New bus stops bring solar power to CCU

At the precise moment when Coastal President Ronald Ingle and Santee Cooper CEO Lonnie Carter pulled down the ceremonial lever on Oct. 31, 2006, officially starting up the pioneer solar pavilion project on campus, the carillon in the Graham Bell Tower in nearby Spadoni Park began playing "Here Comes the Sun."

CCU's solar pavilion bus stops are the state's first solar "Green Power" sites.

The "solar pavilions" are four large bus stop shelters on Chanticleer Drive East that have been equipped with solar panels capable of producing 16 kilowatts of renewable, environmentally-friendly energy.The solar panels produce enough energy to power at least 75 computers, according to Santee Cooper, one of the state's major public utilities. The project is part of Santee Cooper's Green Power initiative, which promotes the production and consumption of electricity created from renewable energy.

The project is the first of its kind in several particulars: it is the first solar "Green Power" site in South Carolina; the first solar photovoltaic (PV) project at a public university in the state; and the first project funded by Green Power partners, according to Carter. Green Power partners are agencies and businesses in the state that have agreed to use 2 to 5 percent of their electricity from renewable energy. Coastal joined the program in 2001 as part of its Campus and Community Sustainability Initiative, which was established for the purpose of making environmental management a campuswide priority.

Coastal President Ronald R. Ingle (third from left), student Marissa Mitzner (center) and Santee Cooper CEO Lonnie Carter pull the solar switch at the dedication of Coastal's new bus pavilion.

"This facility demonstrates how we can creatively manage our energy resources in a learning laboratory," said Ingle. "Our continuing partnership with Santee Cooper reinforces the infinite possibilities for educational ventures that make sense for Coastal Carolina University, the community and all of South Carolina."

Marissa Mitzner, a junior business major who is the university's first student sustainability coordinator, said in her remarks that "this partnership to bring solar power to our campus must serve as the beginning of a commitment to an environmentally sustainable culture." Mitzner has taken a personal leadership role in environmental awareness issues on campus and plans to study environmental education at the graduate level.

A specially-designed kiosk in the lobby of the R. Cathcart Smith Science Center displays real time information about the energy output generated by the solar pavilion.

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CCU education project wins prestigious national award

From left: Adam Jones, Jason Schipper, Austin Hitt and Emory Helms

A social studies kit for middle school teachers designed by a group of Coastal Carolina University students and faculty members has won the Christa McAuliffe Reach for the Stars Award, an annual award given by the National Council of Social Studies (NCSS).

The project, "Native American History in a Box," is a comprehensive, five-day unit that includes lesson plans, teacher content guides, worksheets, overheads and other visual aids. Developed by graduate students Adam Jones and Jason Schipper with CCU education professors Emory Helms and Austin Hitt, the project contains instruction guidelines on such topics as early migration and settlement, tools, sustenance and early Native American contact with Europeans.

The Christa McAuliffe Award is given to the project that improves social studies education, fosters enlightened citizenship and promotes civic competence. The award includes a $1,500 stipend.

Schipper and Jones, both 2006 graduates of Coastal's Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T) program, teach social studies in area high schools. They, together with Helms and Hitt, were officially recognized at the NCSS annual conference on Dec. 3 in Washington, D.C. The project will also be a featured presentation of the NCSS National Conference in San Diego in 2007.

Helms, chair of secondary programs including the M.A.T. program in Coastal's Spadoni College of Education, says this project is the beginning of a series of social studies unit kits that will address a variety of topics. "Civil War Technology: History in a Box" is the second project in the series.

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Coastal Carolina University names honorary founders

Founders: Ronald R. Ingle, Iris Campbell and Mike Campbell (representing Carroll Campbell), and Clark Parker

The late Carroll A. Campbell Jr., longtime Coastal trustee Clark B. Parker and Coastal Carolina University President Ronald R. Ingle were honored at Coastal's 20th annual Founders Day Convocation in September.

Campbell (1940-2005) served as governor of South Carolina for two terms, from 1987 until 1995. At a campus ceremony on May 14, 1993, Campbell signed the bill that established Coastal Carolina University as an independent, state-supported institution. Prior to his governorship, he served in the S.C. House of Representatives, the state Senate and the U.S. Congress. A native of Greenville, he was educated at the University of South Carolina and American University. As governor, Campbell championed economic growth and education reform. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2001 and died in 2005.

Parker, a CPA of Myrtle Beach, is a 1977 Coastal alumnus who has served his alma mater in key leadership positions. He was president of Coastal's alumni association from 1979 to 1983 and he headed the CINO Club, Coastal's athletic booster organization, in the early 1980s. From 1987 to 1993 he served on the Horry County Higher Education Commission, and as its chair led the movement to establish Coastal as an independent state university separate from the University of South Carolina system. When Coastal achieved independence in 1993, Parker was elected to its first board of trustees, where he has served ever since, including two terms as chair (2001-2003).

Ingle became CCU's first president in 1993 when the institution left the USC system. Under Ingle's leadership, Coastal has achieved remarkable growth in enrollment (55 percent increase), physical space (30-plus percent increase), and in the scope of its academic programs. Ingle led the university's 50th anniversary fund-raising campaign in 2004, which raised more than $14 million, and he encouraged the development of programs that fulfill the institution's longstanding mission of community engagement. A native of Moncks Corner, Ingle was educated at Wofford College, Florida State University and Ohio State University. He served two years of active duty in the U.S. Army. Ingle will retire on June 30, 2007.

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Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Gayes lectures on shoreline issues

Marine science professor Paul Gayes, the 11th recipient of the Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecturer award, gave a public lecture in October 2006 called "Castles of sand and steel: The collision of growth and policy with the state's advancing shoreline."

Paul Gayes delivered the annual Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Lecture in October 2006

The award is presented each year by Horry Telephone Cooperative (HTC) to a CCU faculty member who has outstanding abilities as a teacher, scholar and communicator. The recipient of the honor delivers a lecture during the fall semester on an original topic drawn from his or her area of expertise.

As director of Coastal's Burroughs & Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies, Gayes is a recognized authority on coastal geological processes in South Carolina and has been actively involved in coastal management and policy issues in the state for the past 19 years.

In his lecture, Gayes described the landward movement of the shoreline along the state's coast, with particular attention to the beaches of the Grand Strand and Charleston areas. He reviewed the effectiveness of the beach renourishment projects undertaken during the past 20 years and weighed the relative merits of the "retreat vs. defend" theories of shoreline management in the context of economic and legal considerations.

Gayes joined the faculty at Coastal in 1987 after receiving his Ph.D. in coastal oceanography from the Marine Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. At Coastal, Gayes has brought in $5.5 million in research grants from a wide range of federal and state agencies. Under his direction, the Center for Marine and Wetland Studies has earned a national reputation for the scope and quality of its research and the innovative technical equipment it has developed.

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Bachman receives national teaching award

Maria K. Bachman

In November 2006, Maria K. Bachman, associate professor of English, was named the 2006 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching South Carolina Professional of the Year, a prestigious honor that is part of the U.S. Professors of the Year program sponsored by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

Earlier this year, Bachman was appointed director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program, an interdisciplinary program that draws on resources from education, business, humanities, the fine arts, and natural and applied sciences. As director, Bachman will organize lectures, films, workshops and other cultural events devoted to the advancement of women's and gender studies throughout the university.

Prior to this appointment, she served as co-director of the University Honors Program from 2001 to 2005. She earned a bachelor's degree in international affairs from George Washington University, a master's degree in English from George Mason University and a doctorate in English from the University of Tennessee.

Prior to her academic career, she served as managing editor of publications for the National Organization for Women and as legislative associate for Business and Professional Women USA, a bipartisan organization dedicated to grassroots activism, policy influence and advocacy for working women.

Bachman co-edited scholarly editions of two Wilkie Collins novels, The Woman in White and Blind Love. She is also the author of Reality's Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins.

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Coastal's bell tower receives design award

Graham Family Bell Tower

The Graham Family Bell Tower in Spadoni Park has received a Quattlebaum Award from the City of Conway. The structure was cited for Outstanding Contribution to Quality Development, Restoration, Landscape or Design by an Organization or Individual. The award is named in honor of C.P. Quattlebaum, a past civic leader in Conway, and recognizes exceptional landscape projects within the corporate limits of the municipality.

The 40-foot bell and clock was named in honor of the late Harvey Graham Sr., a Loris businessman whose family made a significant contribution to the institution's 50th Anniversary Initiatives fundraising campaign. BB&T and Waccamaw Brick also contributed to support the Graham Family Bell Tower project.

The tower and bells were constructed by the Verdin Company, which was founded in 1835 and is based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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Bass greats gather for second year

Bassists jam at Wheelwright

Bass Extremes, a unique CCU music event that premiered in 2005, had its second annual concert in October 2006 with another stellar lineup of bass guitar talent. The brain-child of Coastal artist-in-residence Steve Bailey, the event the first of its kind designed expressly for the bass guitar featured a two-day master class and workshop led by four world class virtuosos: Victor Wooten, John Patitucci, Billy Sheehan and Bailey. The event culminated in a concert featuring the fab four plus other talented musicians.

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CCU observes 9/11 anniversary

Ingle speaks at 9/11 Observance after a performance by the CCU Gospel Choir.

The Coastal community commemorated the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks with a morning memorial service
at the Graham Family Bell Tower and an afternoon of presentations by faculty, staff and students about how the event has changed our world. The presentations included an eyewitness account of the attack on the Pentagon, a faculty panel discussion on the nature and implications of terrorism, a look at the event through the eyes of poets, artists and journalists, and a briefing by two Coastal professors who were recently embedded with troops in Afghanistan.

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CCU gallery exhibit explores Hemingway-Evans connection

Walker Evans - Havana Fruit Stand, gelatin silver print, 21 x 17, 1933. Walker Evans Archive, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A traveling museum exhibit, "Ernest Hemingway and Walker Evans: Three Weeks in Cuba," showcasing many rarely seen photographs and artifacts, visited the Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery at Coastal Carolina University for two months during the 2006 fall semester. The exhibit revisits the spring of 1933 in Havana, Cuba, where the writer and photographer befriended each other for a brief but turbulent three weeks. Evans was on assignment to take photographs for a book about Cuban dictator Gerardo Machado, and Hemingway was writing the stories that would eventually form his novel To Have and Have Not. Fearing that his photographs might be confiscated by the secret police, Evans gave Hemingway a batch of prints for safekeeping. Evans eventually left Cuba with some 400 negatives but never asked Hemingway for the other pictures back. From 1939 to Hemingway's death in 1961, the pictures were stored along with some of the author's other possessions in the back room of Sloppy Joe's, the Havana bar he made famous. After Hemingway's death some of the items wound up with his friends Toby and Betty Bruce. In 2002, the Bruce's son identified more than 40 Evans photographs in his parents' collection. Two years later, the Key West Museum of Art and History organized an exhibition showcasing the rare photographs. The exhibit included many of the recently unearthed Hemingway items, including candid letters and personal effects such as his leather drinking flask and a printer's mock-up of his book Death in the Afternoon.

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