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| 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
lot of members of the Legislature would say that’s crazy. You have no business doing that. But who knows. It could be that’s exactly what will
drive the creativity it takes to have a strong economy in the state twenty years from now.
DON’T BECOME A MUSEUM
Around 2006 Dr. Barry Russell went with a group of community college presidents to Beijing under the auspices of the American Associ-
ation of Community Colleges. “We spent two or three days with our counterparts in Beijing, twelve presidents who wanted to know how to
develop a curriculum. So we went in there all cocky about how we develop a curriculum. We could tell, watching their expressions, that they
weren’t buying this. Finally, one said through the translator, ‘You don’t understand. We know how to do that for our local communities. That’s
not the problem. We want to make sure we have a global curriculum. We’re preparing people to lead the world. It sounds like you guys are
kind of stuck on just serving your little communities.’”
“That was a wakeup call for us,” said Russell. “The other thing I saw that same trip was how much money—here we are budget-cutting—
they’re investing in their equivalent to our community colleges. One president said, “My campus was five years old, and we just leveled it
because it was out of date, so we’re building a new one.” Five years old and it was out of date and bulldozed. It was a little scary. And that’s the
reason we need leadership and the commitment to make this thing work so our schools don’t become museums.”
AGRIBUSINESS
Former board chair Cathy Novinger envisions a future training people to work in agribusiness. “We’re developing the vision for agribusi-
ness and what it means to this state as it relates to forestry, clean energy, and alternative energies, but we don’t know what the agribusiness
world is going to be yet. We’re defining that right now. But once we say to the technical college system, ‘Here’s what we need, and this is why,’
there is no doubt that they will be poised to do it.”
STAY THE COURSE
Brantley Harvey, a board member since 2002 and supporter from the beginning, believes in sticking with what works with a bit of inno-
vation added. “We need to follow the same course that’s proven so successful, and I emphasize the coordination with four-year colleges to
have credits earned in first and second years at technical colleges transferable to those colleges. I’m delighted that we’re now working closely
with high schools and boards of education in allowing students to take their senior high school courses right along with the technical college
courses.”
REAL WORK IN A REAL WORLD
“Despite the challenges and debates the tech system has remained one of the better ideas ever conceived by South Carolina.” Dennis Mer-
rell, York Technical College president from 1989 to 2006, continues, “Governor Hollings could never have imagined that this system designed
to transform the state’s underutilized workforce would grow to such prominence and serve so many citizens.”
It is certain new challenges and debates will arrive. How, for instance, do we define real work? What people define as “real work” has
changed over the years. Real work once meant following a mule down a furrow ... picking cotton ... and working in a windowless mill. Real
