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Seat 6, 6th District (unexpired term/1997)
Edwin Givens (Columbia)
Dr. Thomas Wilson (Timmonsville)

The Citadel - one at-large seat
Col. Stephen D. Peper (Mount Pleasant)
Dennis J. Rhoad (Charleston)

Wil Lou Gray Opportunity School - three at large seats and one at large seat for an unexpired term/1997

Four Year Term
Betty Henderson (Greenwood)
Vince Rhodes (West Columbia)
Dr. Louise Scott (Florence)

Two Year Term (unexpired 1997)
Russell Hart (Laurens)

THE CHAIRMAN: First thing this morning, we first want to thank you for your desire to serve your fellow man, in particular that the salaries involved are very minimis. Really appreciate it in this day and time that those of you who are responsible and would give your time. Senator Giese.
SENATOR GIESE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move that all those who are unopposed in the essence of time that we dispense with having them appear before the board. Most of them are incumbents, I understand, and have passed this one time before, but I'd like to move that for a --
THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Giese move to exempt screening of those unopposed.
REPRESENTATIVE INABINETT: Seconded.
THE CHAIRMAN: Seconded by Representative Inabinett. We've always done this in the past. All in favor say aye, opposed no. The ayes have it. Those of you who are unopposed you may be excused, you may sit through the hearing. We certainly appreciate your attendance.

First on our agenda is Wil Lou Gray Opportunity School. Are these first three unopposed, Kay?
MS. BRADLEY: All of them.
THE CHAIRMAN: All unopposed. Well, then, we go next to the Medical University of South Carolina, that was unopposed. Coastal Carolina. Mr. Parker is unopposed. We will hear first from Leo Richardson. If you would please come to the speaker there. State your name, your full name, and your address please.
MR. RICHARDSON: Leo Richardson, 241 King Charles Road, Columbia.
MR. RICHARDSON - EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN:
Q. Mr. Richardson, do you have any health related problems that the screening committee should be made aware of --
A. No, I don't.
Q. -- that would prevent you from serving on the board in a full capacity?
A. None whatsoever.
Q. Considering your present occupation and other activity, would you be able to attend board meetings on a regular basis?
A. Absolutely.

The other entity I would recommend is that to see we could get some corporate sponsors and see if we can get some philanthropist to assist in our funding. So, I think are any number of things that the board of trustees could do, and I could bring that to the board.
Q. Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Any other questions of Mr. Richardson? Senator Wilson.
EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WILSON:
Q. Mr. Chairman, I want to apologize to Mr. Richardson that I'm late. But an issue that I am very concerned about is a four-year graduation rate, and, unfortunately, Coastal Carolina has one of the lowest in the whole state. And for the interest of the students, for the interest of their parents and for the interest of the taxpayers, I'm very interested in trying to get students through preferably within four years, but certainly as quickly as possible. What would you do to promote that concept?
A. What I would recommend to the -- to the institution is to develop a mechanism for students when they come in to see if they can't succeed. Those individuals -- when I say those individuals, I mean students who are

They used to be called remedial courses. They're now called develop -- developmental courses. My experience have been that at the three institutions I had the opportunity to work was to look at the students when they came in the first semester, preferably before they came in, and say, looky here, so -- and advise them that you're a little bit behind academically, AC -- or compared to your scores or what have you, and here's what it's going to take to bring you up to standards in order for you to graduate.

If they know this up front, I have yet to find a student who would not go through that process. So it's important to make sure that they understand what it takes to get out of college. If the institution would institute such a program, I think it would be successful.

I had the opportunity to introduce a retention program at the University of Buffalo, and in that, the whole faculty was involved in retaining students because we had sort of a revolving door type thing. And so we were able to -- we were able to implement that retention program which helped the university tremendously. So that's what I would recommend.
Q. And one other question, and that would be related to what you were indicating to advisors advising students to a course load to take necessary to graduate in the major that they have selected, wouldn't that be very helpful that the advisors be thoroughly familiar with what needs to be done and as a guiding principal spend time with the students to assist them in their college career?
A. Absolutely. What -- what the retention program did for us, we got the whole faculty involved and assuming -- you know, I've been in athletics a long time. I have that kind of experience.

When you bring students in then you want to make sure that they graduate. If they don't have the potential to graduate, then there's no use to bring them in. But what you would do is you will have counselors and most important is students sometimes don't know what they need.
Q. I see.
A. And it's important for them to be told when they come in, say, "Looky here, now here's what it needs" -- when you -- when you apply and if you are accepted, these are the conditions. So the family knows what -- it may take a student an extra semester or summer to graduate, but

Now, the graduation record for students throughout the country is 4.7 years. And so if you can get them out in that length of time, I think you'd be with the national average. And for athletes it's about 4.9 years. So -- but that's -- that's what you want to look at in terms of time. See, some students are able to graduate in three, three and a half, four, sometimes take a little bit longer.
THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Giese.
SENATOR GIESE: Mr. Chairman.
EXAMINATION BY SENATOR GIESE:
Q. It bothers me that you've engineered into your concept of handling youngsters who really aren't prepared to go to college the fact that we should be offering, you used the word developmental courses at the college level that they should have passed at the high school level.

What that means is we furnish their high school education at state expense and now at the college level, we're going to fund them again to do high school work which I find offensive. And then you talk in terms of getting out there in five years and so on for graduation. The State has to support people that go to Coastal Carolina, a four-year school, in excess of $4,000 year. Every year they stay in school, the taxpayers pay another increment toward that education.

I would hope that if you serve on the Board of Trustees that you would be a strong advocate of insisting that if people have to take makeup courses, high school level courses, they don't do it at the expense of the taxpayers again.

I know -- I believe at the university now, we -- and I believe at Clemson, they don't spend any state money on developmental courses. If they don't deserve to get in school, don't take them. Let them go to a two-year school or where it's less expensive to get those makeup courses that you're talking about. But I think it's an exciting school developing very rapidly and they can be able to play a real part of -- whoever is elected, a real part in its development.
A. Well, thank you very much, but the -- you know, the reality is that's the way it is in this state and most states across the country. We have a problem in higher education particularly with our students coming out of high school. They're poorly prepared. Most them are.

So -- and if you look at all of the curricula or all the bulletins that you have coming out, they have these courses. And I agree with you, it's very difficult to bring in all the students who are ready to do the academic work that's required.

To be perfectly honest, maybe some of them are spending a little too much time in Myrtle Beach. That keeps them away from the focus on their studies that they need to have at a university. So our commuter, the commuter nature of the campus is harmful, and I think compared with other commuter campuses, it's about the same.

Our president that we've hired in the last two years, Doctor Ron Ingle has done a study of the problems at Coastal that have to do with not only the graduation rate, but of keeping students. We lose a number of students from one year to the other, and he has instituted a new office within the administration, a vice president for enrollment management. And that individual's full time job is to see that not only do we have a better graduation rate, but that we retain students from year to year better.

They found that, for instance, athletes who come in, and they have the requirements for the NCAA that they have -- that they graduate or they have these high standards because of their athletes and receiving funding, the university has found that spending time with those students, a lot of attention with those students, has caused them to have among the highest graduation rates and some of the best grades on the campus and we're very proud of that.

So what they're going to attempt to do with this new enrollment management position is to -- to transfer some of those things they've learned from working with athletes to the -- to the students in general. And this is somewhat of a transition, but the funding issue is not so distant from this, the issues of state funding remaining somewhat level for Coastal. The more students that we retain, the fewer that have to be

But without a doubt, that is a problem the university has -- the Board of Trustees has addressed on a number of occasions in the last year, and the administration of the university is on top of the issue and I think within the next year, we should see a marked improvement in that because of the attention being put upon it by the administration.
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Inabinett.
EXAMINATION BY REPRESENTATIVE INABINETT:
Q. Mr. Smith, you addressed the -- briefly the funding issue. As an individual board member since colleges and universities depend upon -- I mean their general funding is an important issue of part of their operations. As an individual, how would you address the present proposed budget cuts in higher education as it relates to the institution that you're hopeful to become a member of the board?

I think that my predecessor here at the podium touched on a couple of good ideas. One is we need to work more with the business sector in the, not only the Waccamaw region of our state, but the entire state to promote more private giving. I know that Max Lennon (ph) at Clemson had a massive capital campaign where they raised a hundred million dollars of private money and the reports I've seen from our Development office do not show us in that ballpark even. We need to do a lot more with private giving and alumni giving, and I think also corporate giving.

So that -- that would be one answer that I would have if we're just faced with no further increases in state funding. If it continues to remain level, we will definitely have to go to the business sector, ask them to take a little pride in their community and in their community college and to kick in some funds to help us with our programs because many of the programs at Coastal Carolina benefit the entire community. Will Wright Auditorium hosts a number of events for the community and the community uses the campus for a number of events, swimming pool and a number -- numerous facilities, that's another option. Some of the facilities that are used by the community, perhaps a fee could be charged or fees could be increased, for instance, for the use of the swimming pool, for the use of the auditorium, some of these ways. Some user fees could be enacted or raised.
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Littlejohn.
EXAMINATION BY REPRESENTATIVE LITTLEJOHN:
Q. Mr. Smith, the university system has a working agreement with technical colleges to do remediation for certain students coming in. Do ya'll have a working agreement with tech schools in your area to remediate problem students, because it is cheaper to do it that way?
A. As I understand it, and if you've ever been to our campus, Horry-Georgetown Tech is the same road that leads to Coastal Carolina. You make a right, you're on the Coastal campus. A left, and you're on the Horry-Georgetown Technical College campus. And our relationship with them is very close, and as I understand it, a number of the courses -- or a number of students transfer in from Horry-Georgetown where they have taken these courses, remedial courses, to prepare them for full college work. And, again, as I understand it, Coastal Carolina does not

One thing I might add, Coastal Carolina until -- and again, I'm not an administrator, so some of the facts and figures, I'm not absolutely certain of. But I can tell you that Coastal Carolina was an open admissions institution until only a few years ago. I think 1988, in 1989-1990 calendar -- or school year, academic year, the college actually set in some admission standards, and since then it's not just an open door, you have to meet admissions standards to come to Coastal Carolina and we've been able to do that in the last five years and still be able to -- to meet our budget which I'm very proud to say that's been done.

Some colleges in the state I think may have raised their standards beyond what they can to be able to keep the school in the black, but we have I think walked a middle line of having high admission standards without pricing ourselves out of the market.
THE CHAIRMAN: Any other questions? Yes, ma'am. Senator Glover.
SENATOR GLOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
EXAMINATION BY SENATOR GLOVER:
Q. Mr. Smith, in light of the ever present conversations on affirmative action, as a trustee member, what would you do or have been doing to look at the affirmative action goals? All of our universities have such goals. Are you aware of them at Coastal, and are they good and what will you do about them?
A. Well, we have a strong affirmative action program at Coastal. In fact, the director of Personnel, her full title is the director of Personnel and Affirmative Action. That's a part of her title. That's what she has to see on her door every day and on her business card and concentrate on is not only personnel and employment, but affirmative action.

And our -- our plan that we have in place seems to be working quite well, and she has focused her efforts on that and spent a lot of time making sure that our institution is reflective of the state and the nation and that we are doing our part to help all of our people in the state to achieve some academic exposure and to be able to graduate and enjoy the benefits of a college education.

But I think that we're doing -- we're doing well with that. In fact, I would argue -- and again I'm not an administrator, but I would argue that no school in the state is more sensitive to affirmative action goals and plans than Coastal. So it's a constant issue and it's a constant discussion among the board and the administration and something that we're very serious about.

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