College degree? Not so fast.

The majority of parents say yes to higher education, but getting there is the hard part

JANUARY 12, 2010 10:03 a.m. (0)

There’s a difference between perception and reality when it comes to college expectations in South Carolina.

In a recent poll of more than 800 parents of children in public school, 86 percent of parents say they expected their child to obtain a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Ninety-four percent of the parents polled by Winthrop University and South Carolina ETV said their children had that same expectation.  Continue reading...

 

The old college switcharoo

More students are changing schools, thanks to an online tool

APRIL 6, 2010 4:37 p.m. (0)

Some students are trying to piece together a college degree by taking online courses from several different colleges.

Others start at a South Carolina technical college before transferring to a four-year university because it is cheaper.  Continue reading...

 

Prescribing history

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010 6:43 p.m. (0)

Molly Dougall is making history.

So is Joshua Nesbitt.

This week, the two South Carolina residents joined the 78-member inaugural class of Presbyterian College’s new School of Pharmacy.  Continue reading...

 

Life and the Liberty Fellowship

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010 8:15 a.m. (1)

Sometimes help can be found in the most unlikely of places.

Erin Jones left her small Midwestern town to study education and then earn a master’s degree in theater from the fundamentalist Christian Bob Jones University, where she met and married the Jones family heir, Stephen Jones.

Betsy Fleming left a liberal-leaning family in Spartanburg to attend Harvard University, then studied at the London College of Arts and ultimately earned a doctorate from Yale University.  Continue reading...

 

Warhol is here

Exhibitions boost city's cultural possibilities

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010 1:53 p.m. (3)

For more information, go to www.uscupstate.edu/warhol.

Jane Nodine almost threw away the University of South Carolina Upstate’s chance at owning a collection of photographs by famous pop artist Andy Warhol.

Back in 2007, Nodine was cleaning papers off her desk when a letter with the Andy Warhol Foundation’s return address caught her attention.  Continue reading...

 

The Snap

Week 3: Clemson 24 / Auburn 27

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 2:39 p.m. (0)

Ph  Continue reading...

 

City Council notes

From the Sept. 27 meeting

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010 10:41 a.m. (0)

Spartanburg expects to save about $60,000 a year by refinancing $16.7 million in tax increment bonds for the St. John-Daniel Morgan Redevelopment Project and special obligation bonds for the Renaissance Park Project, city council was told Monday night.

Passed on first reading, the complex refinancing package would take advantage of favorable interest rates, Chris Story, assistant city manager, told the council. The exact amount of the savings will not be known until after the bonds are issued and the interest rate is set.  Continue reading...

 

He's taking it all in stride

For Gilbert Kemboi, it's an education

NOVEMBER 2, 2010 8:46 a.m. (0)

Gilbert Kemboi grew up in the Rift Valley of Kenya racing the sunset home from elementary school.

It was a long way from his school to the safety of home and he’s a long way from there today.

He grew up outside of Eldoret, Kenya. His small community was a place of subsistence farms and large families; of few paved roads and many footpaths.  Continue reading...

 

North Greenville raises curtain on new theater

NOVEMBER 14, 2010 2:48 p.m. (0)

A new chapter begins for the North Greenville University theater program this week with the opening of the new Billingsley Theatre and Michael Wilson’s adaptation of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story of Christmas.”

The facility is one of two new buildings belonging to the theater department. Billingsley Theatre is located in the new Village at Tigerville, a 20-acre site that is home to the NGU Visual Arts Department, Carolina First Bank and Einstein’s Bagels.

The vision for the village includes numerous retail and campus-related buildings. Across from Billingsley is the new School of Theatre building, which occupies the historic Tigerville Elementary School building given to the university by the school district.  The original structure dates back to the early 20th century.  Continue reading...

 

The George

It's already paying off

NOVEMBER 19, 2010 12:45 p.m. (0)

George Dean Johnson Jr. College of Business and Economics at USC Upstate is winding up its first fall semester and the impact of the school on the City of Spartanburg is already evident.

“I can’t provide numbers this early on,” says Patty Bock, the economic development director of the City of Spartanburg, “but the USC Upstate Business School has definitely made a positive economic impact on the city, and it goes beyond our downtown.”

She says between faculty, staff and students, the school known as “The George” brings in nearly 1,000 people into downtown every day.  Continue reading...

 

Up on the hill

Upstate college student gets intern experience of a lifetime

DECEMBER 3, 2010 3:43 p.m. (0)

Furman student Brian Highsmith moved to Washington, D.C., the day after his May graduation to intern on Capitol Hill.

He worked first with the House Budget Committee and then in the office of its chairman, Rep. John Spratt, a Democrat of South Carolina.

When the White House Internship Program announced its fall session selections, Highsmith was among them. The program is designed to mentor and develop young leaders and to broaden their exposure to public service.  Continue reading...

 

The DuPre House

Could give one local school room to grow

MARCH 3, 2011 2:43 p.m. (0)

Spartanburg city officials are negotiating with the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) to restore the DuPre House for use by the school’s new campus, possibly as a conference center, Mayor Junie White said last week.

A spokesman for the college would not comment on talks with the city about DuPre.

The home is located on Howard Street and abuts the construction site for the VCOM campus.  Continue reading...

 

A coach's story

How Mike Young has helped the Terriers play their way to the top

MARCH 17, 2011 10:50 a.m. (0)

When Mike Young came to Spartanburg in the spring of 1989, it was to little fanfare and uncertain expectations.

He’d been hired as an assistant basketball coach at Wofford College, a job that paid a barely-enough-to-live-on wage and involved unglamorous behind-the-scenes work.

Wofford was an NCAA Division II program at the time and coached by Richard Johnson. Its players were talented, the games were exciting, and the Terriers won their share. They bested larger, Division I programs now and then.  Continue reading...

 

You know it, or do you?

Converse opera answers the question, to music

MARCH 17, 2011 10:56 a.m. (0)

Audience members will find both a familiar and unfamiliar theme when they go see the Converse Opera Theatre’s production of Aaron Copland’s “The Tender Land.”

The opera tells the story of a young girl named Laurie, who is about to graduate high school in the 1930s in the Midwest, as she discovers she wants more out of life than she previously anticipated.

When her dreams of eloping with one of the farm hands her grandfather hires to help with the spring harvest fall apart, she decides to set out on her own.  Continue reading...

 

New USCU chancellor takes helm in August

MAY 23, 2011 1:11 p.m. (0)

For Thomas F. Moore, the son of an itinerant Alabama Methodist minister, college was a revelation.

As a child, Moore moved a lot with his family. He recalls six or seven moves before his father settled in at a church in North Alabama for an extended stay that saw the young man through high school.

“College was where I began to see and understand the concept of ideas as a driving force in life,” Moore said of his undergraduate career at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala. “You have to remember this was the height of the Civil Rights era and I was living in Alabama (arguably the epicenter of the movement in the South).”  Continue reading...

 

Nurses are in demand

Two Upstate colleges are partnering to fill in the nursing gap

JUNE 16, 2011 12:04 p.m. (0)

There’s a push around the country to increase the number of nurses with advanced degrees and two Spartanburg colleges have a part in that.

Converse College will be partnering with Vanderbilt University to give students the opportunity to earn a master’s degree in nursing that could lead to careers as nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and nurse executives.

And the Mary Black School of Nursing at the University of South Carolina Upstate is working on a direct entry program that would allow people with baccalaureate degrees in other fields to pursue a master’s degree in nursing.  Continue reading...

 

What it takes

Byrnes High student races the clock to get in enough activity to gain admittance to West Point

JUNE 30, 2011 11:28 a.m. (3)

Averi Jolly set her sight on U.S. Military Academy at West Point when she was in the fifth grade.

Now that she’s going into her senior year in high school, the time to prove herself is coming to an end.

She’s just back from West Point’s Summer Academy in New York where she got up every day at 5:45 a.m. for physical training, then a day full of classes, military training, athletics, social events. Lights out arrived at 11 p.m.  Continue reading...

 

First in class

For students at the Edward Via College for Osteopathic Medicine, it’s not just about the medicine, there’s a mission, too

AUGUST 18, 2011 10:05 a.m. (0)

The first class of the Spartanburg campus of Edward Via College for Osteopathic Medicine began classes last week in a new building on ground that once was home to one of Spartanburg’s biggest textile mills.

The mill’s 182-foot smokestack, the tallest structure of its kind in South Carolina, is preserved on the site as a reminder of what had been the world center of the textile industry.

“The students love it,” said William King, associate vice president of student services. “It is a tie to history.”  Continue reading...

 

Converse bucks national trend

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011 2:36 p.m. (0)

When classes at Converse College started this week, 214 new undergraduate students were on campus.

The 195 freshmen and 18 transfers from other colleges and universities represent the most first-year students the women’s college has had in 14 years.

Converse’s experience is at odds with that of the nation. During the past 40 years, more than three-quarters of women’s colleges have closed, merged or gone co-educational.  Continue reading...

 

BMW pro-am enlists help from local college students

BMW tournament organizers hope to broaden event's appeal with a little help from college students here

OCTOBER 7, 2011 10:35 a.m. (0)

When Tom Holgate attended the BMW Charity Pro-Am last year he saw a flourishing tournament, but also realized how much more of an impact the event could have on Spartanburg.

“This needs to become a more prominent event for everybody,” said Holgate, president of American Credit Acceptance, who organized a program to bring the heft of four Spartanburg colleges to increase interest in the Pro-Am in Spartanburg, which tournament organizers said has remained stagnant.

The tournament is held at Carolina Country Club in Spartanburg, Thornblade Club in Greenville and this year, the Greenville Country Club’s Chanticleer Course has been added.  Continue reading...

 

SCC to begin president search

Dr. Para Jones leaving in February

JANUARY 5, 2012 2:06 p.m. (0)

Dr. Para M. Jones, Spartanburg Community College’s president for the past two years, is taking the helm of Stark State College in Ohio, her “home” college.

She will become the fourth president in Stark State’s 51-year history on Feb. 6.

Jones had spent 22 years at Stark State, including four as vice president for advancement, planning, college and community relations, before becoming the first woman president at Spartanburg Community College in 2009.  Continue reading...

 

Furman lands four profs in ‘Top 300 Professors’ guide by Princeton Review

Ttop rankings based on thousands of student surveys

APRIL 12, 2012 1:37 p.m. (0)

Perhaps one Furman University student gave psychology professor Charles Brewer the ultimate compliment.

“I have taken many Brewer classes while at Furman,” the student wrote. “The toll on the GPA is well worth it.”  Continue reading...