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Excerpts from The Gamecock’s interview with John Palms The Gamecock: You were president of Georgia State before you came here, and you decided to come when the universi ty was going through the Holderman or deal. What motivated you to come to this university in the face of all that? John Palms: Wfell, let me say, I didn’t know as much about the previous president’s undertakings. I knew there had been con troversy about what he paid a visiting dig nitary to come and teach— $300-and something thousand dollars to Mrs. Sadat. [Jifran Sadat, the widow of Egyptian Pres ident Anwar Sadat.] I had no idea about all; the other things that... were revealed to Jne after I arrived. I came for one rea son: that is, that the University of South Carolina is a flagship institution. Geor gia State is a great institution, but it's not a flagship institution.... I was not seekmg a job at that time. I got called about this job and turned it, said ‘I’m not interest ed at all.’ Got called again and said I wasn’t interested and they said, ’Well, come talk to us about, you know, what we should be looking for for a president. ’ And when I came, one thing led to another. So kind oPa, a rapid process.... When I came here, we had a major crisis with the credibility of;the institution: trust. Bad press, leg islative suspicions about the integrity and the character of the institution, which is the most valuable thing one has as an in stitution. So the first thing was to reestab lish that credibility. There are a couple of things I did immediately. One was those scholarships going to people the president had picked. I immediately revealed who the recipients of those scholarships were. I eliminated a lot of money in adminis trative expenses. One whole area dealing with some vice president of administra tion, about a million and a half, and I just eliminated the whole thing, because, in my opinion, it just wasn’t functioning well....I worked across a pretty broad front of issues dealing with that administration, and, at the same time, trying to assess where this university was academically, what it had achieved and what the facul ty .thought its potential was, realistically. So I wasn’t out here saying ‘Charge,’ and I looked behind me and there’s nobody there to follow me.... We decided that we were much better than the reputation that we had...that we had the capacity to re cruit better students than what we were recruiting....We needed both new build ings and renovated buildings. So we need ed a master plan for the campus—a long term master plan....[The university] raised the admissions standards three times, got the SATs up. People worried that we wouldn’t make a class and we did that and we did it anyway. We raised the standards for teaching and research for faculty and what it would take to get tenure.Es sentially we said, we want to be worthy eventually of being invited into the most elite group of major research universities, the AAU, the Association of American Universities....You know, in ail the sur rounding states, the stales have picked one or two institutions and raised them above everybody else’s: Chapel Hill, Universi ty of Virginia, University of Georgia, Uni versity of Florida... And we still have to make that decision m this state— that this comprehensive flagship institution needs to be raised above everybody else’s.... We’ve had 500 now faculty, and the ma jority of them come from AAU institu tions where you have this culture that we're trying to create, so whai you’re do ing here is changing the culture....Our ath letic success is helping some here, in the last couple of years, and will continue to do so, especially with the quality of the coaches that we have. Their personal char acter quality is very important. And that win-loss record doesn’t hurt, either, for a change. Gamecock: One of the things that you mentioned as a goal has been to gain us entrance into the AaU, which, as far as I know, is completely dependent upon graduate and doctoral research. One of the things I know we write about a good deal, about that quest, is how getting in to the AAU will benefit the education of an undergraduate student. Palms: Well, let me tell you, there are a few qualities that all these AAU institu tions have in common. First of all, it’s just taken for granted, you have the best un dergraduate students m the country. They come there because [of] the best faculty. The faculty come because they’re teach ing the best students as well as doing the research.... So if everything’s going right, teaching should immensely improve here by the fact that we’re moving up in over all quality. Gamecock: You mentioned that when you first came here, you had some, you want ed to obtain some realistic goals when you got here, improving the reputation of the school. Do you feel, from the time you’ve come here, that that’s al ready been accomplished? Palms: There are a couple of things that have happened here.... lhe AAU mem bership is voted on by the presidents of the AAU members. I send out a brag sheet a couple times a year of our ma jor accomplishments. So when I tell them that the faculty six years ago was bringing in $60 million of resear ch and last year $121 million, that’s a major thing that affects the reputation. When 1 tell them that last year we had a Rhodes Scholar, that says sometning about our undergraduate program. 1 here are only a cuupie ot Rhodes bchoi ars in the whole South. It came out of our undergraduate program, from a girl from Lancaster, South Carolina. This was not a New Jersey import. This was a Southern girl.... When you hire a man like Dan Car ter in history, who wrote the biography of [AiaoamaJ Governor [George] Wallace, and wrote the book on the Scottsboro kids in Alabama that got falsely accused of raping a girl and got a Pulitzer Prize ... and he leaves L Emory University and comes here — every history department in this country knows this happened. Gamecock: So would you say that the credibility has been fully restored and that the good public standing of the universi ty has been fully restored? Palms: Based upon legislative sampling, the alumni coming back and the giving recor d to the campaign, inis would never have been possible without their feeling that tire credibility is back.... The money coming in certainly is an indicator. Peo ple are writing checks again for the uni versity. ... The fact that you got a $20 mrl lion gift from one and a $25 million gift from another and 60 $ 1 million gifts from. others when there was only one milliou dollar gift to the university before we start ed the campaign. I was writing thank-you notes when somebody gave me a thou sand dollars. ‘Thank you so much for this thousand dollars.’ [laughs]. It’s precari ous, I mean, that character thing is always delicate.... And you just have to watch it all the time. Gamecock: Are there any programs you think of that might be AAU quality right now? Palms: Chemistry. Biology. Information systems. Certainly, our MIBS program is. Our marine science is. I think psycholo- . gy is.... I think we’re there in public health. 1 . .You know., me top AAUs are great right I across the board There’s another level of AAU that, they ve got these cathedrals of excellence. The other programs are good also, but not as good as those world class [programs]. Everybody can’t be world-1 class.... We’ve said we’re not going to do it across every, every department. We’re going to try to build these cathedrals, the ones that are closest to being at the top. We’ll bring everybody up, too, but it would take a lot of resources to do it all across the board with everybody. [ Palms from page 1 ing the research,” Palms said. “So if everything’s going right, teaching should immensely improve here by the fact that we’re moving up in overall qual ity.” Palms said, while some AAl) in siiiuiiuus are “great right across the board,’ USC would have to focus on some "cathedrals of excellence” — such as science and math, the college ot liberal arts, engineering and business instead of trying to bring all of the university’s programs to AAU levels. "Everybody can’t be world-class. We ’ ve said we’re not going to do it auoss eveiy department,” Paims said. "Wfe'ie going to try to build these cathe Oials, ihe ones that are closest to being at the top. We’ll bring everybody up, too, but it would take a lot of resources to do it all across the board with every body.” | ---I r Neighborhood from page 1 Possibly the most frustrating con cern for association members, though, is parking problems caused by students. According to Stiver, a USC philosophy professor and associate dean of the hon ors college, students using neighbor hood parking spaces can sometimes dis regard resident concerns for a convenient parking spot close to class. “Students have a tendency to take advantage of the parking system, which is not to give residents certain parking privileges they feel they’ve earned through their high taxes,” Stiver said. Parking problems aren’t just about inconvenience for residents, Stiver added, saying some real safety concerns are at issue. For example, when all of the parking spaces are occupied, especial ly at intersections such as Greene and Barnwell, a driver’s line of sight is of ten compromised. “You have to puli out so far to see, you run the risk of getting (into an ac cident),” Stiver said. Among its recommendations to curb parking woes, the association is asking City Council to partially close Gibbes Court at the intersection with Barnwell “in order to reduce the volume of USC traffic looking for parking on Gibbes Court,” according to the group’s sum mary of recommendations. It’s also requesting some parking spaces on Greene Street be removed completely “in order to increase visibility and safe ty for both motorists and pedestrians.” While the recommendations have yet to be presented to City Council, and no clear date has been set to do so as of Wednesday night, Stiver is confident the association’s recommendations 'will not be made in vain. “I’m not so sure the city won’t give us a lot of these things,” Stiver said. “I think it should go for all of it.” The city/state desk can be reached at gamecockcitydesk@hotman.com. PALM CAMPUS MINISTRY Partnership Among Lutherans and Methodists Wednesday Night ~ "Body & Soul" - 5:30 p.m. (light meal following) 2l_ November 15tb - "Doers of the Word-Servant Ministry* ^ ^1 with The Rev. Tom Wall & The Rev. Martin Jessiman " Sunday Worship -5:30 p. m. (meal following) Sunday Activities 9:00 & 11:15am - Worship Services 10:00am - LifeLine Contemporary Service 10:00am - Sunday School 3407 Devine St. ~ 256-8383 ~ www.Shandon-UMC.org St. Thomas More Catholic Center Rev. Tun I.ijewski Mass Schedule Sacrament of Penance Chaplain Saturday 4:30pm Saturday 3:00pm-4:00pm Sr. Julienne Guy OSU Sunday 11:00am, 7:30pm or by appointment Director of Christian m Formation Newman Club Tuesday 7:00pm nwo.’Jytw 1610 Greene St. 799-5870 (Across from School of Nursing) Columbia -Five Points (behind Harper’s) Proclaiming Christ through the Scriptures and Sacraments ^dult Bible Class 9:30am • Holy Communion 10:30am Member Parish -Lutheran Church Missouri Synod SOPHOMORES! F FORMULATE YOUR FUTURE If you’re a Math, Physics, Architecture, Computer Science, Nursing, Engineer ing or Meteorology major — take note. Your degree + Air Force ROTC = a commission as an Air Force Officer. It’s your formula for success. 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