“Dad, I Love this Place …”

February 26, 2008: When Valerie Morris introduced P. George Benson and asked what the “P” stood for, he smilingly replied: “President.” Mr. Benson’s resume is more than impressive with, among other accolades, degrees in mathematics, operations research, and statistics; Dean of two Business Schools; and four books to his credit. President Benson’s opening remarks included a compliment to Rotary for awarding him a Rotary International Fellowship to Stockholm, in 1968 (“that was pre-empted by a Draft Board”).

President Benson began with History. The College of Charleston was founded in 1770 when Charleston was the 4th largest city in the Colonies. Higher education was available “for men” in England. Harvard and Yale were soliciting funds from the wealthiest city in the Colonies, Charleston. The College was then established with classes beginning in the 1780’s in the basement at 6 Glebe Street, now the President’s residence. After many changes over the last 230+ years, the College is now the home of 11,400 students (10,000 undergraduates), who have “quickly outgrown the infrastructure for the 500 students enrolled in 1970.” Fast-forward to February 2007 when George Benson became President; “the College needed some serious blocking and tackling” in the areas of organizational structure; budgeting systems; enterprise computer systems; faculty and staff compensation; key position hires; and physical infrastructure improvements. He accomplished those challenges, by anyone’s metrics, to include a vision to transform the “Dixie Plantation” (17 miles from the main campus, and donated by Henry Dick in 1995) to a world-renown environmental sciences campus.

“Where do I go from here? I can’t tell you because I came in with no fixed agenda; I’m not going to push, but our near-term objective is to use focus groups to establish an umbrella strategic plan to help address today’s key issue of the privatization of public higher education institutions.” His vision is to avoid cutting programs and people and find a way to buffer against diminishing state funding. The quote [title] for today’s article came from Mr. Benson’s daughter after transferring from U. of Georgia.

Reported by Bill Crowe, Keyway Committee Chair