Pastides introduces roadmap to 'Carolina 2025'
Posted on: September 10, 2015; Updated on: September 10, 2015
By Page Ivey, pivey@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-3085
New classrooms and labs, additional faculty and more responsive advising are all part of the “Carolina 2025” roadmap for the next 10 years, university President Harris Pastides says.
Pastides introduced the ambitious plan during his 2015 State of the University address, during which he also announced the successful completion of the $1 billion Carolina’s Promise fundraising campaign that actually garnered $43 million more than its goal.
With that major milestone accomplished, Pastides says it is time to accelerate into the future.
“Our planning has always been and continues to be purposeful, not accidental,” he says. “That’s the only way to get where you want to go and to know when you’ve arrived.”
Part of that plan is already in place with the opening this year of a centralized University Advising Center dedicated to improving student retention and decreasing the time needed to graduate by reducing changes of major and streamlining course selection. Plus, an additional 25 first-year advisers will be hired.
“It provides the most consistent, accessible and useful student advising that we have ever offered to our students and it provides special attention to freshmen, transfer and other students in transition,” Pastides says.
To keep up with the growing student population, the university also plans to increase faculty ranks by 25 each year for the next 10 years. That’s over and above new hires needed to replace faculty members who retire or leave.
“These new colleagues will allow us to continue the expansion of our research base to compete with the best global universities, meet the needs of a growing student body and better prepare our graduates for the jobs of the future,” Pastides says.
Also on the faculty front, Provost Joan Gabel will be working to identify faculty members who deserve salary compression relief, Pastides says. The university has $1.7 million available for that effort.
Standing within sight of the university’s oldest building – Rutledge College – which is being renovated this year, Pastides noted the amount of renovated classroom space that opened this year, including the new journalism school and the new home for the College of Social Work. In all, more than 530,000 square feet will be renovated, including the Close-Hipp buildings, which had been home to the business school, and the current Law Center, which will be vacated in 2017.
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