The University of South Carolina is in the midst of a building boom with the first phase of its exciting Innovista research district opening this year. But the University is adding far more than bricks and mortar. South Carolina is building its faculty ranks with two focused plans—the Faculty Excellence Initiative and the recently completed Centenary Plan—that will add 250 outstanding new faculty members in a range of academic disciplines.

In addition, the University is systematically recruiting new faculty to replace more than 300 professors who are retiring from service. That influx of new talent and new ideas, coupled with the solid teaching and research performance of South Carolina's veteran faculty, portends a dynamic future for this flagship university.

To support and further teaching expertise, the Center for Teaching Excellence was created in 2006. It promotes excellent undergraduate and graduate teaching by increasing external support for teaching excellence, presenting innovative teaching and learning practices, and building a culture that values and rewards teaching.

Strong leadership

The University is also recruiting top talent for its leadership ranks. Dean Hildy Teegen of the nationally acclaimed Moore School of Business is among the recent arrivals. She comes from George Washington University, where she was director of the Center for International Business Education and Research. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Moore School No. 1 in the nation in undergraduate international business and No. 2 in the nation (No. 1 among public universities) in graduate international business.

• Hildy Teegen profile
• Hildy Teegen video interview
• Moore School of Business

The University also has attracted two renowned researchers in Kenneth Reifsnider and Brian Benicewicz. Reifsnider, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering, left the Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center at the University of Connecticut to direct South Carolina's new Center of Economic Excellence in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells.

Benicewicz, an expert in both fuel cells and nanotechnology, will join the South Carolina faculty in fall 2008 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. He will hold the endowed chair at the Center of Economic Excellence for Polymer Nanocomposite Research and will build on the University's existing partnership with BASF through his own connections to the company.

Faculty Excellence Initiative

Directed by the provost's office in collaboration with the University's academic deans, the $20 million Faculty Excellence Initiative is recruiting 150 new tenure-track faculty members in nearly every discipline imaginable. Many of these new faculty will be hired in clusters of two or three individuals who hail from different academic areas but share common scholarly and research interests.

One recently created cross-discipline cluster includes scholars studying Middle Eastern culture and religion, science, philosophy, and economics. Another focuses on human brain plasticity with expertise from exercise science, speech language and stroke rehabilitation, psychology, imaging physics, and engineering.

This cluster approach will foster even more interactions among academic disciplines, building a rounded core of expertise that other faculty members can benefit from and engage with.

Clusters currently are being recruited in arts, humanities, and social sciences; biological and health sciences; engineering, mathematical, physical sciences, and technology; and business, education, law, and mass communications.

"The word 'excellence' in FEI is key: we are focusing our recruiting efforts on faculty who have substantial skills in teaching and research, knowing that their excellence will help to build up the entire university," says South Carolina Provost Mark Becker.

For more detail, visit the Provost's FEI Web pages, or contact: Provost@gwm.sc.edu

Centenary Plan

Representing a $30 million investment in intellectual capital, the Centenary Plan has recruited 100 new faculty members who will shape research initiatives in the University’s four core research areas—Future Fuels™, the environment, health sciences, and nanoscience and technology. Buoyed by strong University support in the initial years, Centenary faculty are expected to become independent investigators who earn significant grant funding to support their scholarly endeavors. The ultimate goal is for each Centenary faculty member to be self-supporting within five years.

“Because our Centenary faculty will mature in an entrepreneurial culture where investment in the commercialization of intellectual property is the rule rather than the exception, the result is economic development for the people of South Carolina,” says Harris Pastides, South Carolina's vice president for research and health sciences.

For more detail or questions, contact: research@sc.edu