin’s high-quality academic programs and our world-class faculty.”
Claflin’s fully online undergraduate degree programs include Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management; Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice; Bachelor of Arts in Psychology; and the RN (Registered Nurse) to Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Claflin’s online graduate programs are Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction (M.Ed.) and the Master of Business and Administration (MBA).
Please click here to read the original release on the Claflin University website.
TIGERVILLE, SC — North Greenville University will move its T. Walter Brashier Graduate School and the Center for Adult Professional Studies to the former Ryan’s corporate office building in Greer in time for the Fall 2016 semester.
“We just worked out some trading of some assets,” said Dr. Randall Pannell, Interim President of North Greenville University. “We had an opportunity on some things that we really were not going to use, some land and other things. We got a great opportunity to redeploy those assets.”
The graduate school had been located at the old Fairview Baptist Church in Greer since 2006 after the church built a new location across the street.
“It’s been a nice lease for us for the 10 years the grad school has been in existence,” Pannell said.
The new location features 10 acres of property, including a 1.4-acre section available for future development, as well as the office building.
In addition to housing the graduate school, Pannell said the university will move its undergraduate Center for Adult Professional Studies classes into the new facility. The program offers six online-only degree options including business administration, Christian ministries, criminal justice and legal studies, educational studies, general studies and psychology. The program is at the university’s Tim Brashier Center on Pleasantburg Street.
The new location means the university will consolidate its two off-site locations into one, but Pannell said the cost savings in paying the lease for the church location was not a factor in the move to a new facility.
“The lease at the church has been nominal, and we own the Pleasantburg site, so the lease savings won’t be that great,” Pannell said. “We get to consolidate several of our enterprises into one location, and we will save on the expenses caring for just one facility instead of two.”
North Greenville University recently announced it was launching a physician assistant medicine graduate degree slated to begin in January. The new program will be included along with the university’s other graduate degree programs: Ministry, business administration, education, education certification, music education and Doctor of Ministry.
The university also plans to move the Center for Adult Professional Studies recruitment team, as well as other “support functions,” from the main campus in Tigerville to the new location in Greer.
The graduate school will begin its transition to the new facility at 405 Lancaster Ave. in Greer this summer, and Pannell said the plan is for the school to be completely moved by the start of the 2016-17 academic year.
Click here to read the full news release from GSA Business.