A Holiday Message to Students

December 5, 2024

Dear Students,

With fall semester classes coming to an end this week, your thoughts may be bouncing back and forth between final exams and plans for your upcoming winter break. You have done great work this semester, and you have earned a rest. But before you give your attention to holiday festivities, I hope you will keep your focus on completing your assignments and finishing the semester strong.

To help with that, we will host our end-of-semester Midnight Breakfast for students on Sunday, December 8, with a plentiful buffet of delicious breakfast foods at both Russell House Gamecock Park and Campus Village Pavilion. The First Lady and I will be there, along with other volunteer staff members and administrators, to feed you during a study break and to energize you for exam week. We hope to see you there.

We’ve celebrated some great moments together this semester – among them, opening a new training facility for our nursing students, welcoming families to campus during Family Weekend, working together to help our community after Hurricane Helene, trick-or-treating at the President’s House, cheering our Gamecocks in some exciting football wins, and watching the Carolina Band in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. No doubt you created many great memories yourselves. I have enjoyed every opportunity I’ve had to meet with many of you during the semester.

As you head into the holidays, I hope you will take advantage of this time for rest, relaxation, and enjoyment with friends and family. We are looking forward to a great 2025 with you when you return to campus.

In closing, I will leave you with this wish Ero and I are sharing in our holiday greeting card: May the Gamecock spirit and the joy of the season be with you all year long!

Sincerely,

Michael Amiridis
President