JAN. 14, 2014 — Dr. George Benson, the 19th president of the College of Charleston, was a most entertaining and informative speaker this past week. The 2013/14 school year will be his last as President of CofC and he will return to the classroom. Dr. Benson was a Rotary International fellow in his senior year as an undergrad at Bucknell.His main topic was to explain how badly a full research university is needed in Charleston to keep up with ‘New Charleston,’ the new economy of Charleston.
Dr. Benson was very animated in reminding us of all the wonderful things that have been happening to the Charleston economy. He noted that while we were recently voted #1 in the world for tourism, nothing has changed our economy so much as the arrival of Boeing and all the peripheral industries surrounding it. Boeing has added quite a bit to the already existing Joint Base and SPAWAR complexes. He also listed the Digital Corridor and Flagship Incubator of software companies as the next most important change to our economy. We are now known as ‘Silicon Harbor’ with 260 digital/hi-tech/software firms located in Charleston.
Dr. Benson admitted that the old vision of CofC did not anticipate Boeing or the software companies. The 2009 CofC Vision had to be recently modified to include Boeing. Currently, 200 computer science grads per year are needed in the Charleston area. The CofC Computer Science department is only producing about 45/year now and has to grow to try to meet some of this demand. He said while many new adult and PHD programs are needed, funding is an issue at CofC because the state only provides 8% of funding and caps tuition.
As a result, 21 universities have moved to Charleston to meet this increased demand. Dr. Benson said that you should be prepared for a USC-Charleston campus soon. Francis Marion is building a branch campus in Mt. Pleasant. There are currently 5 main university campuses and 23 branch campuses in the Charleston area. He warned that CofC could be marginalized if they don’t act soon.
Dr. Benson’s suggested solution is for the legislature to merge CofC and MUSC into a full blown research university. This has been discussed before, but the need was never this great. The Metro Chamber has produced a white paper advocating the merger. Dr. Benson suggests that the merged research university could become an economic development engine for Charleston. It could take 10 years to knit the 2 schools together. His vision is for a core of Arts and Science Schools surround by professional schools.
— Submitted by Doug Holmes, Keyway Editor