CCU studies school start dates

Coastal Carolina University received the first Ashby Ward Research Fellowship Award, a $9,375 grant for tourism research from the South Carolina Travel and Tourism Coalition, to develop and conduct a statewide study on school start dates.

The survey was the first formal study to take account of parents’ viewpoints on an issue that legislators, educators and tourism officials have long debated. Presently, S.C. public schools start on different dates during each of the five weeks in August.

The results of the study, led by Coastal marketing professor Jerome Christia, showed that 45.3 percent of S.C. parents prefer that school start after Labor Day. Of the 898 households from the state’s 85 school districts that answered the survey, the second largest group, 34.6 percent, prefers a start date between Aug. 20 and Labor Day. The smallest group of respondents, 20.1 percent, recommends starting between Aug. 2 and Aug. 20.

The survey also addressed the issue of traditional vs. year-round school calendars. On this question, 72.1 percent of the respondents preferred the present schedule, which observes the traditional summer vacation, while 27.9 percent were in favor of a year-round calendar, with nine-week terms followed by four-week breaks between terms.

The grant was named for the late Ashby Ward, longtime CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. The study was con-ducted under the auspices of CCU’s Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism Research and the Coastal Federal Center for Economic and Community Development.

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Board extends contract for President Ingle

Ronald R. Ingle

Coastal Carolina University President Ronald R. Ingle will continue to serve as the institution’s president through June 30, 2007. Ingle was originally slated to retire June 30, 2005, but the board of trustees voted in October to extend his tenure for two years.

“President Ingle has been an exemplary and energetic leader of this university since it became independent in 1993.
He knows well the possibilities and challenges of higher education and the integral role all education plays in building a stronger South Carolina,” said Fred DuBard, chair of Coastal’s board of trustees. “With the celebration of our 50th anniversary this year and the ongoing 50th Anniversary Initiatives campaign, Coastal Carolina is poised to become a truly premier university. We are fortunate to have Ron Ingle to continue to guide our path into our second 50 years.”

The anniversary has served as the impetus to create a detailed Campus Master Plan, designed to guide the development of the university. According to DuBard, the full board unanimously agreed to ask Ingle to postpone retirement in order to complete several important projects in connection with the Master Plan.

A national search for a new president will begin in 2006. A new president is expected to take office July 1, 2007.

Ingle became Coastal Carolina University’s first president on July 1, 1993, after the institution gained its status as an independent, public university, ending its 34-year affiliation with the University of South Carolina.

During his 11-year presidency, Ingle has led the institution to unprecedented levels of growth and achievement. The current enrollment of more than 7,000 students—a 54 percent increase since 1993—is the largest in the university’s history.

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Waccamaw Center for Higher Education opens

Waccamaw Center for Higher Education in Litchfield

Coastal’s new Waccamaw Center for Higher Education in Litchfield had its grand opening July 20, 2004. The 14,690-square-foot building is designed for credit courses, community classes and professional workshops, as well as community meetings.

More than 140 students enrolled in credit courses in business, economics, education, geography, psychology and other subjects offered at the new center for the fall 2004 semester, according to Richard Weldon, Coastal’s associate vice president for administration.

In addition to credit courses, a program of noncredit classes is also offered. Linda Ketron coordinates the center’s noncredit and continuing education programs.

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Thompson honored for nutrition education

Sharon Thompson

A Coastal Carolina University professor received last year’s Dannon Institute Award for Excellence in Community Nutrition for her “innovative and impactful” program on nutrition education.

Sharon Thompson, associate professor of health and health promotions coordinator at Coastal, received a $5,000 award for her project to educate young female athletes about the benefits of changing their eating behavior early enough to prevent osteoporosis and to boost bone health.

The Dannon Institute recognized five programs in nutrition education and communication throughout the nation. The awards program was created “to celebrate the accomplishments of local nutrition initiatives that have made a positive and significant impact on residents in the communities they serve.”

Thompson’s “Osteoporosis Prevention for Female Athletes in High Risk Sports” project has been delivered to more than 300 female athletes who have learned how to make nutrition and lifestyle changes that can build bone density and prevent injury.

Thompson was named the HTC Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecturer for
2004 at the April Honors Convocation. As part of the honor, she delivered a public lecture in October 2004, titled “Nine Nutrition Tips for a Healthier South Carolina.” Thompson was also awarded the Sun News Volunteer of the Year honor for 2003-2004.

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Projects promote lowcountry culture

Veronica Gerald

Sandi Shackelford

Two professors from the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts are conducting Public Engagement projects.
English professor Veronica Gerald worked with area tourism agencies during the spring 2004 semester to incorporate information about Gullah culture into Grand Strand tourism promotions. During the fall 2004 semester, drama professor Sandi Shackelford organized a performing arts festival for the city of Georgetown, S.C.

Gerald is an expert on “Gullah,” the rich African-American culture that developed along the Carolina and Georgia coasts over the past three centuries. She spent last semester working with area chambers of commerce to add information about Gullah history and culture into their marketing efforts.

Working with the Georgetown Rice Museum, Shackelford planned a series of small-scale presentations involving one to five performers in a variety of formats—dance, music and theater. Performers include local musicians, advanced CCU performing arts students and members of the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Community Tour Roster.

The Public Engagement project is a university-community partnership in which Coastal professors work full-time with area organizations. They share their knowledge and expertise with their respective partner organizations, focusing on projects that have meaningful, measurable applications in “real world” endeavors.

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Coastal initiates reading program

Incoming freshmen for fall 2004 had a summer reading assignment for the first time. Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916 by Michael Capuzzo, was the “big read” that new freshmen were reading and discussing as they arrived on campus.

The decision to assign a collective reading assignment to incoming freshmen originated with Lynn Willett, vice president of Student Affairs, and Lynn Franken, dean of the Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts, who felt that students would benefit from the reading experience and subsequent group discussions.

Close to Shore is a nonfiction account of the first shark attacks on an American vacation resort. In the summer of 1916, four swimmers were killed by a rogue Great White shark in a series of attacks along the Jersey shore, prompting civic hysteria and a massive shark hunt.

“Most forward-thinking universities have a common text,” says Franken. Coastal students often gather together to socialize or attend sports events, she explains, but there is no shared intellectual pursuit built into the curriculum that an entire class can embrace as a group.

Close to Shore was recommended by English professor Nelljean Rice for its literary merit, its appeal to college age readers, and its summer beach resort setting.

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Celebration of Inquiry topic for 2005: memory, place, identity

The 2005 Celebration of Inquiry conference is scheduled for Feb. 16 to
18 and the theme is “Memory, Place, Identity: Behind Us, Before Us, Within Us.” Appropriately for the 50th anniversary year, the theme challenges us to identify where we’ve been and where we long to be, as well as to examine our evolving sense of who we want and what defines us—individually, collectively, culturally, regionally, nationally and globally.

The keynote speaker is Rushworth Kidder, founder of the Institute for Global Ethics, a venerable international think tank with such clients as the Carnegie Corporation, Ford Motor Corporation and the Kettering Foundation. Other speakers include Charles Bierbauer, former CNN anchor and now dean of the University of South Carolina’s College of Mass Communications, and writer Brand Land, author of the bestselling novel about hazing at Clemson University, Goat.

The university-wide academic conference is designed to unite the learning community in cross-disciplinary discussion of a common theme.

The 2004 conference last February featured internationally renowned futurist/inventor Ray Kurzweil, who appeared “live” at Wheelwright Auditorium through teleportation, which enables people to appear life-sized and in real time within an apparent 3-D environment in a remote location and achieve eye-to-eye contact with all participants.

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Education Program honors parents

Youngsters at Spadoini College events

In September 2004, Horry County parents were honored at events that were held throughout the county almost daily during the month. The National VIP (Very Important Parents) Month was organized by the Spadoni College of Education’s Center for Education and Community in collaboration with Family Information Services. The center’s family resource service, H.O.M.E. in the Center, networked with some 20 area organizations in organizing events at schools, churches and agencies throughout the county.

“The purpose is to honor parents for the vital roles they play in raising our next generation of adult citizens and leaders,” said Jim Rogers, the center’s parent and family life educator.

In addition to honoring parents and the roles they play in raising the next generation of adult citizens and leaders, the event provided materials and information about the importance of learning in the home.

The 25 events, ranging from Grits for Grandparents at Midland Elementary School to afternoon cookies at Ocean View Baptist Church’s TLC Child Development Center, were attended by more than 600 children and parents. The final event, “The Great Celebration of Parents!” at Coastal Carolina University’s Welcome Center, attracted another 190 parents, grandparents, foster parents and child care workers, bringing the grand total of attendees throughout the VIP month to more than 800.

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‘Titanic’ discoverer Robert Ballard speaks at Coastal

Ballard and Professor Rob Young

Famed oceanographer Robert Ballard, best known as the discoverer of the Titanic, met with faculty members from the College of Natural and Applied Sciences and got a tour of the newly renovated Atlantic Center facility in March 2004, before speaking to a packed house at Wheelwright Auditorium.

Ballard, who was visiting Myrtle Beach to open a Titanic exhibit at Ripley’s Aquarium, talked with Coastal scientists about their research, and he was particularly drawn to the center’s warehouse area where the marine research equipment is designed and built.

In his Wheelwright talk, Ballard traced his career in marine exploration and the developments in technology that have made his discoveries possible. Ballard has led or participated in more than 100 deep-sea expeditions, many featuring the use of deep-diving submersibles to explore hidden features of the ocean bottom.

Nearly 20 years after discovering the sunken remains of the Titanic, Ballard returned to the site recently and said he was shocked at the rapid rate of deterioration. He has begun lobbying Congress to protect the undersea wreck.

Ballard is the founder of the JASON Project, a non-profit educational organization working in partnership with teachers, students, corporations, educational institutions and government to inspire in students a lifelong passion for science, math and technology through exploration and discovery.

“I got 16,000 letters from kids the first week after the Titanic was found,” said Ballard, who loves to see students excited about science. “In the 30 years of my career, I had never received a single letter from a school kid until that discovery.”

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Coastal wins national award for first-year program

The First-Year Student Success Program at Coastal Carolina University has been selected as a 2004 Outstanding Institutional Advising Program Award winner in the National Awards Program for Academic Advising.

Coastal’s First-Year Student Success Program, currently in its eighth year, was established to help retain first-year students through a series of mentoring programs centered around success seminars, a peer mentor program and mentoring by faculty members trained to serve as academic advisers. The program has serviced some 300 to 350 students each year since its inception.

University President Ronald R. Ingle praised the program’s effectiveness in increasing student retention by nearly 27 percent since the program began in fall of 1996.

Coastal’s program of advisement, directed by Linda Hollandsworth, English professor and director of Student Academic Support Services,
was recognized at the national conference in October.

Coastal faculty who served as mentors in the program for the 2003-2004 academic year include Lisa Barboun, Teresa Burns, Jerome Christia, Grant Collins, Carl Dresden, Val Dunham, Joanne Duvall, Charles Gidney, Brad Harmon, Rich Koesterer, Joe Mazurkiewicz, Paul Olsen, Kris Rau, Jack Riley, Robin Russell, Charles Sena, John Steen, Steve West and Rebecca Williams.

World renowned musician is artist-in-residence at Coastal

Steve Bailey

Virtuoso bass player Steve Bailey has joined the faculty of Coastal Carolina University as an Artist-in-Residence in the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts.

Bailey, who now lives in Myrtle Beach after more than 20 years in New York and Los Angeles, has recorded and/or toured with such artists as Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Billy Joe Shaver, Mel Torme, Jethro Tull and Paquito D’Rivera.

Bailey grew up in Myrtle Beach and attended the University of North Texas on an applied bass scholarship. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in studio music and jazz from the University of Miami, and he got his first big break when he joined jazzman Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1983. He has won numerous awards and has been featured in many articles in musical journals.
In addition to teaching courses, Bailey organized a faculty ensemble that performs in the community.

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Wall College is first U.S. inductee in international consortium

Darla Domke-Damonte (fifth from left) and David DeCenzo (far right) represented Coastal at the CIDD annual meeting in Riga, Latvia.

Coastal’s E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Admin-istration is the first U.S. business school to be accepted as a member of the Consortium of International Double Degrees (CIDD). David DeCenzo, dean of the Wall College, and Darla Domke-Damonte, international programs liaison for the Wall College, represented Coastal at the induction ceremony as part of CIDD’s annual meeting, held in Riga, Latvia.

The consortium consists of 18 university business schools, primarily in Europe and Asia, that work together to promote international business education. The goals of the consortium are to establish high standards for double degree programs and to encourage mutually beneficial partnerships among member universities.

“Accreditation standards in U.S. business schools emphasize the importance of developing international expertise among students and alumni, and at the same time, the ERASMUS-MUNDUS Program of the European Union has developed a mandate to increase international collaboration between EU members and with institutions outside the European Union,” said Domke-Damonte. “The result is a coming together of initiatives for which CCU is ideally positioned.”

“As a growing institution committed to the highest standards, we are very excited about the possibilities that this relationship creates for our students, faculty and community,” said DeCenzo.

The Wall College of Business has double degree relationships with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) and the International Fachhochschule Bad Honnef (Germany) in International Tourism Management, and with the University of Applied Sciences Mainz (Germany) and the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (Germany) in International Business.

Coastal’s first dual degree students graduated last year, and in the May 2004 graduation ceremonies, the university recognized nine students completing dual degree program requirements: Jessica Mogel, Cynthia Stoklosa, Ralshon Douglas, Andreas Herzog, Christian Scherer, Linda Rubin, Torsten Kopp, Sergi Barquinero and Pere Collar.

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New Centers established to aid teaching functions

Two new centers, the TEAL Center and the Center for Effective Teaching and Learning, have been established to help Coastal faculty become better teachers.

The TEAL (Technology in Education to Advance Learning) Center is a training facility designed to help faculty and students incorporate new technologies into traditional classroom settings.

Supported largely by state lottery funds, the TEAL Center specializes in videoconferencing technology, creating WebCT courses, and adding digital and computer-based technology to enhance the quality of instruction. Nils Rauhut, assistant professor of philosophy, is the faculty director of the TEAL Center.

The Center for Effective Teaching and Learning, which became operational in the summer of 2004, is designed to help both beginning and veteran faculty members maximize their potential as effective teachers in today’s higher education classrooms.

Proposed programs include workshops on such topics as course design, creating interactive lesson plans, building learning communities, classroom assessment techniques, teaching for multiple learning styles, and integrating technology in instruction.
The center will organize an orientation program for first-year faculty as well as coordinate funding for research activities relating to teaching. This center is led by Louis Keiner, assistant professor of physics and physical oceanography at Coastal.

“By establishing these centers, we are not only highlighting the importance of effective teaching at Coastal Carolina but we are also increasing the support of faculty in these endeavors,” said Peter Barr, provost of Coastal Carolina University.
The centers share an operational base on the second floor of University Hall.

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Professor earns international prize for computer science

Jean Louis-Lassez

Jean-Louis Lassez, professor and chair of Coastal’s Department of Computer Science, was recently honored by the Association for Logic Programming, an international organization of computer scientists, professors and researchers, for producing “the Most Influential Paper in 20 Years.”

The award, presented at an international conference in St. Malo, France (Lassez’s hometown), recognizes his pioneering achievement in developing a new computer programming language called “constraint logic programming.” The paper that won the award was highly influential in the creation of a new field of research that uses special computer software to solve highly complex mathematical problems.

Lassez wrote the paper in 1987 while serving as a senior scientist at the IBM Research Center in New York. The paper was written in collaboration with Joxan Jaffar, now dean of the School of Informational Sciences at the National University of Singapore.

Lassez, who joined the Coastal faculty in 2001, works in the field of bioinformatics, a relatively new discipline devoted to analyzing highly complex mathematical data generated though DNA research.

In December 2004, the 9th Asian Computer Science Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was dedicated to Lassez in honor of his significant achievements in computer science research. Jonathan Bernick, assistant professor of computer science at Coastal, is an invited speaker at the conference.

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Music professor premieres lost Debussy piece

Gary Stegall

Coastal music professor Gary Stegall recently gave the New York and South Carolina premieres of a newly- discovered composition by famed French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918). The solo piano piece, Les soirs illuminé par l’ardeur du charbon (Evenings lit by the burning coals), was found in an attic trunk belonging to descendants of the Debussy family’s coal merchant, a Mr. Tronquin. A letter written by Debussy in 1917 addressed to Tronquin suggests that the short composition was meant to serve as a gift in thanks for the delivery of coal, which was in short supply in Paris during World War I.

It is believed that the piece was written in February or March 1917, just one year before Debussy’s death, and that it was probably the composer’s final work for piano. Debussy was already suffering from cancer when he composed the piece. After its discovery more than 80 years after Debussy’s death, the work was sold at auction to a Paris collector.

Stegall performed the piece in November 2004 at St. Peter’s Church in Chelsea, New York City, and at Precious Blood Catholic Church in Pawleys Island. Stegall also performed the Asian premieres of the composition in Bangkok and Singapore during a tour earlier this year.

Stegall, a member of the piano faculty at Coastal, has performed around the world, including St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by special invitation of the Vatican. He is a recording artist for Klavier International/Kalmus.

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Economics degree approved

Coastal Carolina University has established a new degree program in economics, beginning in the spring 2005 semester. The new bachelor of science degree program, offered through Coastal’s E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration, is designed to “provide students with a solid foundation in economic analysis applied to the changing business environment, with emphasis on local and regional business communities,” according to Coastal Provost Peter B. Barr.

The curriculum will include a service-learning component that will be facilitated through the Coastal Federal Center for Economic and Community Development, the community outreach division of the Wall College of Business Administration.

An economics major will open a broad range of career opportunities for students, including economics, law, management and public administration, according to David DeCenzo, dean of the Wall College.

“The service-learning requirement is an important feature of the new program,” said DeCenzo. “All economics majors will be required to do a senior year research project, which will give them the opportunity to apply their classroom knowledge to research problems within the local and regional community.”

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Coastal president receives Beach Music award

Coastal President Ronald R. Ingle (center).

Surrounded by shaggers on the steps of the State Capitol in Columbia, Coastal Carolina University President Ronald R. Ingle received the Carroll Campbell Award as part of the 2004 Beach Music Day.

The award, given annually to a non-music industry person, was presented to Ingle for his support in establishing a partnership between Coastal and the Beach Music Association International (BMAI) and for designating Coastal as a repository for the study of beach music, its artists and history.

Beach music, which has been declared the “official popular music of South Carolina” by the general assembly, is celebrated at the annual event that begins on the statehouse steps. Performers included the Embers, Bill Pinkney of the Original Drifters, Maurice Williams and more.

Coastal’s ties with beach music include a 2002 agreement with BMAI to develop courses on the cultural, sociological and musical aspects of the genre. Charles Joyner, director of Coastal’s Waccamaw Center for Cultural and Historical Studies, is an expert on Southern musical styles and his upcoming book on Southern music includes a chapter on beach music. Steve Nagle, distinguished emeritus professor of English at Coastal, wrote the entry for beach music in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.

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Technology transforms classroom

The 24 students who enrolled in Politics 501 (Globalization) last semester met every Monday and Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., but only 16 of them ever showed up in Room 319 in Coastal’s Wall Building, where Professor Pam Martin conducted the class. The remaining eight students were present, however; they just happened to be some 2,300 miles away from the Coastal campus, in a classroom at the University of San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador.

The continental divide separating the two classrooms was all but erased by WebCT technology, funded for the class through a state lottery grant. By means of a two-way video/audio setup, the Ecuadoran students in Quito and the American students at Coastal saw and heard each other, and they interacted in much the same way as if they were in the same room—joking with each other and making friends. Many of the students corresponded regularly through e-mail outside of class.

“What better way to teach globalization than for students to be placed in a literally global environment?” says Martin, an assistant professor of politics who organized the innovative interactive program between Coastal and the University of San Francisco in Quito where she taught for two years in the late 1990s.

Martin says that one of the most valuable aspects of this approach is the extra cultural dimension it brings to both classroom settings. “In their discussions about theories of government and social contracts, both sets of students get a whole different point of view of the world,” she says. “They begin to grasp the world’s cultural and economic complexities far better than they would in a traditional classroom.”

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Highlights of 1954

What else was going on the year Coastal was founded?

• National affairs: President Eisenhower warns against U.S. intervention in Vietnam. The Supreme Court rules on Brown v. Board of Education. Sen. Joseph McCarthy is denounced in the U.S. Senate.

• At the Movies: Popular films of the year include: On the Waterfront (Best Picture Oscar), White Christmas, The Caine Mutiny, The Glenn Miller Story and Rear Window

• On TV: The Tonight Show and Face the Nation debut. Popular programs include The Ed Sullivan Show, I Love Lucy, My Little Margie and Dragnet.

• Rock is born: Elvis Presley makes his first record (“That’s All Right, Mama”) in July. Bill Haley and the Comets release “Rock Around the Clock” in May.

• In Sports: Sam Snead wins the Masters tournament. The Cleveland Browns defeat the Detroit Lions for the NFL Championship. Rocky Marciano retains the World Heavyweight title against Ezzard Charles.
Joe DiMaggio marries Marilyn Monroe.

• Booknotes: The first volume of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is published, along with Lord of the Flies and The Bridge on the River Kwai. Ernest Hemingway wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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