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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The 1980s
A D E S I G N F O R T E C H N O L O G I C A L C H A N G E
nnovative, disastrous, dramatic, yet avant-garde—that’s the eighties. Tripping through this decade,
we recall that Star Wars rattled the Russians, terrorists brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lock-
erbie, and Mt. St. Helens blew its top. Hinckley shot Reagan, and HIV/AIDS took off like wildfire. The
Challenger exploded leaving Christa McAuliffe’s bewildered parents staring into a blue tent of a sky over
Florida.
Shafts of valor shone through the darkness: U.S. Olympians beat the Russians in hockey begetting the
“Miracle on Ice,” and the Berlin Wall fell; one man stopped a column of tanks entering Beijing’s Tianan-
men Square, but the disasters kept mounting. The Soviets shot down a commercial airliner and famine
swept through Ethiopia. The country needed a diversion, and “Miami Vice” and its rock music, Ray-Ban
sunglasses and Caribbean fashions fit the bill. A glamorized drug culture invaded mainstream America.
Little girls had addictions too, and Cabbage Patch Kids sparked fistfights among parents determined
their daughters would have a doll from Babyland General. Girls, after all, just wanted to have fun.
If it was better to look good than to feel good in the eighties, it was even better to be technologically
astute. The eighties were nothing like the 1970s when technological advances brought smaller radios and
better TV sets—and that was it. The 1980s would see a typical home’s inventory of technologically ad-
vanced devices mushroom.
In 1982,
Time
named the computer Machine of the Year, saying it’s “A mess of screws and buttons, a
whole heap of plastic. Comes with new words too: RAM and ROM.” Technology rammed ahead all right.
Music moved from vinyl to CDs. Cable TV came of age and an upstart network, MTV, unleashed music
videos around the clock. On MTV, androgynous Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics sang “Sweet Dreams”
to a driving drum beat claiming, “everybody’s looking for something.”
South Carolina’s technical education leaders were looking to catch-up. Bill Dudley, the system’s execu-
tive director from 1976 to 1986, said, “South Carolina’s technical education system has fallen behind the
heightened pace of technological advancement.”
It had, and the timing was unfortunate for high technology now targeted the masses. A Superbowl
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