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
Dr. Dennis Merrell recalls, “During the 1990s as some of the
older and most protective administrative and academic leaders
within the universities retired, the technical colleges gradually
developed better and better relationships. I recall how a relatively
new dean in one of the schools of engineering responded when a
faculty member told him the tech transfer students weren’t up to
the challenge of university-level work.”
“I want to see the data,” demanded the dean. The data re-
vealed that transfer students actually did slightly better than
native students. Their retention to graduation was quite good,
too, a scenario that led to new transfer agreements between this
particular university and technical colleges. The Commission on
Higher Education even listed common course offerings intended
to transfer between any public-supported college and university.
“This was great for students,” said Merrell, “who could now study
for two years in a technical college and then transfer into a uni-
versity engineering program as juniors.”
Over time, the frigid relations between the universities and
technical colleges over transfer students and other issues began
to thaw. Dr. Barry Russell, system president from 2006 to 2010,
believes the system has always had an evolving relationship with
the universities, and it would seem he was right.
“I remember inmy early Piedmont days the universities didn’t
know quite what to do with us. They felt a little threatened at
times. We would try to reach out and work with them, but it
would be hard to find examples of real partnerships and cooper-
ation in the earlier days.”
Things were evolving and improving but despite the aca-
demic triumphs, funding for the technical colleges frustrated
the system’s executive directors and now and then it let them
glimpse where they stood among other presidents in the eyes of
the legislature.
THEY JUST DON’T GET IT
First president of Florence-Darlington Technical College
Fred Fore provides a yardstick that illustrates the frustrations at-
tending funding. It’s short and sweet. “It’s cheaper to get 100 kids
in English 101 than it is to get 100 kids in a technical lab.”
Cathy Novinger, former board chair, agrees. “Some people
never really understood, and I’ll say public policy people, that for
the types of jobs we train for, it’s not a blackboard and a textbook.
It requires a lot of expensive equipment. And we were always
battling on getting equipment dollars for what we needed. It’s a
lot less expensive to put a professor on his feet in telecommu-
nications-type learning than it is to put people on some of this
expensive equipment.”
The board’s first chair Stan Smith’s philosophy is pragmatic.
“If I were a college president, Hell, all I’ve got to have to provide
an undergraduate program is a classroom, a blackboard, a good
teacher, tables and the chairs. Welding and the most sophisticat-
ed industrial jobs require a lot of material, a lot of heavy equip-
ment, expensive equipment.”
Equipping technical college classrooms often was more cost-
ly than outfitting university classrooms but the more established
schools were accustomed to getting their way. It seemed the uni-
versities held all the cards.
Dr. Jim Hudgins recalls appearing before the legislature to
justify his budget. “We had six or eight presidents there, and it
so happened the general-president of the Citadel preceded me.”
“And it dawned on all of us that this is
going to change the system. The ‘boy
presidents’ who started this system—
on whose backs these colleges were
built—were all going to be retiring.”
—Dr. Barry Russell
