Growing frustration from SC lawmakers reignites proposal to restructure USC board
A bipartisan proposal that seeks to almost entirely restructure the University of South Carolina board of trustees has been reignited by lawmakers amid frustration over how the board has doled out coaching buyouts and led the 2019 presidential search.
On Tuesday, House Republican leaders dropped legislation sponsored by House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, that would reduce the number of board members for the state’s flagship university to 13 from 20.
Seven of those members would represent the state’s seven congressional districts, not judicial circuits, and four would be at-large members who must live in a county where the university operates a campus, according to the legislation, H. 5198.
Another two board members would be appointed by the governor, and three non-voting ex officio members would be included on the board: the governor, the president of the Greater University of South Carolina Alumni Association and the university’s student body president, who represents students on the university’s Columbia campus.
The legislation seeks to remove the superintendent of education, a statewide elected official, as an ex officio member.
If the legislation ultimately passes, all current trustees’ terms would expire on June 30, 2023, and the Legislature would elect 11 new trustees by that date. Under the bill, the board chair would be appointed to a two-year term and would be allowed to serve no more than two terms as chair.
“I think the events over the last two weeks have clearly demonstrated that some changes probably are required,” state Rep. Kirkman Finlay, a Richland County Republican who sits on the legislative panel that screens university and college board trustees, told The State Tuesday.
A bipartisan legislative panel last month declined to approve the candidacy of five longtime board members: Eddie Floyd, John von Lehe, Chairman Dorn Smith, Thad Westbrook and Charles Williams.
They only approved board incumbent Alex English and the newcomers seeking two vacant seats. Those candidates will go up for a legislative vote tentatively scheduled for May 4.
None of the five candidates at risk of losing their seats have declined to seek reelection.
The legislative panel’s decision came after a two-day hearing in which lawmakers particularly skewered board Chairman Dorn Smith over why trustees approved multi-million-dollar buyouts for former football coach Will Muschamp and men’s basketball coach Frank Martin and over the board’s 2019 presidential search that led to hiring President Bob Caslen amid criticism of political intervention.
Caslen resigned in May 2021 after a graduation gaffe and admitted plagiarism in his commencement speech.
“Between the Caslen debacle and the buyout of Muschamp’s (contract), this just doesn’t really create a lot of confidence in y’all’s competency. Do you understand ... that perspective?” state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Richland Democrat who also sits on the joint House and Senate panel tasked with screening college and university board members, asked Smith last month. “Isn’t it time that we do more than just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic? I mean, this university has had its ups and downs as long as I’ve lived in Columbia.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2022 at 1:14 PM.
