The College of Charleston (CofC) is a public university located in historic
downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The College was founded in
1770 and chartered in 1785, making it the oldest college or university in South
Carolina, the 13th oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, and
the oldest municipal college in the country. The founders of the college include three
signers of the Declaration of Independence and three signers of the
United States Constitution. It is said that the college was founded to,
"encourage and institute youth in the several branches of liberal education." The
College is in company with the Colonial Colleges as one of the oldest schools in the
United States. Along with a group of other selective and innovative public liberal arts institutions, it is a member of the
Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges.
History
In addition to its status as the oldest college or university in South Carolina, founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785, the
College of Charleston is the 13th oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first municipal college in the country. The College is in company with the Colonial Colleges as one the original and foundational institutions of higher education in the United
States. Its founders include three signers of the United States
Declaration of Independence and three signers of the United States
Constitution. The College's historic campus, which is listed on the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Register of Historic Places, forms an integral part of Charleston's
colonial-era urban center.
The College of Charleston lies in the heart of historic downtown Charleston, roughly in the middle of the Charleston
peninsula. Built on land given to the College's founders by Grace Episcopal Church, located to the south of the campus, the College
originally held class in one of several buildings that have since been torn down. The oldest building on campus, the Bishop
Robert Smith House, built in 1770, serves as the President's House. Randolph Hall was built in 1828 and is the oldest functioning
college classroom building in the nation. Currently it houses the President's Office, Graduate Studies offices, and various
others. Towell Library, located alongside Randolph Hall in the area known as the Cistern, was built in 1855 and was the College's
original library. Porter's Lodge was built in 1850 and originally functioned as the residence for the campus' porter, who was
charged with the maintenance and upkeep of the College's facilities until the position was no longer needed soon after the
Civil War. The College has twice served as barracks for American soldiers, once
during the Civil War and again during World War I. Randolph Hall and Towell Library both
exhibit damage from cannonfire from the Civil War. In 1886, Charleston experienced a massive earthquake, estimated to have been a
7.5 on the Richter Scale. The earthquake demolished most of the city, but the structures of the College survived relatively
unscathed, though many structures maintain earthquake bolts that were believed to stabilize the buildings. In 1989,
Hurricane Hugo took its toll on much of the South Carolina coast, devastating Charleston
in particular. While many of the Live Oaks found around campus were damaged and removed during
the cleanup, the rest of the campus was spared and few signs of the hurricane still exist.
The College became the nation's first municipally funded public university in 1826, and was incorporated into the South Carolina State College System in 1970. The College first admitted women in 1918, and African-Americans
in 1968.
College of Charleston Today
Although existing as a small liberal arts college for much of its early history,
once it became a state supported institution in 1970 the size of the College of Charleston's
faculty and student body expanded exponentially, transforming it from a small regional college of about 400 students to a
national masters level university with a combined graduate/undergraduate enrollment of over
12,000. Despite this growth into a university, the institution still retains its historical name of "College of Charleston" and
actively cultivates an identity as a liberal arts institution. The liberal arts heritage is
reflected in the core curriculum, which includes a heavy emphasis on languages, literature, history, sciences, and the arts.
Under President Leo Higdon, the decision was made to cap undergraduate enrollment at 10,000 students and increase the size of the
College's tenure-track faculty. This was done in order to create and maintain an institution which could uniquely offer the best
of a small elite liberal arts college, such as small class size and individual attention, with the faculty resources, research
and curricular opportunities of a large research institution.
The College of Charleston today is nationally recognized both for its focus on undergraduate education and faculty research
contributions. The College of Charleston is one of the nation's leading institutions for undergraduate education according to the
Princeton Review; U.S. News and World Report regularly ranks the College of Charleston among the best southern masters level
universities. As one of the leading institutions of higher education in the Southeastern United States, the College of Charleston is celebrated nationally for its focus
on undergraduate education.
The College is nationally known for departmental strengths across its six academic divisions known as 'schools.' These are the
School of the Arts, School of Business & Economics, School of Education, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, School
of Languages, Cultures, & World Affairs and the School of Science & Mathematics.
The Classics, Ancient Greek, Latin, and Classical Civilization, originally formed the core
curriculum at the College of Charleston at its founding in 1770. As the College's 'original' program, today the College's
Department of Classics continues that legacy and boasts the one of the nation's best undergraduate programs in Classical
Languages and Civilizations.
According to the 1970 legislative decree that incorporated the College of Charleston into the South Carolina system, the
College was given a mandate to develop the state's flagship programs in those academic areas that capitalize on Charleston's and
the Lowcountry's unique natural and cultural strengths: Marine
Biology and Fine Arts. Today, the College's Grice Marine
Laboratory is one of the Eastern Seaboard's leading research
centers in the marine sciences. In addition, Grice supports the College's graduate and undergraduate programs in Marine Biology.
The College of Charleston hosts South Carolina's flagship programs in the Arts. The College of Charleston's Department of Art
History is one of an elite few independent art history departments in North America and is the only department that specializes
in undergraduate education of the three independent art history departments in the Southeastern United States. The department supports programs in Art History and Historic Preservation and Community Planning and its faculty contribute to interdisciplinary programs in
Archaeology, Asian and Latin
American Studies. With Charleston's wealth of resources in the performing arts to draw on, not least of which is
Charleston's Spoleto Festival, the College's Theatre and Music departments form South Carolina's best undergraduate performing
arts programs.
The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of
Charleston was established in 1985 and is the foremost research center of its kind in the region. From its inception, the Center
has served as a source of community outreach on African-American issues. Between 1700 and 1800, at the height of the Atlantic
Slave trade, 40% of Africans who were forcibly shipped to mainland North America, came to the shores of Charleston, South
Carolina. The unparallel impact of the skill, talent and leadership of enslaved and free blacks, have produced an unprecedented
history in Gullah and Sea Island culture, slavery, civil war and reconstruction, civil and women’s rights, education, business,
and the arts. According to its mission statement, it is Avery’s mission to preserve this legacy.
In 1992 the University of Charleston, now called the Graduate School of the College of
Charleston, was founded as the graduate program for the College. By 1999, the graduate program had
over two thousand students. Today, the Graduate School of the College of Charleston offers sixteen degree and six certificate
programs in addition to coordinating support for the College's many nationally recognized faculty research programs.
Although the core of the institution is in downtown Charleston, College of Charleston has a satellite campus in nearby North
Charleston, used mostly by its graduate and continuing education programs; Grice Marine Laboratory is located at Fort Johnson on
neighboring James Island, across from peninsular Charleston on the Ashley River side of Charleston Harbor. Most of the College's
athletic teams train and compete at Patriot's Point Athletic Complex in Mount Pleasant, located next to the confluence of the
Cooper River and Charleston Harbor.
President
On October 26, 2006, the College of Charleston Board of Trustees announced that Dr. P. George Benson would succeed Dr. Conrad
Festa, the interim president, as President of the College of Charleston. Dr. Benson is only the 21st president in the college's
over 225 year history. He assumed the presidency on February 1, 2007. Prior to becoming President of the College of Charleston,
Dr. Benson served as the Dean of the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He sits on numerous corporate boards
and is an avid golfer. President Benson is a member of the board of directors of The Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award. The Foundation is a nonprofit, private-sector organization that raises funds to endow the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award.
Athletics
The school's athletic teams, which participate in the NCAA
Division I Southern Conference, are known as the
Cougars. While the College lacks a football program, the College's student fans are
known for their fanatical support. The College's best-known athletic program is men's basketball. The men's basketball team won
the NAIA national title in 1983 and made four trips to
the NCAA Tournament (1994, 1997, 1998 and 1999) under the
leadership of former head coach John Kresse, for whom their arena is named. The College also
boasts the 2004, 2005, 2006, & 2007 SoCon Champion Baseball team, 2004 SoCon
Championship Men's Soccer team, 2003 & 2005 SoCon Championship Softball team, 2001-2004 SoCon Championship Women's Volleyball
team, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's cross country, women's track & field,equestrian team, women's basketball team, a coed and women's sailing team, and both men's and women's student rugby clubs. The sailing team competes in
the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing
Association division and in 2006 the Cougars won the Intercollegiate Sailing Association National Championships, a
regatta which they hosted. In 2006 the school's baseball team won the Southern Conference
Baseball Tournament and the Lexington NCAA tournament regional, defeating
Big East champion Notre Dame and
SEC champion Kentucky in the
process. Also in 2006, college basketball coaching legend Bobby Cremins returned to the
coaching ranks after he accepted a job as the Cougars' head basketball coach just days after Winthrop University coach and former College of Charleston assistant Gregg Marshall reneged on an oral acceptance to coach the basketball team. In February 2007, the College
broke ground on the Carolina First Center, a state-of-the-art, 5,000 seat
basketball arena that will be home to the basketball squad.
Campus Development
Under former President Higdon, many new developments are underway for the College of Charleston. Two residence halls are in
construction in the area enclosed between George St., St. Philips St. and Liberty St. Libery Street Residence Hall will be geared
towards underclassmen and be similar to McAlister Residence Hall. George St. Apartment Community will be single occupancy and
geared towards upperclassman. Retail space will be privately rented on the bottom floor of the two buildings. A new dining hall
will also be built under Liberty Street Resdience Hall.
In Fall 2007, the College will break ground on a new Biology, Chemistry, and Biochemistry building located at the corner of
Calhoun and Coming Streets, on the site of present-day K-Lot surface parking lot. The new square feet ( m²) facility
is expected to cost $48 million dollars and is the "largest and most expensive construction project ever undertaken by the
College," according to the SSM News newsletter of the School of Science and Math. The College is working with the architects of
Ballinger, Inc to design the structure.
In March 2007, faculty and staff of the School of Education moved into its new location at 86 Wentworth Street, on the corner
of Wentworth Street and St. Philips Street. Undergraduate and graduate teacher education faculty and staff occupy the
square foot ( m²) facility.
College of Charleston Facts
Because of the historic look of the campus, many movies have been filmed at the College of Charleston, including
Cold Mountain, The
Patriot, White Squall, O,
and The Notebook. The most popular scene location is Randolph Hall. In 2004, the
first televised debate between Senate candidates Jim DeMint and Inez Tenenbaum was filmed in Alumni Hall. ABC's The View and CNN's Crossfire
also took up residence on the College of Charleston Cistern before the South Carolina Primary of
the 2000 Presidential Election.
The College of Charleston's Department of Art History is one of an elite number of independent art history departments in the
United States. It is the second largest in the Southeast after Emory University and among the leading undergraduate art history
programs in North America.
The College of Charleston's Historic Preservation program is the largest undergraduate program of its kind in the country.
The English Department at the College of Charleston publishes Crazyhorse, a national literary magazine.
In 1971, the College of Charleston was listed on the U.S.
Department of the Interior's National Register of Historic
Places.
In the Fall of 2006 Nelson Christopher Maddox rallied the gay and lesbian population at the College of Charleston to create
the Gay/Lesbian Alliance. Mr. Maddox, the president of the alliance, is very active in gay activities around campus. His most
notable gay achievement was the Charleston Gay/Lesbian Alliance gayday walk-a-thon.
External links
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