South Carolina State is actually one of four Division I independents in women's soccer. The others are Delaware State (MEAC), NJIT (Independent) and Francis Marion (most of athletic program is in Division II).

The MEAC has been at 13 members (11 in football) since Winston Salem State aborted its transition from Division II.


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(02-12-2015 06:42 AM)MJG Wrote:  

(02-11-2015 08:30 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Observations:

1) All the SC haters can take a long walk off a short pier. The Upstate I-85 corridor and the Grand Strand are amongst the best places to be in the country. The Charlotte suburbs and exurbs (Rock Hill, Dutch Fork, etc) are nice too. I'll grant you pretty much all of the I-95 corridor through SC (the so called corridor of shame for the enormous poverty and terrible education) is horrible. And stay away from the big nuclear waste dump in Barnwell south of Augusta on the SC/GA line area. Columbia is a concrete convection oven. But like all the other states don't have sucky areas?

2) I actually agree with kaplony that SC State would be better served as a Clemson satellite campus. USC-Columbia does NOT treat satellite campuses well (micromanagement to death), they shut down or roadblock superior programs at satellite campuses*, and they treat their own engineering departments with contempt despite the fact that they outperform the USC Honors College in every quantifiable way.

3) The terrible graduation rates are not going to be helped without either admitting public education in the I-95 part of SC has failed and reboot it with full school choice, or without requiring heavy remedial course work.

* USC Upstate has the best nursing, and I'd argue the best computer science (certainly the most highly accredited computer science as of 2010 or so) in the state. USC Upstate was USC Spartanburg (USCS) originally. Their curriculum was becoming more and more separate to where you couldn't even transfer credits within the system anymore. USCS wanted to have a nursing post-graduate program. Columbia said no, as that would further shame their inferior program. USCS went forward with it anyway. Columbia dropped the hammer and threatened removal of all funding unless all curriculum as mirrored and they abandoned a post graduate nursing program. The clowns were so scared, not only did they do that but they rebranded as USC Upstate, dropped the Riflemen name, and became the Spartans. And now even though Upstate plays in D-I, your class rings have to have chickens of them, no Spartans allowed. Yea. Upstate wanted a Convocation Center, as the Hodge Center is preposterously small for a D-I program (smaller than most of the 4A power high school gyms in the Upstate), and the mathematics, computer science, and athletics programs fight each other for space in there. Old athletics offices had to become the robotics lab, because the second floor wouldn't support the weight of the industrial manufacturing robots from Staubli. So they wanted to move athletics into a new Convocation Center, and redo Hodge as just mathematics and computer science. Columbia said no again. And it is worth mentioning that Columbia is throwing up a new 8 figure building on their campus pretty much EVERY YEAR. It is lunacy down there. USC Upstate would be better served becoming a stand alone public. The upstate of SC needs another big public other than just Clemson, and one better positioned actually in the GSP area. Furman and Wofford are both private and expensive.

I don't know the ins and outs of Coastal's situation .
As a casual observer it seems like since becoming independent the school has doubled in size.

Best thing Coastal did was get out from under Columbia's thumb. If they had stayed in they wouldn't be much more than USC-Aiken or USC-Sumter right now.

HBCU's are going away. VSU and NSU in Virginia are on the brink.....

Why not close it down, reorganize it, give it a new mission and re open it as a non hbcu with a regional emphasis? Florida State and Winthrop come to mind as two women's colleges that took on a new mission. SCSU has an awesome story to tell of its past but it's time to join the 21st century if it wants to keep its legacy intact. How do alums feel about something like this? Would they rather just shutter it or are they open to change?

I'd imagine there would be sharp resistance from the alums. As much as it goes unsaid and how much no one would want to admit it, there is racism, reverse-racism if you will, that comes from some of the administrators, students and alums toward any change to the institution they grew to love. TBH, it wouldn't even have to be racism, it can be just those opposed to such a radical change.

If HBCU's went away, what would happen to the tradition of, say, the HBCU marching band, the fraternities and their stepping and many other facets of life that only happen at HBCU's? Then again, not only can HBCU's be redundant as I said before but now days more and more people have better access to a good education and many of these HBCU's are naturally poorly funded, especially the private ones.

I'd like to see some of these schools survive just as a reminder of the past and a snapshot of the past but some do need to go away or merge with the bigger sister they were meant to emulate, such as perhaps Southern and LSU (nothing against Southern, I'm just using them as an example of a "separate but equal" creation that is even in the same city of the school it was spawned out of).