Alumni center gives USC new power hub

The $600 million-plus makeover of the University of South Carolina campus in recent years has targeted academics, student life and sports.

Now, the state’s flagship college is taking aim at its 280,000 living graduates.

USC opens a new $26.4 million alumni center near the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center on Aug. 13 hoping to better connect with graduates who can boost their alma mater’s reputation — and coffers.

“It’s part of the school’s prestige and recognition, just like having a dynamic faculty and good sport teams,” said Paula Harper Bethea, president of the My Carolina Alumni Association.

The center, the first dedicated to alumni at USC, will become a power hub for the university as well.

Sitting two blocks from the S.C. State House, the building will host events to push USC’s legislative priorities. The school’s trustees will start meeting in the center later in the fall.

The public also will be able to visit. The new 60,000-square-foot center’s banquet and conference rooms will be available for parties, meetings and weddings.

“It will make a critical difference for us,” said Bethea, who is head of the S.C. Education Lottery.

How much the center will help the school’s bottom line remains unclear.

While USC’s alumni association is raising money to pay off loans taken out to build the center, some critics say the school should focus its money more on academics. The school has raised $5.4 million to pay for the center so far. The naming rights, which have not been sold, will cost $10 million.

“With all these bells and whistles at universities, they’re selling students a lifestyle, not an education,” said Jenna Robinson, president of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a Raleigh, N.C.,-based free-market think tank. “The best thing a university can do is make sure my degree is meaningful.”

The new alumni center will help USC’s core educational goals by providing more attention to My Carolina’s three scholarship programs, said Jack Claypoole, the group’s director. My Carolina handed out nearly $185,000 in scholarships in 2013-14, the latest data available.

Nationwide, new alumni centers took a backseat during the recession as schools struggled with funding cuts and falling donations.

Now, some schools are talking about reviving alumni center plans.

“It comes in waves,” said Randy Ham, who has worked in N.C. State University’s alumni office for more than two decades. “I expected another surge in the next two to three years.”

USC’s new center opens as alumni associations nationwide are looking for new ways to connect with graduates, whose attention and donations have become more divided. Alumni groups have been encouraged to use data to reach graduates more effectively, rather than relying on event gatherings.

The Council of Alumni Association Executives discussed that trend in a paper last year: “As the generation of generous joiners gives way to emerging generations, the university will be pressed to provide lifetime value in exchange for a lifetime commitment.”

Still, alumni centers intended to draw graduates back to campus remain on the wish lists at S.C. colleges.

Alumni leaders at Clemson University and College of Charleston, the state’s second- and third-largest public colleges, said they did not think their universities would speed up long-range plans for alumni centers because of USC’s new building.

Clemson wants to replace its ’70s-era building, said Brian O'Rourke, the school’s alumni affairs director.

The College of Charleston does not have a hub for graduates to visit.

“All the great universities have alumni centers,” said John Huguley, director of the College of Charleston’s alumni association, “and we want to take a rightful place.”

The next step

Like other public colleges, USC has searched for ways to make up for cuts in funding that took place after the recession took hold in 2008.

USC has added 5,700 students since the economic downturn with total enrollment approaching 33,000 on its Columbia campus.

To better sell the school, USC has worked to construct new buildings, including a $106 million business school and $80 million law school, and renovate dorms, including the $34 million overhaul of the Women’s Quad.

The Gamecocks athletics program also have invested ticket and television revenue to build a new administration office, baseball stadium and football practice fields as well as making over the tailgating areas outside Williams-Brice Stadium.

The alumni center is a next step.

The association has never had a permanent home. Alumni operations have moved five times in the past decade and were split between two locations when Claypoole arrived in 2012.

After years of planning, alumni leaders chose a location at the intersection of Senate and Lincoln streets, on the site of the former Damon’s restaurant. The center extends the northwest boundary of the USC campus.

My Carolina chose the site because it was in the Vista, one of Columbia’s main restaurant and hotel districts.

"We knew we wanted a business model that was hospitality oriented," Claypoole said.

My Carolina will generate revenue from renting space in the center, which has six conference rooms and a ballroom capable of holding up to 900 people.

The building also could house events from the convention center across Lincoln Street.

The convention center has not booked space, but the association has lined up about 50 school events so far. "We want to be able to shake the building down with the family first," Claypoole said.

The alumni center’s entrance is meant to impress.

A large, wide staircase meant to be a focal point for group photos is what visitors will see first when they walk through the front door. The ceiling above the staircase has a three-dimensional tail of a Gamecock, the school mascot.

Next to the stairs, visitors can use one of 18 interactive flat-screens to review school history and find classmates. Another set of flat screens can be customized to show events at the center or display school information.

On the second floor, USC trustees have a new meeting room. Next door is a private 100-person dining room with a patio overlooking the Vista, downtown Columbia and the S.C. State House.

The building’s design, with brick and wrought iron, is a homage to the heart of the USC campus. "If we picked up the building and dropped it on the Horseshoe, it would fit," Claypoole said.

Intense competition

How much USC’s alumni center will aid the school is unclear.

"That's hard to quantify," Claypoole said.

My Carolina does not have new fund-raising goals tied to the new center’s operations. Other schools have not put dollar figures on the amount of additional cash their new centers have drawn.

The University of West Virginia does not have numbers for how much its seven-year-old, $20 million alumni center helped with fund raising, associate director Kevin Berry said.

The effect of a new center is not always so concrete, alumni leaders say.

But Berry said more alumni are engaged with the school.

“The more engaged alumni are with the institution, there’s a better opportunity they may become contributors,” said Berry, past president of the Council of Alumni Association Marketing and Membership Professionals.

N.C. State University doesn’t have data tying the school’s recent boost in fund raising to its $23 million alumni center, which opened in 2006.

“We don’t make the ask, but we sure tee it up,” said Benny Suggs of N.C. State.

New alumni centers are just a symptom of a larger problem at colleges, said Robinson, head of the higher education think tank.

Schools are caught up in an “arms race in country-club amenities,” she said.

“There is all this intense competition to get the best students and fund raise the best,” Robinson said “But what are you giving them? You want to attract the best students by investing in academics. You don’t want to get more students just to get more money.”

My Carolina leaders said they are working to add value to alumni and students.

That total includes 6,415 lifetime members who pay $800.

The association generated $3.8 million in 2013-14, the latest data available.

For graduates, the association plans online workshops and classes from top university instructors.

But the association does not want to wait until graduation day to bolster its ranks.

The center will offer mentoring as well as career and life-skill activities to juniors and seniors, Claypoole said.

But as much as the center can help careers, school leaders said they see an image boost worth the price tag.

As Bethea, the My Carolina president, said, “It underpins the pride that the university feels.”

This story was originally published August 1, 2015 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Alumni center gives USC new power hub."