Coastal Carolina University Magazine - A Man for All Students

Anniversaries naturally engage the memory, and the occasion of Coastal’s 50th has kindled its appropriate portion of reminiscence and retrospection. But, as President Ronald R. Ingle made clear in its planning stages, this anniversary celebration would be as much about looking forward as about looking back—planning for the future as we commemorate our past achievements.

Which makes you wonder: if Coastal travels as far in its second half century as it did in its first, what will it look like in 2054? From nightly sessions in a Conway High School classroom with a handful of students, Coastal Carolina University has emerged an energetic, thriving institution of higher learning with more than 7,000 students from all over the world, a 283-plus acre campus (now spreading across U.S. 501), 38 majors and a growing number of master’s programs. If this is Coastal at 50, what might the institution look like at 100?

Here’s how some of the people responsible for planning Coastal’s future envision its centennial.

David DeCenzo, dean of the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration, foresees momentous changes, and fast. He predicts that the resort tourism management major will morph into a college of its own that will include not only the golf management program but real estate and aviation. This may occur within the next decade.

The Wall College’s international programs also will expand rapidly, says DeCenzo, as Coastal’s reputation abroad becomes stronger (the university already has established programs in Spain, Germany, India, Russia and Japan). “We have the opportunity to become the European Union center of international programs, with an international trade center at the Wall College,” he says.

A new major in economics begins this spring, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program is in the works for 2006. The Wall Fellows program will also continue to grow and improve.

Teaching itself will change over the next 50 years, DeCenzo says, moving away from traditional classroom settings into distance learning and other delivery methods driven by technology. One thing that won’t change is the high quality of the Wall College faculty, which DeCenzo describes as “very student-oriented and devoted to teaching.”
When Gilbert Hunt came to Coastal to interview for a faculty position in 1975, he stayed at St. John’s Inn in Myrtle Beach. He asked for directions to the college, but no one there had ever heard of it.

Hunt, now dean of the Spadoni College of Education, believes that the phenomenal growth and recognition Coastal has experienced during his tenure is indicative of what is ahead for the institution. In the next five years, he expects the college to add three more master’s programs—educational leadership to train school principals; special education; and sports and health management.

Hunt believes enrollment at Coastal will grow to 12,000 easily in the next 10 years. Weekend classes, online instruction and videoconferencing—the whole concept of teaching and learning will continue to change, along with the traditional setup of when a semester starts and ends. “People will get college credit without ever stepping foot on this campus,” he says, pointing out that there’s a professor on staff who lives in Cary, N.C., and teaches online for Coastal.

“The campus in 20 years will look much different,” he predicts. “But Coastal will still do a quality job of teaching and serving the community. Our philosophy won’t change, but our practices will have to.”
Lynn Franken, dean of the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts, envisions a prestigious university ranked among the best in the country. In 2054, the campus and surrounding environs will feature monorails, golf trolleys, bike paths and sidewalk bistros. The college curriculum will stretch to five years, including a mandatory summer study semester. After three years of study, successful students would receive a bachelor’s degree, then go on to select an area of focus within the four colleges. One semester would be spent studying abroad, and the remaining semester would be an internship financed by the sponsoring entity.

“The campus will be saturated with art—paintings, graphics, sculpture, textiles,” she says.

The Edwards College of Humanities, she believes, will grow to the point that it will need to be divided into four distinct divisions—humanities, communications, visual arts and performing arts.