Professors of the year named

The winners of the 2013 S.C. Governor’s Professor of the Year awards, announced last week, are:

Robert Jesselson, a Carolina distinguished professor at the University of South Carolina Columbia, where he teaches cello and plays in the American Arts Trio. He was named Professor of the Year for senior colleges and universities.

Joshua Castleberry, an instructor and academic program manager with Central Carolina Technical College in Sumter. Castleberry was selected as the 2013 Professor of the Year for two-year colleges.

Finalists were: Joseph K. Hammond of Greenville Technical College, Robin Kowalski of Clemson University, Wei-Kai Lai of University of Carolina-Salkehatchie, Nan Li of Claflin University, Kelly R. Ragucci of the Medical University of South Carolina, Donna Shannon of Tri-County Technical College, Samuel H. Tolbert of Lander University and Elizabeth L. Wyatt of York Technical College.

Staff reports

Couple gives Citadel $9 million to boost leadership

CHARLESTON Citadel grad Bill Krause and his wife Gay have committed $9 million to support, advance and endow the Charleston military school’s leadership curriculum.

Leadership activities at The Citadel — a four-year, step-by-step program that trains cadets to lead — are led by the Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics, created in 2001 with a $2 million gift from the couple. The new gift places them among the top three lifetime donors in the college’s history.

Bill Krause, a 1963 graduate and president of LWK Ventures, said the school always has been about leadership. But, after a long conversation, he and former president Maj. Gen. John Grinalds decided in 2000 that leadership alone wasn’t enough. Leaders needed to be principled. At the time, Krause said, he was frustrated by unethical activities of business executives, such as those at Enron, WorldCom and Tyco International.

Krause said the gift to The Citadel allows him to give back to the school. “I’m convinced that if I hadn’t gone to The Citadel, I wouldn’t have had anywhere near the financial success I’ve had.”

But Krause also is critical of his alma mater’s shortcomings and hopes his gift will help to remedy them.

Krause said he was distraught over the behavior of some cadets and alumni when Shannon Faulkner enrolled as the first woman in 1995. “They acted like Neanderthals,” he said.

He also wants the overall cadet system changed from an “adversarial autocracy” to a “mentoring meritocracy.” When he was a cadet, “The Citadel was the quintessential bully,” Krause said. But he thinks those days are fading away, a move he attributes largely to younger alumni.

The (Charleston) Post and Courier

S.C. ranks near the top in its college graduation rates

CHARLESTON South Carolina’s four-year colleges, on average, have one of the highest graduation rates in the country, according to a recently released report in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The report, based on data from the National Student Clearinghouse, found South Carolina’s college graduation rate is 71.52 percent, the sixth highest in the nation. The national average was 60.57 percent. The report didn’t include data for specific schools.

Julie Carullo, acting executive director of the state’s Commission on Higher Education, said the report isn’t surprising. While South Carolina struggles with getting students through high school, those who complete high school and enroll in college usually graduate at a higher rate than the national average.

At the state level, lottery-funded scholarships likely contribute to the graduation rate because students must make academic progress to hold on to them from year to year, Carullo said.

The National Student Clearinghouse’s graduation-rate formula included full-time and part-time students who enrolled in public four-year institutions in 2006 and graduated from the same or another institution by the end of the 2011-12 school year.