About the Book
Coastal Carolina University: The First 50 Years,”
the official history of the institution by CCU professor Roy Talbert
Jr., has been published and is now available.
Talbert, longtime history professor and a noted
author, chronicles the founding and development of the institution
from 1954 to Coastal’s 50th anniversary in 2004. The narrative describes
the economic and social background of the region during those years,
and it conveys the personalities and the cultural forces that went
into the making of the university.
It is evident that Talbert feels a heroic element
at work in the story: a struggle against formidable odds by men
and women of vision and determination. “We’ve forgotten how hard
the fight was to get this school started,” said Talbert.
The story follows the efforts of Horry County leaders
to organize a two-year college, which was finally sponsored by the
College of Charleston in 1954. When the College of Charleston agreement
ended in 1958, the board campaigned for a referendum asking Horry
County voters to support a tax to fund the college. It passed, and
for the next two years Coastal was an independent institution. In
1960, Coastal joined the University of South Carolina system and
acquired land for the present campus site. The first building opened
in 1963 with an enrollment of 110. Other difficult battles in Coastal’s
progress to maturity include the movement to gain four-year status
in 1975 and its establishment as an independent, public university
in 1993.
Coastal President Ronald R. Ingle first suggested
the idea of a Coastal history to Talbert, who has written several
distinguished institutional histories of regional organizations,
including Conway National Bank and the Willcox Law Firm in Florence.
The author’s approach combines the skill of a seasoned
historian and the personal affinity of a faculty member who has
close ties to the organization. Talbert, who joined Coastal in 1979
as vice chancellor for academic affairs, says that his personal
involvement in the latter part of the story led him to structure
the book in an unusual way. After coming across his own name and
activities in the archives, Talbert found that he could not continue
to write objectively as a historian. His solution was to divide
the book roughly in half, presenting the first part (up through
1977) as traditional history and the second part as a memoir. The
memoir is collective, reflecting the memories of several longtime
Coastal faculty and staff members in addition to Talbert. |
Roy
Talbert, Jr., was born in Cheraw, S.C., and graduated from Florence’s
McClenaghan High School in 1961, winning history awards from the
United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Daughters of the American
Revolution. After graduating from Furman University’s honors
program with a major in history in 1965, he attended Vanderbilt
University as a National Defense Education Act Fellow and Senior
Teaching Fellow, earning a master’s degree in 1967 and a Ph.D.
in 1971. On active military duty from 1970 to 1972, he was an Army
captain on the General Staff at the Pentagon, working for the Assistant
Chief of Staff of Intelligence.
