The College of Charleston Foundation sponsored a student town hall meeting March 4 to inform and engage students in issues facing the College. President George Benson and his executive team sat down to answer questions about student concerns.
Benson opened the meeting by thanking the students in attendance and remarking on the new science building, in which the meeting was held.
“It is a remarkable facility, one of the highest quality buildings on campus,” Benson said. “It’s a $50 million building.”
Benson first discussed a big issue facing all colleges in the state: rising tuition costs.
“We are forced to act more like a private university than we would like to act,” Benson said. “It is more important than ever to draw attention to higher education in South Carolina.”
The College has been speaking with the state legislature and lobbying for C of C’s needs, Benson said.
Benson then discussed the strategic plan and how the College will reach its goals.
“It [the plan] lays out the purpose and set of values and goals,” Benson said. “It prioritizes goals of each school and division, what’s going on and how it affects you, with a certain number of years to accomplish each initiative.”
With the state cutting the budget, Benson said the College needs to bring in revenue from other sources.
“We need to do more,” Benson said, “grow the north campus, bring in more non-traditional students, institutional advancement and bring more out-of-state students.”
The five percent budget cut in December from the state brought the total state funding of the College down to about 11.6 percent, a $1.25 million loss, Benson said. Levels have not been this low since the 1980s.
“If the budget cut is passed in July, it will be at 9.4 percent,” Benson said. “We are among the leaders in a category that we don’t want to lead in.”
Even with the constant budget cuts, Benson said the College is ready to handle anything.
“The strategic plan was developed knowing this could happen. The world economy is resetting; we don’t know what the new normal is going to be,” Benson said. “We are ready for this: to do well, to do it ourselves.”
Sustainability is another aspect of the College that Benson feels is important to continue and discuss.
“We continue to look for efficiencies in operations and become greener,” Benson said. “It will save us money and help the environment at the same time. It is a major aspect of what we want to become.”
Benson said his team is in the process of creating a new administrative position, a director of sustainability, and there may be a student green fee in the near future.
“The sustainability committee has done really great work with the eco-representative program and the recycling representatives from each department,” Benson said.
Next, Benson wanted to further explain the reasoning behind the College’s decision not to purchase McLeod Plantation.
“We were going to use it for a variety of academic programs, but after meeting with cultural and heritage groups we learned how the fields were strongly viewed as sacred,” Benson said.
Benson said the fields held a lot of historical significance and the College would not be able to use them if it purchased the plantation.
“We realized with the cost-benefit analysis that the cost to preserve all buildings and gravesites, there was a lot to do,” Benson said. “And with the inability to use the fields, there was very little we could do. There were not enough uses to justify the cost.”
One of the biggest issues facing the College for many years has been diversity, Benson said.
“There has been a lot of discussion on campus and in the media. I applaud efforts to continue to discuss it openly on campus and in the community,” Benson said.
Benson said the College needs to continue to increase the number of minority students on campus.
“We are not where we need to be,” Benson said. “In the fall of 2009…4.9 percent of freshmen admitted were African American, 5.4 percent total undergraduate. Point-five percent of freshmen admitted were international students, making international students one percent of the total undergraduate population.”
Diversity is woven tightly into the new strategic plan, Benson said. It will be difficult, but the College is trying new things to recruit students.
“It is not going to be easy; recruiting and enrollment are big challenges and serious competition,” Benson said. “We are reaching out to many groups and we got to know many leaders of the African American heritage groups so we are moving ahead with that.”
Senior Bretticca Moody asked Benson and the executive team when all student organizations could get houses on campus.
Executive Vice President of Student Affairs Victor Wilson said all houses are not filled for financial reasons.
“It is more financial than personal. We need a commitment that all beds will be filled in a house, and sometimes organizations can’t afford the house,” Wilson said. “We want to help you so you can have membership to fill up the houses.”
One student asked if the College was planning on putting in any more recreational facilities.
“We are looking at some space at the James Island recreational facilities,” Benson said. “We hope to get the wonderful facilities within a year. We want it to be an attractive facility to fill as quickly when we can.”
Sophomore Dan Mackin said the College keeps building new buildings and asked the team how we can balance between the old and new buildings.
“The College grew tremendously and outstripped its infrastructure,” Benson said.