USC expansion plans continue after $1 billion fund-raising campaign

Just coming off raising $1 billion, the University of South Carolina will embark on a 10-year development plan that includes increased enrollment, faculty and classroom space, and more partnerships with private companies, president Harris Pastides said Thursday.

“Our planning has always been and continues to be purposeful, not accidental,” Pastides said during his annual State of the University address on USC’s Horseshoe.

By 2025, the school could add about 1,000 freshmen to its Columbia campus, bringing the frosh total past 6,000, and another 250 professors, after finishing a program to bring 200 new faculty members to its campus, he said.

USC also will work with private firms on cyber-security research in a program that will be announced soon. The school has partnered with Holder Properties of Atlanta to build an office building in the Innovista research campus that will house IBM and Fluor Corp.

The school will look at working with private developers to add dorms on the south side of its campus, near the athletics village, Pastides said during an interview after the speech. A 581-bed dorm built by Holder Properties opened this fall behind the Carolina Coliseum.

The school will add 530,000 square feet of academic space with renovations to a pair of older buildings — the Close-Hipp complex, former home of the USC’s business school, and its current law school building, which will be vacant in 2017 when the school opens a new $80 million law school facility.

That should provide almost enough classroom space to meet USC’s needs over the next decade, Pastides said.

More classroom space could come from renovating the Carolina Coliseum. However, the school does not have a timeline for that work, which could cost more than $100 million.

USC also plans to start an institute to improve K-12 teacher and administration training, especially in rural areas.

“It’s time for USC, and I would argue all of the colleges of education in the state, to come together and do more,” Pastides said.

All the plans need to win approval from university trustees.

The new project to expand the USC campus and develop more research work, called Carolina 2025, follows an eight-year, $1 billion fund-raising campaign that ended in July.

All but $70 million of the $1 billion raised was designated by donors for specific purposes, such as scholarships and buildings.

As a result, the school will continue to raise money from donors and try to win more money from the Legislature, which cut higher education spending after the recession that started in 2007, to pay for its expansion projects.

Pastides is entering his eighth year leading USC having overseen major growth in its campus, including the new $106.5 million Darla Moore School of Business building — the school’s most-expensive project.

During his tenure, the boundaries of USC’s Columbia campus have extended westward as the school’s enrollment has grown by 20 percent to more than 33,000.

For now, Pastides, 61, said he has no plans to step away from the school where he has worked for 17 years.

Pastides earns $790,000 a year and received a $100,000 bonus in July and can get another extra $100,000 next July. He also can get a $250,000 bonus in 2017 that would push his compensation past $1 million for that year.

“I have the high energy that the university deserves,” Pastides said. “It will always be a year-by-year evaluation. We have no imminent plans (to leave). We have good health and good support from the community.”

This story was originally published September 10, 2015 at 6:36 PM with the headline "USC expansion plans continue after $1 billion fund-raising campaign."