Here are six tasks USC’s next president needs to accomplish at the university

Following the brief, tumultuous presidency of Robert Caslen, the University of South Carolina’s next president will have his or her work cut out for them.

But leading more than 51,000 students and over 6,000 employees at a university that often butts heads with local neighborhoods and the state legislature won’t be easy.

“Being a university president is a nearly impossible job,” said Christian Anderson, a USC professor whose research focuses on the governance of higher education. “Everyone wants something and ultimately it’s an academic enterprise, and students and faculty are at the heart of it.”

Caslen resigned last month following a disastrous commencement speech that he partially plagiarzed and in which he accidentally referred to USC graduates as being from the “University of California.” Former President Harris Pastides is serving as interim president. USC created a presidential search committee comprised of board of trustee members, faculty, staff, a student and community leaders.

While USC’s leadership has been beleaguered by gaffes and public outcry, the core functions of the university — such as teaching classes, conducting research and handling COVID-19 — are still strong, Trustee Charles Williams said in a May interview.

“The university is still running well,” Williams said. “There’s nothing wrong with the university. As far as I know financially we’re doing well. Students are doing well.”

At a recent board of trustees meeting, Chief Operating Officer Ed Walton said USC is stronger financially than at any time since he began working there in the late ‘90s.

Here’s a look at six issues that should be priorities for USC’s next president.

Stabilize USC

USC saw a period of stability in the university’s top office under Pastides.

Pastides had served as USC’s president — after already being a major figure at the university — for more than 10 years. Typically, modern college presidents only stick around for four or five years, Anderson said.

That stability came to an end when the 2019 presidential search drew protests, a faculty senate vote of no confidence in the board of trustees and a formal inquiry from USC’s accreditation body.

Less than two years after the messy presidential search, USC is again looking for a full-time president.

So once the next president — whomever that is — takes office, how do they create stability at USC? How does that person re-earn the trust of the faculty, alumni, students and residents of the City of Columbia?

“With any president at any new institution, the first thing they need to do is listen and learn. ‘What is this institution and what are the needs,’” Anderson said. “What is it that everyone is wanting and which ones can you address and which can you not?...Even in the best circumstances, you can’t do it all.”

Embrace activism

If the last three years has shown anything, student activism on campus is here to stay. Even though students who led recent protests have graduated, a new group of undergraduates has moved in to replace them.

While USC has a rich history of political and social movements on campus, young activists are pushing to keep the energy up on campus activism.

In April, roughly 100 people marched on campus to call for the university to fire all employees who have been accused of sexual harassment, The State reported previously.

Activism doesn’t just apply to students. Faculty and staff can also be vocal about having their voices heard. Faculty Senate recently approved a resolution calling for USC to conduct its presidential search differently than in 2019.

One area that has spawned recent protests is the push to rename buildings named for racists, slave owners, segregationists or people who benefited from slavery.

On that note...

Reckon with building names and history

For years, USC has faced calls to rename buildings named for men who promoted segregation, the Confederacy or who owned or exploited slaves.

But as more students, faculty and alumni join the fight to rename buildings, and the issue continues to yield no new name recommendations, USC is likely to face only increased pressure in the coming years.

Caley Bright, the president of USC’s newly formed NAACP chapter, said USC’s top priorities need to include getting building names changed and working with the state legislature to repeal the Heritage Act. The Heritage Act, passed in 2000 as part of a compromise to remove the Confederate Flag from the State House dome, requires two-thirds approval from both the S.C. Senate and House to change the name of monuments named for people. The S.C. Supreme Court is set to rule whether the act is unconstitutional, The State reported previously.

While Caslen oversaw the formation of a special committee of educators, historians and community figures to oversee potential renaming changes, Bright felt there wasn’t enough direct support from USC’s top officials on renaming buildings and repealing the Heritage Act.

“I feel with more presidential support we could get it done,” Bright said of the building renaming.

Although the push to rename buildings has drawn much of the attention regarding campus activism, another piece of USC’s history could come back to haunt it.

Beginning in the ‘60s, USC gentrified the Wheeler Hill community, purchasing lots and pushing out middle-class Black families who had lived there for decades in an effort to reduce the presence of Black people near campus, The State reported previously.

A state senator who represents the area has referred to what USC did in Wheeler Hill as an “atrocity,” The State reported previously.

Regain trust in handling sexual harassment cases

Another simmering issue in recent months has been allegations that USC failed to appropriately respond to reports of sexual harassment.

Pressure began building in 2018, when a former student alleged her professor subjected her to sexual advances while on a study abroad trip. In 2020, two more lawsuits were filed against the art professor, also alleging sexual harassment. In March, The State published an investigative report detailing new, document-supported allegations against a theater professor who was accused of sexual harassment but was cleared by an internal, USC investigation.

In April, around 100 people gathered on USC’s campus, marching past campus tours and the President’s House on the Horseshoe, to call for the firing of those accused of abuse and further changes to USC’s harassment policy.

While some, but not all, of the employees accused of sexual misconduct were removed from the classroom, campus activists have pushed for the employees to be fired, alleging that removing those accused from the classroom while still paying them is akin to a “vacation,” The State reported previously.

Stay ahead on building projects

Thanks to previous administrations at USC, the university is set to complete two of the largest building projects in the school’s history.

Those projects are the massive dormitory complex Campus Village, and the $300 million project to move the medical school campus.

Campus Village, the cost of which has been pegged at between $210 million and $240 million, promises to add 1,800 beds by fall 2023. As USC’s student population has exploded in the last 20 years, USC students have overflowed into nearby neighborhoods such as Olympia and Rosewood, changing demographics and lifestyles in the neighborhoods as a result, The State reported previously. Private developers have also jumped in, erecting luxury apartments for which there is so much demand, lines to register have stretched outside buildings and into nearby streets, The State previously reported.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, USC froze progress on Campus Village as the university anticipated a budget crisis. USC avoided the fiscal crisis and broke ground on the project earlier this year.

USC also faces a looming issue with moving its medical campus. USC is currently leasing, for $1 per year, the building that houses the school of medicine from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. However, once that lease is up in 2030, USC will have to begin paying at least $7 million per year just to lease the 75-year-old building.

For years, USC has been working on raising money and gaining approval to build a modern, medical school campus in the Bull Street area, which is expected to cost $300 million.

Continue recruiting more in-state students

When Caslen was president, his strategy to grow in-state enrollment was to “grow the pie,” which meant he sought to increase the number of students who attend college rather than fight with other colleges for a shrinking pool of 18-year-olds with college plans.

Caslen’s plan was a response to criticism from lawmakers who noticed USC’s growing out-of-state population had a measurable impact on campus demographics by reducing the percentage of Black students, The State reported previously.

It’s too early to say if that plan paid off, but USC did see an uptick in in-state students in fall 2020 compared to recent years.

In fall 2020, 59.5% of all students on the Columbia campus were from South Carolina, according to preliminary enrollment data from USC. That’s higher than in fall 2019, when 57.6% of students were from the Palmetto State, according to the 2020 S.C. Commission on Higher Education’s statistical abstract.

The coronavirus pandemic makes it hard to say whether that increase in in-state students was caused by a USC policy or by fewer college students wanting to pay a premium for an out-of-state education when campuses countrywide were on COVID-19 lockdown.

The uptick in in-state students pales in comparison to the long-term decrease in the percentage of in-state students, according to data from the S.C. Commission on Higher Education. In 2001, the percentage of in-state students was 76.2%, and in 2011 it was 72.3%. In 2015, the percentage had fallen to 64.