Composition and Powers
The Board of Trustees is composed of the following twenty members:
- Governor of South Carolina, ex officio Chairman of the Board; may appoint a designee in his stead
- South Carolina State Superintendent of Education, ex officio
- President of the Greater University of South Carolina Alumni Association, ex officio
- One member elected by the General Assembly from each of the sixteen judicial circuits
- One member appointed by the governor
The governor's appointee and those elected by the General Assembly serve for a term of four years.
Seven standing committees have been set up to streamline the business of the board of trustees. A special or ad hoc committee can be formed by the Chairman of the Board should a need arise. The following are the seven standing committees:
- Executive Committee
- Buildings and Grounds Committee
- Intercollegiate Activities Committee
- Academic Affairs and Faculty-Liaison Committee
- Student-Trustee Liaison Committee
- Health Affairs Committee
- Fiscal Policy Committee
Up until 1981, the positions of head football coach and athletic director were combined. Despite being the athletic director, the head football coach held little sway over the hiring and firing of the coaches for the other athletic programs. The true power lay with the chairman of the athletic committee and the position was dominated from the 1930s to the 1970s by Solomon Blatt, Sr. and his son Solomon Blatt, Jr. Yet in 1966 Blatt, Jr. was trumped when he had lined up Bill Murray to become the head football coach and Governor Robert Evander McNair had instead convinced Paul Dietzel to accept the position.
The trustees have the final say on all affairs that are pertinent to the University. Their powers include:
- Awarding of honorary degrees
- Purchasing, leasing and selling property of the University
- Setting tuition fees
- Hiring and firing faculty and personnel
Additionally, according to the Code of Laws of South Carolina (1976), Section 59-117-100, the board of trustees are tasked with ensuring that the President of the University is not an atheist or an infidel.
Read more about this topic: University Of South Carolina System, Board of Trustees
Famous quotes containing the words composition and, composition and/or powers:
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)
“Anti-Nebraska, Know-Nothings, and general disgust with the powers that be, have carried this county [Hamilton County, Ohio] by between seven and eight thousand majority! How people do hate Catholics, and what a happiness it was to show it in what seemed a lawful and patriotic manner.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)