College
of Charleston News Stories
July 2005
Steve Litvin, a
hospitality professor at the College of Charleston, said he believes Charleston
is a much stronger draw for most tourists.
"Charleston probably
gets hurt a little bit by Savannah being down the road, but Savannah probably
gets hurt very much by Charleston being up the road," Litvin said.
"I'd pit Charleston's loyal customers against theirs any day."
Litvin and others, however, are quick to recognize that Savannah may have one
up on Charleston with respect to a big intangible asset: charm, a sort of
drowsy, time-worn magic that drips from its live oaks like moss, sprawls
through its many parks and seeps among its crumbling bricks and cobblestones.
"(Savannah) isn't
quite as interesting, but in a lot of ways it's prettier," Litvin said.
“If you were to put the
governor’s plans for education up against Tenenbaum’s, she’d have a distinct
advantage among the voters,” says College of Charleston analyst Bill Moore.
“Most families send their kids to public schools.
“If Republicans take a
position similar to Sanford’s on education, it will be a liability. It could
become an albatross around the neck of their candidate.”
"We love it,"
Myers said. "You collect the money up front. You know whether they're
covered or not covered and what they should pay out of pocket. It's a big
cash-flow help." Peter McCandless, a 59-year-old professor at the College
of Charleston who has BlueCross through the state's health insurance plan for
public employees, believes a system like this will be useful.
"It could be very
helpful to know how much the insurance company is paying when you're at the
doctor's office," McCandless said.
McCandless hopes the new
system will reduce mistakes. An insurance company once sent the wrong bill to
his father, after his father's death, and his brother needed months to fix the
problem.
Allow me to raise two
issues with respect to your July 19 editorial, "A better way to help
Africa." One issue is the relationship between foreign aid and debt. You
suggest the debt that was recently, partially and conditionally forgiven at the
G8 Summit resulted from the squandering of foreign aid in support of the lifestyle
of corrupt African elites.
However, much of the
official debt forgiven resulted from G8 countries' support for now failed
regimes during the Cold War, such as Mobutu's in Zaire
DR. JACK PARSON
Professor
Political Science
College of Charleston
POETRY READING: College
of Charleston professor and poet Paul Allen has been invited to read on the
Millennium Stage at the prestigious Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
Washington, D.C., at 6 p.m. Monday. As part of the center's "Performing
Arts for Everyone Initiative," the program will be broadcast live via Real
Player on the Web at www. kennedy-center.org/programs/ millennium.
Allen was chosen to
perform by John Dunnan of the Kennedy Center, who heard him read his poetry at
a Monday Night Blues event held at East Bay Coffee House in Charleston. More
information about the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts can be found on the
Web at www.kennedy-center.org.
Allen lives in Charleston
where he teaches poetry writing and writing song lyrics at the College of
Charleston and is contributing editor of Crazyhorse.
Randy M. Guarneri,
regional loss prevention auditor with Ruddick Corporation of Charlotte,
recently was awarded the 2004 Loss Prevention Auditor of the Year Award.
Guarneri is a 1998
graduate of College of Charleston with a bachelor's degree in sociology and a
minor in criminal justice.
Guarneri has eight years
of professional loss prevention experience and previously worked for Saks Fifth
Avenue in Charleston.
Dr. Idee Winfield,
associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at the
College of Charleston, has received the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching
Award from the Southern Sociological Society. The award is given for
outstanding contributions to the teaching of sociology made over the course of a
career in the classroom, the recipient's institution and/or to the discipline
as a whole.
Announced at the 68th
annual meeting in Charlotte, Winfield will be formally granted the award at the
Southern Sociological Society's 2006 meeting in New Orleans.
As a leader of the local
experimental music scene, an instructor in The College of Charleston's Music
Department and the organizer of last month's Bass Fight 2005 at Cumberland's,
Michael Vick has been doing his part to promote bass-playing in Charleston.
"The bass is really
the center of the music," says Vick.
Howard Stahl, a native of
Greenville and a College of Charleston alumnus who moved to Charleston from
Washington, D.C., about a year ago, said his commute isn't that much longer
now.
"From my house in
Northern Virginia, it would take me an hour and a half to get to the office in
traffic," Stahl said. "I figured for an extra 45 minutes, where I
could sit on a plane and not drive, why not?"
An architecture buff,
Stahl returned to Charleston every few years over the last three decades that
he has practiced international corporate law. He finally made the jump when he
heard the Calhoun Mansion was for sale. He bought the 24,000-square-foot
property for $3.75 million in July 2004.
The College of Charleston
has just hired an Olympic champion as an assistant coach, showing its
dedication to the sport of swimming. Masters swimming in the Charleston area is
attracting greater numbers than ever before. We have between 20 and 30 swimmers
every morning at 6 a.m. at our workout.
Because of the multiple
pools in a top-notch natatorium, a wide range of activities can be accommodated
at the same time. Not only competitive swimming, but fitness, lessons and
rehabilitation can be accessible to the entire community.
Frank
Heffner, a professor of economics at the College of Charleston, says while
these one-time boosts of dollars in the regional economy are important, the
name recognition that these high-profile events bring to the region and the
state are far more valuable.
“The
one-time infusions are great for our economy, but it’s what happens next that’s
most important,” says Heffner. “(The Championship) puts the stamp of approval
on the area and brings intangible benefits. It enhances our tourism base in
Charleston and can help put us on the business site-relocation screen and bring
the kinds of companies we’re looking for…the higher-tech, higher wage and smart
industries.”
John
Crotts, a professor of hospitality and tourism management at the College of
Charleston, says such prestigious events bring national and international image
advertising that the state could not otherwise afford.
The
demographic of people drawn by these types of events also tends to have high
median incomes, says Crotts, citing that spectators for the annual Family
Circle Cup at Daniel Island have an average family income in the six digits.
About 92 percent of the
Grand Strand's 12.8 million annual visitors get here by car.
"High gas prices
won't hurt the Myrtle Beach area," said Frank Hefner, economist with the
College of Charleston.
Nationwide, the most
recent figures available from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic
Analysis also show that spending from January through March was 6.6 percent
higher than the same period in 2004.
College of Charleston
professor and poet Paul Allen has been invited to read on the Millennium Stage
at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 1.
Allen was chosen to
perform by the Kennedy Center’s John Dunnan, who heard him read his poetry at a
Monday Night Blues event at East Bay Coffee House in Charleston. Allen teaches
poetry writing and writing song lyrics.
College of Charleston
finance professor Perry Woodside was a little bemused and more than a little
curious to hear about hurricane futures. If enough people participate, he said,
it could even work.
"It's no different
from corn futures, pork futures or anything else. All along, the futures market
was saying Bush was going to win, when the Big Media polls weren't," he
said. But the prospect of it becoming a forecasting tool "is a bit of a
stretch. It's based on human expectation not science." Then he added,
"The link between the two would be fascinating, quite frankly."
The proposals for the
removal of Stephenson and an audit were made after a new board member, Roger
Daniels, a College of Charleston professor of accounting, warned the group that
Happy Days' future is at risk because of possible financial irregularities.
He warned of legal
problems and a loss of public trust if Happy Days does not fully address the
issue.
Regardless of who is at
fault, someone has to be held accountable. Enter Sanford.
"The buck stops at
the desk of the governor," says College of Charleston political scientist
Bill Moore.
Jack Bass, a College of
Charleston political science professor, said the unfolding Santee Cooper
controversy could have major implications in the gubernatorial election next
year. He said he believes Sanford will continue to handle the subject
carefully, although Bass doesn't think allegations of mismanagement at Santee
Cooper have become a "burning issue" with voters.
"My hunch is that Governor
Sanford will portray this controversy as himself standing up for the voters of
the state," Bass said. "How the voters respond to that is the great
unknown question. ... It certainly has a number of people upset."
Dorinda Harmon of the
College of Charleston's admissions department says Charleston's location makes
it a "viable port of learning," with programs such as biology and
preservation. "There is a diversity and depth of educational opportunity
here," says Harmon.
As many have found, the
Lowcountry is a place that is easy to love and hard to leave. And for a
hometown girl such as Britney, Charleston is still the beginning of the end.
"The college experience is about finding your own place in the
world," she says. "It's about growing up. It's about finding out who
your are and being comfortable with it."
Colleague Jack Bass, who
was leaving the newspaper to become the capital correspondent for the Observer,
walked Grose down to the State House to introduce him to the men in power.
The legislature, all-white
and mostly male, was grappling with seismic societal changes wrought by federal
law. Many communities were in open defiance of the 1954 Supreme Court decision
on school desegregation. There were challenges to the federal Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Only a handful of
lawmakers — and few of their white constituents — could fathom the
mind-set of demonstrators who had taken to the streets to air their grievances.
“You knew you were right
in the middle of it,” said Bass, now a College of Charleston professor. “You
did kind of feel as a reporter that you had a front-row seat to history.”
The thought of cruising
around in a fancy new Mercedes-Benz makes 18-year-old Diana Cheung giggle.
Cheung might buy her
dream car one day, that is, after she finishes school and achieves her goal of
becoming a pharmacist.
A $2,000 scholarship from
Mercedes-Benz USA is helping her pay for an education that will help her get
there, and then she just may be able to afford the luxury car.
The Dillon resident, who
will attend the College of Charleston this fall, was one of 500 nationwide
recipients awarded the Drive Your Future scholarship, sponsored by Mercedes and
its dealers. A total of $1 million was given away.
The occasion for the
small dinner party in late June was to honor Michael Tyzack, retiring chairman
of the College of Charleston’s art department.
But those gathered around
the table found time to praise Betsy Fleming, director of Charleston’s Gibbes
Museum of Art, as well. The day before, Fleming was named president of Converse
College, a private women’s college in Spartanburg.
Tyzack was among those
mourning Fleming’s departure and singing her praises.
“She really took over
what had become a moribund situation and breathed new life into it,” he said.
“That she turned around the museum in three years is absolutely amazing.”
College of Charleston
trustees voted last week to raise tuition for the 2005-06 academic year $466
for in-state students and $1,202 for out-of-state students.
The 7.5 percent increase
for South Carolina students will raise their annual tuition bill to $6,668 this
fall. The 8.5 percent increase for out-of-state students boosts tuition to
$15,372.
But at least one
political scientist said Friday it was a long shot.
"Lightning would
have to strike," for her to be appointed, said College of Charleston
professor David Mann, who follows the Supreme Court and judiciary closely.