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 1990s
A H I G H E R R O L E I N E D U C A T I O N
he Electronic Age—that would be the 1990s’ legacy. Justification aplenty backed that distinction.
In 1989, Sir Tim Berners Lee proposed something he called the World Wide Web. By 1990, his
proposal led to hypertext and exponential change. People started using something called email. A new
way to spend money popped up too. Online shopping. And the business world coined “e-commerce.” A
digital frenzy ensued.
Something about the Electronic Age loosened people up. Casual Fridays brought jeans and polo shirts
to the workplace—a great stride forward for workers. Education was moving forward, too, continuing its
momentum. Back in 1984, Governor Riley signed the Education Improvement Act, saying, “An old South
Carolina is dying. A new South Carolina, strong and vital and very proud, is struggling to be born ... We
will build it with our minds. The power of knowledge and skills is our hope for survival in this new age.”
Knowledge and skill made a potent amalgam in the nineties, and no one melded the two better than the
state’s technical college training system. Just what that blend should be going forward proved challenging.
Things were changing. The “boy presidents” began to retire, and new blood came in. The stubborn issue
of what to call the colleges persisted. An identity crisis bubbled. The courses in technical college catalogs
became bones of contention.
The Education Age—that could be the 1990s’ legacy for the system, but only if leaders successfully ne-
gotiated through a contentious maze of misperceptions. Politically, the decade had come out of the blocks
badly, but internationally, South Carolina would be a star thanks in large part to workforce training and
stellar recruiting.
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