S C T E CHN I CA L CO L L E G E S Y S T EM ’ S
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rejected it. So they have the name ‘community college,’ and ev-
eryone else was left with ‘technical college.’ The name change has
proven everything all those folks said it would do wrong. It hasn’t
affected economic development in Spartanburg. It hasn’t affected
their programs. In fact, they are growing and doing well.”
Ed Zobel, longtime legislative liaison for the system, worked
two years for Spartanburg. He was privy to the tug of war that
precipitated the change. “Spartanburg’s delegation had met with
a company that was not familiar with technical education. They
were familiar with community colleges. And they said, ‘You need
to change it. It just gives the right tone.’”
Zobel and colleagues decided to make the switch, but they
smashed into a barricade.
“When you’ve got the chairman of Finance, the chairman of
Education, the speaker of the House, the lieutenant governor,
and the governor saying, ‘No, no, no, no,’ you know you’re up
against a brick wall.”
Enter politics. “Finally a member of the Spartanburg delega-
tion went to one of the senators and said, ‘If you want to get your
budget passed in the House, you’d better let us have the name
change.’ And that’s how that came about.”
Zobel continues, “Spartanburg USC changed its name. No
problem there. South Carolina State changed its name. No prob-
lem there. But we got called on the rug. It was a rough two years,
I tell you.”
Cathy Novinger, state board member from 1990 to 2004, likes
the status quo. “Why in the world would we want to be a com-
munity college when the word ‘technical’ is in? Technology is in.”
She has good reason to appreciate the technical college’s mission.
She began her career with the energy company SCANA in the
basement as a file clerk. Thirty years later she retired as senior
vice president over administrative functions.
“I’ve always been passionate about promoting from within
and developing a workforce. If you could train somebody to do a
job, why wouldn’t you do that versus going out to get somebody
already trained? So I always had a passion about that, and the
technical college system fit that passion.”
DON’T DARE SAY SCHOOL
Dr. Lex Walters, Piedmont Tech’s president from 1968 to
2008, would have added “community.” “It would’ve been ‘Pied-
mont Technical and Community’ or ‘Piedmont Community and
Technical College,’ but the fact that the name wasn’t changed
didn’t mean the mission didn’t broaden. In time, all the technical
colleges became truly comprehensive, offering programs from
the most basic to the more advanced in the two-year university
transfer programs.”
Florence-Darlington’s first president Fred Fore feels “Flor-
ence-Darlington Technical Community College” would be more
appropriate than “Technical Education Center” but forget for
a moment this discord. Just don’t call the colleges “schools.” In
1973, the state board, deciding TEC no longer fit its mission, be-
gan calling its centers “colleges.”The changeover took eight years.
It takes but a second to call a college a “school,” but don’t dare do
it lest Cathy Novinger, former board chair, upbraid you.
“It’s college. It’s college. I’m in three meetings a week where I
rudely correct somebody: ‘It’s not a technical school; it’s a tech-
nical college.’”
Novinger values what tech colleges do for communities.
“Look at any aspect of South Carolina, whether it’s economic de-
velopment related to manufacturing or economic development
related to healthcare, especially in rural areas, whether it’s rec-
reation, whatever the economic development agenda is, tech is
there. We’ve always been there. We’ll continue to be there. We
make sure that whatever workforce is necessary for that commu-
nity, we are there, ready, and willing to make it available.”
Novinger has a lament. “Sometimes we get lost in manufac-
turing as it relates to economic development. And yes, we sent
The 2000s
F L Y I N G H I G H
