Paul Verrecchia
Director at Large
Chief of Police/Director of Public Safety
College of Charleston
Paul Verrecchia, Chief/Director of Public Safety at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina has served more than 33 years as a police officer in both municipal and university settings. Starting his career in municipal law enforcement with the Providence (Rhode Island) Police Department, he completed 22 years of service with the agency before retiring at the rank of Major. Paul spent eight years as the Chief of Police and Director of Public Safety at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island prior to his move to Charleston.
Rendering Visible — Stono Slave Rebellion Driving Trail: CCPRC and the College of Charleston are collaborating to mark the bicentennial end to the British and American legal trans-Atlantic slave trade by remembering Africans forced to America and their often-overlooked reactions to enslavement. Tour with historians the bloody route of freedom seekers from the National Historic Landmark Hutchenson's Store to Battlefield Plantation, where militia and freedom seekers clashed. Multiple stops are included, and the event's importance is revealed. A registered and paid chaperon is required for participants ages 15 and under. Caw Caw Interpretive Center. Ages 9 and up. $12/$10 CCR discount. 1-4 p.m. Sept. 8.
'Between the Obvious' The Corrigan Gallery at 62 Queen St. will host a solo show opening Saturday for Lynne Riding entitled 'Paying Attention to What Happens Between the Obvious – An Inquiry Concerning Transparency.' The show runs through September with a reception 5-8 p.m. Sept. 13.
During this period, she was included in 'Best of European Illustration,' London. Since moving to Charleston 15 years ago, Riding has continued to exhibit widely, and has been an adjunct professor of fine art at the College of Charleston since 1998. She also holds an Master of Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute. Riding has shown her work in numerous solo and group exhibits nationally in addition to receiving a number of residencies.
College of Charleston classes started Aug. 21, but a sizable group of students had to wait until the next day to register for courses.
Each semester, between 80 and 100 senior citizens sign up to take courses during a special registration session that takes place after classes start, said Dorinda Harmon, the director of transfer and adult student admissions.
The Route 212 Market/ Waterfront Shuttle DASH trolley could be combined with the 210 College of Charleston/Aquarium route to increase efficiency, but any change would need clearance from the College of Charleston because it uses Route 210 as a parking shuttle.
Jan Brewton, director of business and auxiliary services for the college, said "people would be screaming" if that shuttle fell behind schedule.
In the College of Charleston's current production, faculty member Jamie Smithson gets the role right by being outré without going over the top with a Roddy McDowall voice and a Malcolm McDowell sneer. He's funny, sinister, and believable in all the right places. As his nemesis Queen Margaret (one of Shakespeare's great Boadicean creations), Samantha Church matches him; she excels in a particularly strong scene with Olivia Isgett-Ruben (Queen Elizabeth).
So today we have a drinking age of 21 from coast to coast, in 50 separate states and the District of Columbia. These laws are broken daily by tens of thousands, including George W. Bush's daughters when they were underage. Nearly 70 percent of 20-year-olds use alcohol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Anyone who doubts this should take a walk through the neighborhood around the College of Charleston on a Friday or Saturday night. And this could be said of almost any college campus in the nation.
A week after a College of Charleston student was raped downtown, her family has stepped forward to offer a large cash reward for information to help solve the crime.
The 22-year-old student was out with friends at bars near King and Calhoun streets late Aug. 18 and early Aug. 19. Around 12:30 a.m., she drifted away from the group as they went from one nightspot to the next, said Charleston police Cpl. Fred Bowie, the coordinator for Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry.
A week after a College of Charleston student was raped downtown, her family has stepped forward to offer a large cash reward for information to help solve the crime.
The 22-year-old student was out with friends at bars near King and Calhoun streets late Aug. 18 and early Aug. 19. Around 12:30 a.m., she drifted away from the group as they went from one nightspot to the next, said Charleston police Cpl. Fred Bowie, the coordinator for Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry.
But College of Charleston astronomy professor Terry Richardson said Monday that those pluffmudders who found a horizon on which to frame the eclipsed moon might get great photographs.
Dr. Paul Buhler, associate professor of computer science and graduate program director at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C., is working update curriculum at his school to meet the needs of students who will graduate and find jobs in IT departments doing SOA.
Robbins says Clemson is working on turning these drawings into a publication that will highlight some of Magnolia's most historic and architecturally significant markers. Some mock-up pages adorn the walls of the program's rooms at the College of Charleston, though no publication date has been set.
The College of Charleston's 18th piano concert season starts Oct. 16 with Americans Leon Fleisher and Katherine Jacobson-Fleisher. Season tickets for the five concerts are $80. Individual tickets are $20. The concerts are free to C of C students and anybody under 18. All concerts are Tuesdays at 8 p.m. in the Sottile Theatre, 44 George St.
The rest of the series: Jan Rautio, Russia, Nov. 13 ... Volodymyr Vynnytsky, Ukraine, Jan. 15 ... Paolo André Gualdi, Italy, Feb. 12 ... and Jorge Luis Prats, Cuba, April 15.
Analysis of 1995 satellite images done by biologist Phillip Dustan and an associate at the College of Charleston indicated the county had 10 percent impervious surface in 1995. David White, Hollings Marine Laboratory data manager, working from more current satellite images to chart impervious surface across the Charleston area, arrived at the 14 percent estimate.
Inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame three months ago, Small also donated to S.C. universities, including Clemson, Furman, The Citadel and the College of Charleston, and helped raise money for S.C. ETV.
Small, the oldest of four siblings, was born in Charleston in 1915. There he started working at S.C. National Bank and attended the College of Charleston, where he met his first wife, Sallie Tyler.
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Small graduated from the College of Charleston in 1936 and took a job with the bank his father had headed before his death, South Carolina National.
Over the years, he endowed scholarships at Clemson University and the College of Charleston and served for almost a decade in the 1980s on The Citadel Development Foundation.
"This time, the stakes are even higher," State GOP Chairman Katon Dawson said, a thought echoed by College of Charleston political science professor Bill Moore.
"I think there's been overkill on (earlier) debates," Moore said, "I think the Jan. 10 debate will be more significant than any of the others simply because of the proximity to the election itself."
A U.S. study suggests Internet users mistakenly have an inherent trust of Google search results that appear higher on a page.
A College of Charleston eye tracking experiment revealed college students participating in the study trusted Google's ability to rank results by their true relevance to the query. When participants selected a link from Google's result pages, their decisions were strongly biased towards links higher in position, even if content was less relevant to the search query.
Reporter Kristi King interviews Bing Pan bout placements on search engines.
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art will be showing Kendall Messick's multimedia exhibit "The Projectionist" beginning with a reception 5-7 p.m. Friday at the Halsey Gallery. The show will run through Oct. 13. The exhibit opening will be preceded and followed by a screening of Messick's documentary film "The Projectionist" at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. in room 309 of the Simons Center for the Arts on the College of Charleston's campus.
Such conversations also help clarify church positions on political issues, said College of Charleston religious studies professor June McDaniel. Premarital sex, pornography and abortion “are things the church has very specific stands on.”
Bret Lott's Jewel is an Oprah Book Club Selection, gets big foam finger
Mt. Pleasant writer Bret Lott had been teaching at the College of Charleston for a decade when he got "the call." With six books under his belt, he was well known ... in the world of literary fiction and MFA programs. That all changed when Oprah Winfrey selected his novel Jewel, published eight years earlier, for her book club. Sales on Amazon took its rating from 1,069,713 to 1.
Crazyhorse rides into the College of Charleston
Founded in 1961, this now-venerable literary magazine had anti-establishment origins, calling for surrealistic poetry and out-of-the-mainstream writing, or "everything to help blow up the system." Started in L.A. by poet Tom McGrath, it later moved to New York, Kentucky, Minnesota, and North Dakota before settling at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1981. In 2001, editor Ralph Burns asked his friend Bret Lott to take it over, and the College of Charleston took another big step away from its party school rep.
Charleston becomes a tourist destination for writers, too
While Spoleto has phased writing out of its lineup (festival director Nigel Redden was quoted as saying poetry isn't one of the "lively" arts), the Porter-Gaud Visiting Writers Series, Ashley Hall School, CofC, and others have picked up the slack. The last ten years have brought Nikki Giovanni, Billy Collins, Sherman Alexie, David Sedaris, John Ashbery, David Berman, and Geraldine Brooks, to name a few. Poet Natasha Tretheway visited just before and just after winning the 2007 Pulitzer Prize.
Carol Ann Davis of the College of Charleston's creative writing concentration says she doesn't even have to ask writers to come. "We basically now make up our (visiting writers) series based on people who contact us, and they're really well-known people."
There was no PURE Theatre, no Village Playhouse. The Footlight Players were focused on farces and musicals like Stephen Sondheim's Company. The College of Charleston's theatre department tended to keep to itself. Back then, Charleston Stage director Julian Wiles told the fledgling City Paper that cutting-edge theatre was not a part of his mission.
The CofC Theatre Department was probably best known to off-campus audiences for its Shakespeare Festival, an annual series mounting popular productions of Elizabethan hits. A break-out version of Angels in America a few years ago helped introduce the college's program to a wider crowd.
The College of Charleston theatre department begins their new season with Vogel's many-layered play. The piece speaks to the nature of a woman's place in a man's world, the way that caste and class defined those roles, and the risks these women will take to move beyond, or even escape from, their station in life. Desdemona yearns to be a "free" woman, free from marriage and the limits society places upon her. Emilia, often considered complicit in Iago's scheme in Othello, comes across here as a dissatisfied wife whose loyalty to her husband results in the tragedy that follows. Bianca, free and able to do as she pleases from the low station of Madame of the brothel, yearns for the very things the Lady of the house and her maid so desperately want to escape.
Of course, it helps that we're home to one of the finest symphony orchestras in the Southeast, and a ballet company that puts some big-city houses to shame. The College of Charleston is rapidly becoming a major player in the music training arena, and has lately developed truly world-class piano, chamber music, and choral programs. Finally, there's Spoleto Festival USA: probably the western hemisphere's finest and most comprehensive performing arts festival. There's almost always something going on that's worth writing about.
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A31837
Wofford's fraternity and sorority scene ranked fourth, and The College of Charleston ranked 17th in the "Best college town" category.
The college is attempting to round up such alumni and offer them the opportunity to have their names placed on a "memory wall," said Fran Welch, dean of the School of Education, Health and Human Performance. For a $100 donation, graduates can have their name and the year they graduated etched permanently on a wall in the Alumni Center, a large room on the first floor of the new School of Education complex.
College of Charleston students begin classes today with more than 20 Avery Scholars among their ranks.
The college Monday launched the Avery scholarship program, which gives $3,000 annual awards to qualified students who are minorities, low-income or among the first generation in their families to attend college, said Donald Burkard, the college's associate vice president for enrollment and planning. "The ultimate goal is to reach out into South Carolina to areas underrepresented at the College of Charleston," he said.
Earlier this year, Chief Paul V. Verrecchia says the school updated its emergency management plan, and started training with city police in case a similar shooting happened here. “Should we have an active shooter situation, we are not going to handle it alone. The reality is, the city would be called in,” said Verrecchia
The College of Charleston is set to begin another round of its Intermodal Transportation Professional Development Program. The class aims to give participants an in-depth look at all aspects of transportation and logistics as practiced in Charleston, according to the instructor, Dr. Kent Gourdin.
People already working in the field will get a look at the big picture, while anyone thinking of going into the business will get a detailed introduction. Each session is presented by a professional working in the area they discuss. There are four six-week sessions on such topics as the cargo move; the port; regulations, pricing and the law; and operations, carriers and shippers.
Landing the editorship of The Southern Review was the opportunity of a lifetime, or so Bret Lott thought when he took the job three years ago.
When the offer came, the author of 11 books had been teaching creative writing at the College of Charleston for 18 years. One of his books, "Jewel," was chosen in 1999 for Oprah Winfrey's book club, a move that launched Lott into immediate and lucrative literary fame.
But Lott didn't last long in his new world on Louisiana State University's campus.
He has returned to the College of Charleston, where he'll talk to new students about his best-seller at the school's convocation today. Freshmen and new transfer students were assigned to read "Jewel" over the summer.
But some students, and many parents, are so troubled by what they find on the social networking Web sites that they're asking university housing officers for new roommates, says Tavia Sessoms, director of housing administrative services at the College of Charleston.
'Students put anything and everything on these pages,' Sessoms said. Most complaints are about online photographs where students appear to be drinking alcohol, she said.
While many Christians believe that all magic is inherently bad, some scholars say that magic also can be good. Defined as a harnessing of a supernatural force to influence or change events, objects, people and physical phenomena, magic was once an integral part of most religious practice, and in some cases still is, says College of Charleston religion professor June McDaniel. Whether it's good or evil depends on one's point of view.
Lee Irwin, chairman of the religion department at the College of Charleston and a teacher of religious esoterica, names three basic kinds of magic: the black art, in which demons are invoked for evil purposes; natural, which typically combines certain physical elements, then imbues the combination with supernatural power through ritual; and angelic, which seeks divine intervention from heavenly beings.
Jane Reno-Munro, director of student health services at the College of Charleston, said the college's health center doesn't have a pharmacy, so the school never offered the discounted contraceptives.
One of Shakespeare's most memorable plays, "Richard III" will open Thursday at the College of Charleston as part of the theater department's annual Shakespeare Project.
Directed by theater faculty member Evan Parry, the play chronicles the rise and fall of King Richard who will stop at nothing to gain and retain power. Several modern day leaders have been compared to him as the king lies, murders, seduces and brainwashes those around him.
His economics colleagues say his work is accurate, well-researched and has no frills. Frank Hefner, professor of economics at College of Charleston and the man who did Schunk's job at USC before him, said it's important that Schunk publishes in academic publications, which gives him credibility.
The idea of digging in the dirt around old public toilets never appealed to Katie Jennings.
That is, until she helped unearth ancient ruins this summer in Rome.
For several weeks, Jennings and some other students went on an archaeological dig searching for artifacts in a large suburban area outside of the city.
The Spartanburg resident is a senior at the College of Charleston, majoring in art history with a minor in archaeology.
One of her college requirements is to spend eight hours working in her field of study. She selected the American Institute for Roman Culture because it provides classroom time and lectures to help students prepare for their adventure.
The College of Charleston is offering a new master of arts degree in teaching performing arts.
The degree is designed to meet a critical need in Lowcountry schools, experiencing shortages in teachers qualified to teach choral music, dance and theater.
The masters in performing arts offers three concentrations: choral music, theater and dance. Applications for the choral music concentration, to start in January, are being accepted.
More partners needed to close school achievement gaps (Op/Ed)
By Nancy J. McGinley and Fran Welch
On Tuesday, we will begin another new school year in the Charleston County School District and at the College of Charleston. This new beginning is a good time to reflect on the successes of the Charleston County School District Plan for Excellence and the College of Charleston's Center for Partnerships to Improve Education. We believe our unique and innovative partnership promises to benefit our children. Numerous activities and accomplishments provide evidence that we are on track to improved public education.
Dr. Nancy J. McGinley is superintendent of the Charleston County School District. Dr. Fran Welch is dean of the College of Charleston's School of Education, Health, and Human Performance.
For Leila Potts-Campbell, collecting and disseminating black history is part necessity and part labor of love. It's also integral to the missions of the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture.
Potts-Campbell, who was born in Charleston, spent more than three decades doing rewarding work with the American Red Cross, living in Atlanta, Detroit and Washington, D.C. It's mostly her work with the Red Cross that took her to all 50 states and several foreign countries.
Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture Charleston, S.C.
"This is one of the great troves of African-American history. Many objects and documents from the era of enslavement are here," Asante says. The collection includes slavery bills of sale, slave identification badges and a small collection of slave-made furniture. Stroll along Charleston Harbor where Fort Wagner, now washed away, stood in 1863 — and where African-American troops fought valiantly against impossible odds. 843-953-7609; cofc.edu/avery
College of Charleston
--8 among public and private Southern universities that award master's degrees, up from 11 last year.
--3 among public Southern universities that award master's degrees, up from 4 last year.
The College of Charleston caps enrollment and expects about 1,800 freshmen. But it, too, is experiencing strong demand. Applications jumped 3.9 percent over last year to more than 11,120.
“We put up significant roadblocks to credit card companies,” says CofC Dean of Students Jeri Cabot. “They can’t give away any promotional items to attract students, and disclosures about how they handle debt have to be printed on the forms as large as the other type face used in the solicitation.” Cabot says that companies are limited to visiting once a year outside the Stern Student Center, and that cards are not given to students with no gross income without the signature of a parent or guardian. Cards solicited on campus are also limited to $500 credit.
George Benson couldn’t look more settled than he does with his tall frame folded into an antique settee in the elegant executive office in the College of Charleston’s historic Randolph Hall. Yet two minutes into the conversation, his guest is aware that his relaxed demeanor disguises a constantly restless, persistently probing mind. Ironically, a few blocks away, his wife, Jean Oas Benson, a former collegiate track champion, is busy stripping wallpaper in the College of Charleston’s President’s House, which is being renovated. The Bensons are living in the guest house behind the executive residence; meanwhile, all the collective stuff that makes a house a home sits packed away in their old house in Athens, Georgia. So—well settled? Stasis is not a familiar concept in the Benson household.
I think we speak the same language in a way,” says composer and College of Charleston professor Edward Hart of his wife, novelist Beth Webb Hart. Though his tools are musical instruments and notes and hers are keyboard and alphabet, when it comes to what kindles creative endeavors, it’s quite literally common ground that they share. For inspiration, the Harts both draw on their Lowcountry upbringings—hers on Pawleys Island, his in downtown Charleston, directly across the street from where the couple now lives with their six-year-old daughter, Frances.
The College of Charleston will receive $392,175 for a project called "Collaborative Research: Phytoplankton Community Dynamics and Physiological Status in the South Atlantic Subtropical Gyre and Benguela Upwelling Systems."
Recent College of Charleston graduate James Preston, 22, of Roanoke, Va., called GMLc to tell us about Charleston Students for a Free Tibet, the group he revived and presided over last year. The C of C chapter of the national and international advocacy group has about 100 members, he said. The group is still young, he said, and still in the awareness-raising stage through showing films about Tibet. The chapter hasn't done any serious fundraising or protest activities yet, he said. But other chapters have.
Dr. Jack Bass, author and professor at the College of Charleston, has written two accounts of Thurmond's life and career: "Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond" and "Ol' Strom: An Unauthorized Biography of Strom Thurmond."
The College of Charleston said Friday that it will honor the nine firefighters who died in the Sofa Superstore blaze on June 18 by hanging a banner or a flag at each of the College's six sports venues. C of C will also have a memorial at Kresse Arena that will include a plaque with the names and pictures of the fallen firefighters as well as a "Charleston 9" banner.
Some universities run their individual departments like separate institutions, forcing risky early commitments to "hot job" majors. "Quite frankly, seven out of 10 students (nationally) switch their majors," said Don Burkhard, the College of Charleston's associate vice president for enrollment planning. Not sure what you want to do? Consider a "general education" school.
The new buildings are important, housing facilities director Michael Turner said. The college needed more housing space, and it wanted to encourage more students, especially upperclassmen, to live on campus. College officials want to establish a stronger campus community, he said, "instead of rolling up the sidewalks at night."
Tavia Sessoms, the college's director of housing administrative services, said encouraging students to continue to live on campus after their first year can be tough. They want the freedom and amenities that off-campus apartments offer, she said. Most students, she said, are used to having access to the Internet and cable television. And most have never shared a bedroom prior to coming to college.