S C T E CHN I CA L CO L L E G E S Y S T EM ’ S
F I R S T 5 0 Y EAR S
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renson and I got to talking about it, and he said, ‘We’ve got a stu-
dent incubator here. Is there some way we can work together?’”
The men collaborated, planting a fertile seed. Both men had
studied bridge programs and examples of bridge programs be-
tween one college and one university.
Sorensen said, “Could we make this work statewide?”
“I don’t know,” said Russell, “but we’ll sure try.”
In November 2007, officials from both institutions signed a
historic agreement expanding some of the University’s more
successful student programs to technical college students who
planned to transfer to the university’s Columbia campus. The
bridge program’s goal was to make transitions from technical
colleges to the university as seamless as possible and to increase
transfer students’ success once they’re enrolled at the Columbia
campus.
“It didn’t happen overnight or without some gnashing of the
teeth,” said Russell. “The missing piece was, ‘Send them a tran-
script.’ They evaluate it and say ‘We’ll take this course and this
course.’ But we wanted to make it a seamless transition. That’s
what that bridge agreement was all about.”
The bridge program also gave technical college students the
opportunity to visit the USC campus and meet admissions coun-
selors. “To go from an associate degree program in one of our
technical colleges right into the big University of South Carolina,”
said Russell, “we wanted to make that transition as easy as possi-
ble. I give all the credit to Andrew Sorenson. He had to be willing
to do this for it to ever happen.”
Dr. JimHudgins sees the bridge program as “that billboard on
the interstate that says, ‘The technical college system has arrived.’
When Clemson and the University of South Carolina recognize
you as worthy of competing with themwhen they are trying to be
the top twenty in the nation, it says something to a lot of parents:
‘Why don’t I just go ahead and take the two years at Midlands and
go on to USC?’”
It was a major step forward in cooperation among all forms
of higher education in South Carolina. Cathy Novinger sees
the technical college system as a safety net. “We talk about the
dropout rate, but we are the safety net for those people. They can
come to us and get skills and get a job.”
Former board chair Montez Martin concurs. “Everybody’s
not going to be a four-year college graduate. Everybody shouldn’t
be. We would have a world full of four-year college people, and
we’d all be sitting around thinking and nobody working.”
Good things were happening; the little train that thought it
could chugged up and into high terrain and now the train was
pulling into an airport like no other. South Carolina had a plane
to catch if it was to fly higher than ever.
BOEING TAKES OFF IN
SOUTH CAROLINA
A backstory accompanies the landing of Boeing. Boeing
South Carolina’s roots go back to December 2004 and two com-
panies, Vought Aircraft Industries–Charleston Operations and
Alenia North America. Alenia and Vought together formed
Global Aeronautica to support the Boeing 787 Dreamliner pro-
gram. In July 2009, Boeing purchased Vought’s North Charles-
ton operations and in December, it purchased Alenia’s portion
of Global Aeronautica, dissolving the joint venture and creating
Boeing Charleston (now Boeing South Carolina), a full Boeing
site.
In October 2009, Boeing selected the North Charleston site
for a new 787 Dreamliner final assembly and delivery line. Boe-
ing South Carolina is only the third site in the world to assemble
and deliver twin-aisle commercial airplanes.
“It’s hard to say enough good things about what that project
has meant for South Carolina,” said Dr. Barry Russell. “We,
of course, had some aircraft companies who were going to be
suppliers to Boeing, but they were going to be making pieces
The 2000s
F L Y I N G H I G H
