The College of Education got approval from the Board of Trustees at their April 16 meeting to reinstate several undergraduate degree programs, a move that college dean Les Sternberg said “will help reconceptualize what teacher education ought to look like.”
The new degrees are a bachelor of arts in elementary education, a bachelor of arts in early childhood education, and bachelor of arts and bachelor of science in middle level education. The degrees already have been OK’d by a subcommittee at the Commission on Higher Education and now await final approval from that body. If the programs are approved, students could enroll this fall.
More than 350 applicants for this year’s freshman class indicated an interest in teacher education. Peter Werner, a physical education professor, will be the college’s new director of undergraduate programs.
“These programs will be very different than prior undergraduate degrees that this college offered years ago,” Sternberg said. “As part of this process, we are reconceptualizing our master’s degrees to make them much more focused on helping teachers in their day-to-day needs in the classroom.”
In other business, the board approved the concept of renovating and redesigning LeConte and Petigru buildings for the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies. The preliminary budget for the project is $29.5 million and is heavily dependent on private fundraising. The project still must be considered by the Buildings and Grounds Committee and the University’s Architectural Review Board.
The board also:
• OK’d a new name for one of USC’s oldest institutes. The new name is the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies
• welcomed Hudson Akin as USC’s new vice president for advancement
• assigned Mark Buyck, the governor’s designee to the board, to serve on the Buildings and Grounds Committee, the Health Affairs Committee, and the Student-Trustee Liaison Committee.
In his remarks to the board, President Sorensen said that an enrollment management model will be completed by the end of April. Applications to USC Columbia are at their highest-ever level and SAT averages for the freshman class are anticipated to be in the 1140 to 1145 range, he said. Sorensen also noted that the board likely will be asked to consider a proposal for building additional residence halls with up to 800 beds to accommodate the demand for more on-campus housing.
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