Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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t:he (Samecock Bicentennial from page A1 The event was attended by an array of officials from state and local govern ment, including Columbia Mayor Bob Coble, members of the General Assem bly and S.C. Supreme Court, former gov ernors John Wfest and Robert McNair, Gov. Jim Hodges, and former governor and U.S. Education Secretary Dick Riley. The pres idents of universities in the state pnd re gion also attended, as well as Jaroslav Pe likan, Sterling Professor Emeritus of history at Yale University. Riley gave the celebration’s keynote address, emphasizing community and op portunity. “My friends, I am so honored to be here and participate in this grand bicen tennial and to call USC one of the great institutions of higher learning in our na tion and, really, in the world,” Riley said. Riley’s address focused on opportu nity and partnership, which he said were two of America’s “oldest and dearest val ues.” “I believe that in this Information Age, educational opportunity must be the new civil right,” he said. “A school leader in Chicago once talked about school im provement efforts in his city and said, ‘Our schools aren’t going to be like the fall of Saigon anymore. We’re not leaving any one behind.’ I could not agree with him more.” Riley also talked about the partner ship that helped pass his Educational Im provement Act, which aimed to provide funds for K-12 education, in the mid 1980s. Noting that “some people thought it had about as much chance as the Game cocks had against Ohio State in the Out back Bowl,” Riley credited a coalition of citizens and leaders, including univer cit\/ nroeirtante moftinnr tho PT A nacczvl “This has convinced me that when good people work together for positive change, we can solve any problem that gets in our way,” Riley said. “And we can defeat the negative voices that tell us we can’t do any better.” Riley then focused on a particular kind of partnership. He said universities should work to create “a seamless continuum of I quality public education” from pre-school to college. Riley said colleges and universities could do this in two ways: through teacher education and by forming partnerships with public schools. “The USC College of Education de serves high praise for producing genera tions of great teachers,” he said. “And now I ask everyone here at Carolina to put teacher education at the top of your day-to-day personal and institutional agen das. ...This mission will serve our state well.” Riley also highlighted the university’s new “Meet in the Middle” program, a partnership between the university and the state’s middle schools. “This partnership will encourage cit izens to help middle school children to prepare for college,” Riley said. “This can have a wondferful impact statewide.” Jaroslav Pelikan spoke on a topic he said he hadn’t spoke about during a pre vious visit to USC: the “social dimension” of research. “For it is a great paradox of the life of scholarship and research that at one and the same time, it is one of the most soli tary of all lifestyles... and yet, that it cre ates, and is created by a profound sense of community,” he said. If a researcher keeps what he finds to himself, it damages the findings, Pelikan said. “Research that is not shared with oth ers, that is not submitted to those who ought to know, for review, criticism and improvement, that research is self-in dulgent, self-referential and ultimately sterile,” he said. Palms spoke about the fiistory of the university. Created in a period of intense conflict between the upstate and the low country, the university was created to help unify the state. Palms said that, despite the passing of time, the ideals of the univer citir mmoin mlor/ont ‘Times have changed, and so has South Carolina College. But the ideals of the university find a way to serve again and again. They remain compelling and ur gent. We still seek to define the com mon good, we still seek to find harmony between the demands of the individual and the deeds of the whole.” The university desk can be reached at gamecockudesk@hotmail.com News Analysis Budget battle looms over Bicentennial It was hard to watch the bi centennial kick off Wednesday without getting the impression that a multimillion-dollar elephant was sitting squarely in the mid dle of the stage. The elephant was the 15 percent budget cut that Gov. Jim Hodges has proposed for the university. Hodges, a USC alumnus who spoke at the celebration, is advo cating the cuts for all government agen cies, exempting K-12 education, in an at tempt to avoid a $500 million shortfall. University officials seemed to try to get their word in on the proposed cuts without appearing to whine. I_._I Brandon Larrabee is a third-year journalism major. He can be reached at gamecockudesk© hotmail.com. Some of the most direct remarks about the budget — though still veiled in discussion of the university’s 200th year — came from Faculty Senate Chair Caroline Strobel. “States that have been able to move forward economically through the end of the 20th century have had one thing in common: a strong, vibrant research university, which has served as a magnet for cutting-edge industry,” Strobel said. She pointed to North Carolina, Sili con Wley and other areas where research universities sit near the location of eco nomic growth. “A research university, such as the University of South Carolina, is a resource for the state whose worth cannot be mea sured,” Strobel said. “It should be nur tured, and its faculty should be provided with the resources that they need so that they can help to move this state forward into the 21st century.” When USC President John Palms spoke about the challenges some state leaders faced when trying to create one of the first public universities in the coun try, he made a point of bringing up one particular act of courage. “And it took courage to ask the peo ple to join in paying for it,” Palms said. Even Hodges seemed to get caught up in the moment. “USC is our flagship university,” the governor said. “It is our engine of local and state economic development, and it provides education for the next genera tion of young South Carolinians and young leaders.” He mentioned the high skill training that USC students would get and how that would help in the future economy. “We are committed to keeping the gates of the university open, accessible and affordable to all to allow the univer sity to continue its great mission,” Hodges said. After the celebration, Palms seemed " I to be encouraged by what had been saiu when he talked about the partnership he said had helped the university grow for the last two centuries. “You can see that there’s been a part nership between the citizens and the fac ulty and the elected officials,” Palms said. “And that kind of partnership needs to continue very strongly. And we heard all the right things being said today.” Palms also ticked off a laundry list of accomplishments that the university had made during his tenure: raising the qual ity of students, as well as millions of dol lars from private sources, and gaining na tional recognition for the university^ library, which now ranks among the top 50 in the nation. But everything wasn’t quite there. “State support is the one thing that’s still missing,” Palms said. Budget from page A1 All of the schools might be forced to cut programs “either as an alternative or complement to a tuition increase.” Mack Whittle, chairman of the board of trustees, shied away from the idea of drastically raising tuition to make up for the cuts after Wednesday’s bi centennial kickoff. “My personal opinion is that we can’t afford to put a 15 percent, or what ever the budget cut is, on the backs of students,” Whittle said. But cutting all the university’s pro grams is not the answer either, Whittle said. “The idea of taking 15 percent away from some of the cathedrals of acade mic excellence that we’ve got, to me, is absurd,” he said, referring to the four colleges—Liberal Arts, Business, En gineering and Math and Science—uni versity officials think will vault it into ■ r the Association of American Universi ties. “We’ve got to continue to fund them.” Palms also said Wednesday that tu ition cuts could be part of the solu tion, but wouldn’t solve the whole prob lem. “If the cut’s at 15 percent, there’s no way that tuition increases would make up the difference,” he said. In ad dition to tuition hikes, “you’re talking about programs to cut, enrollment lim itations. That’s painful... and that would not be a good sign, both for the students we’re trying to recruit, [and] for the fac ulty we’re trying to recruit here.” Palms and others have long com plained about the state’s funding of the university, which gets less than 80 percent of the amount the university should get under the state’s “perfor mance funding” formula. Deeper cuts could hurt the university’s ability to move forward, USC spokesman Jason Snyder said. “They’re very, very harmful to the university,” he said. “They could po tentially get in the way of our momen tum.” Hodges spokeswoman Coitney Ow ings said Hodges, a USC alumnus, thinks his plan is in line with what South Car olina’s citizens want. “He believes that his budget is a reflection of the priori ties of South Carolinians.” But Snyder said the cuts could im pact not only USC, but the state, as well. “Clearly, we think the University of South Carolina is a critical piece of South Carolina,” Snyder said. He also said the university was adopting a “wait-and-see attitude” as the bill moves through the General As sembly. Republicans, who now control both chambers of the Statehouse, have indicated they might take a department by-department approach to the cuts, as opposed to Hodges’ across-the-board plan. The university desk can be reached at gamecockudesk@hotinail.com Injury from page A1 port will be as immense.” Heather Wfest, who found the victim on the road, is also interested in finding support from university students for Duke and his family. Wfest wants to generate as much pub licity as she can. “I want everyone I possibly can to know about this incident so they will taka proper safety precautions so no other fam ily will have to go through this,” infest said. Investigators are urging anyone with information about the accident or infor mation concerning a vehicle with damage to the drivers side rear view mirror to con tact them at 733-8385 or Crimestoppers at 799-8477. 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