With students, faculty and staff at the University of South Carolina and other schools still enjoying the last of their winter break, this week is as good a time as any to compile a quick list of the top five stories of 2009 in terms of higher education in South Carolina.
From high-profile scandals to deep budget cuts to record-setting fundraising, 2009 was a busy year for higher education.

No. 1: Innovista Turmoil
With USC’s ambitious Innovista project — a live-work-play research and education district located throughout the Congaree Vista toward the river — behind schedule in private development, developer Kale Roscoe of Michigan was hired in May 2008 to replace struggling developer Craig Davis of Raleigh. The trouble was, no one at the university vetted Roscoe, who Free Times first reported was a convicted tax felon who served a year in federal prison.

Innovista-Discovery Plaza

What’s more, while Roscoe was missing project deadlines in Columbia, Free Times discovered he was also being sued for $19.5 million by Flagstar Bank for a promised research campus building at the University of Kentucky. Free Times also learned that former Innovista director John Parks — the man who recommended Roscoe for the USC job — was financially tied to Roscoe’s son, who was doing business out of Parks’ Kentucky home.

The result was the quick firing of Roscoe and the eventual resignation of Parks, leaving USC president Harris Pastides to go back to the drawing board to determine a plan for both the future and leadership of Innovista.

No. 2: State Budget Cuts Gash USC
Dealing with unprecedented double-digit budget cuts in the wake of state revenue shortfalls, administrators at USC cut spending anywhere and everywhere they could. The result was fewer classes available for students, larger class sizes, the release of many of the school’s adjunct faculty and increased workloads for tenured and tenure-track professors.

To its credit, USC held the line on furloughs and stuck with a modest 3.6 percent tuition increase in keeping with the Higher Education Price Index, a widely used annual indicator of changes in costs for colleges and universities. The result was a leaner university than the one inherited by Pastides when he took over in August of 2008, but one that appears to have weathered the financial storm better than it might have.

No. 3: Moore School Meets Fundraising Goal
In late July, USC got good news when its Moore School of Business announced it had met and exceeded the $30 million (plus a $15 million institutional commitment) needed to match Lake City financier and USC Trustee Darla Moore’s $45 million gift. The combined $90 million will go toward modernizing the Moore School of Business and move the school to a brand-new home in Innovista that is slated to open in 2013.

The fundraising success was even more remarkable given that it occurred during one of the most difficult fundraising periods for higher education in recent memory.

No. 4: Clemson Exposed for “Gaming” Magazine Rankings
At an otherwise obscure academic conference, Clemson’s Catherine Watt, director of the Alliance for Research on Higher Education at Clemson University’s Strom Thurmond Institute, all but accused her own university of manipulating information the school reports to U.S. News & World Report for the magazine’s annual rankings of colleges and universities, saying that Clemson’s single-minded approach “walked the fine line between illegal, unethical and really interesting.” The admission sent shockwaves across the country as the story was picked up by some of the country’s biggest daily papers, sparking heated criticism of Clemson President James Barker for his role in the school’s shenanigans.

No. 5: Sam Foster Resigns from USC’s Board of Trustees
While this story didn’t get the play it probably deserved, many people were stunned by the abrupt resignation on July 1 of long-serving board member Sam Foster, the board’s only elected black member, after the U.S. attorney’s office in Charlotte charged him with involvement in an elaborate kickback scheme with a former BB&T executive.

Foster, who was the board’s vice chairman and in line to become the board’s first black chairman, had served on the board since 1984 and was an extremely active member. For a board that has been criticized for its lack of minority and female members, his resignation and subsequent guilty plea to bank fraud charges was a significant blow that cast unwelcome light on a career that had previously been exemplary.

What does 2010 have in store? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain — in a climate of reduced budgets and increased expectations, anything is possible.  

Let us know what you think. Email
rona@free-times.com.