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1. Introduction Good afternoon. This is the fourth year that I have had the opportunity to speak at this event. Last year, I focused on the arrival of Boeing as a catalyst for spurring growth in our state’s economy and helping our state overcome its lingering isolationist tendencies. In 2008, I discussed the opportunities presented by Charleston’s geographic location within the Southeastern economic corridor known as the Piedmont Megalopolis, and I emphasized the importance of our port and the need for our business community to publicly support the port and its expansion plans. In 2009, I warned about the damage that’s being done to our economy by the continuing declines in state funding of public higher education. I explained how our colleges and universities are underfunded and underappreciated relative to universities in other states.

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In each case, I tried to use my then fresh eyes to give you a glimpse of the overall economy that you might not otherwise see because of your focus on the individual day-to-day business transactions that occur within the economy. Today, my purpose is to encourage you to bring fresh eyes to higher education and what it can do for you, your employees, and your bottom line. In doing this, I will narrow my focus to the public colleges and universities of Charleston. 2. Charleston’s Colleges and Universities It’s been said that every great city needs a great public university or college. In Charleston, we have four. The College of Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina, The Citadel, and Trident Technical College are among our region’s most important assets, making significant contributions to our economic, cultural, social, and physical health.

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The Lowcountry is also fortunate to have two excellent private institutions of higher education – Charleston Southern and the Charleston School of Law. But, as I said, I will limit my comments today to our public institutions. The roots of higher education in Charleston can be traced back to the founding of the College of Charleston in 1770. When the College graduated its first class of six students, the campus consisted of a couple of modest buildings: The President’s House and a barracks built in 1757 to house soldiers defending Charles Town against an expected attack by the French. Today, we educate more than 11,800 undergraduate and graduate students, employ approximately 3,000 faculty, staff, and student workers, and maintain academic and athletic facilities in Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, James Island, and Hollywood. After the College turned down the opportunity to create a medical program in the early 1820s, the Medical College of South Carolina was established in 1824. It had thirty students and a faculty of seven physicians. Today, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South. In addition to its main campus and hospitals in downtown Charleston, MUSC operates facilities and clinics throughout the Tri-county region. It educates and trains more than 3,000 students and residents. And its workforce of roughly 11,000 makes it the largest non-federal employer in the Charleston metro area. The Citadel was established in 1842 and graduated its first class of six cadets in 1846. The military college’s original campus was located on what today is Marion Square. In 1922, the campus was moved to its current location along the banks of the Ashley River, where it has become a quintessential Lowcountry landmark. Today, it educates about 2,000 undergraduate cadets and 1,000 graduate students, and employs about 750 faculty and staff. Trident Technical College is the youngster among us. Established in 1964, it has become an integral part of the Lowcountry economy. Trident has a workforce of more than 1,000 employees and has campuses and facilities in Charleston, North Charleston, Moncks Corner, Summerville, Hollywood, Saint George and Mount Pleasant. Within the state, Trident’s undergraduate enrollment of nearly 16,000 students is second only to the University of South Carolina. These four institutions have a total of nearly 50,000 students, faculty, and staff! While it’s not often recognized, Charleston is a college town! We have the equivalent of a USC or a University of Georgia or a University of North Carolina…. right here.

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Over the years, there actually have been proposals to merge two or three of our universities. But, of course, it never happened. While we all remain separate institutions, where there are opportunities to collaborate, we do so eagerly. For example, the College and The Citadel offer four joint master’s degree programs: English, History, Computer and Information Sciences, and Teaching in Middle Grades. Trident Tech is a major feeder school for the College. And in turn, the College is a key supplier of applicants to MUSC’s graduate and medical programs. As many as 20 percent of the students in certain MUSC programs are graduates of the College. Four years ago, the presidents of MUSC, The Citadel, and the College – Ray Greenberg, John Rosa, and I – began meeting quarterly to indentify ways to collaborate across institutions. One target was ways to cut costs and improve efficiency in our operations. By the way, President Mary Thornley of Trident Tech has recently joined our meetings. One example of our collaborative efforts is in the area of purchasing. We have begun pooling our buying power on contracts for computers, mobile phones, office supplies, and shipping services and expect to save $2.7 million over the next several years. Charleston without Higher Education Our public higher education institutions are so deeply woven into the economy of our city that I’m sure many of us take them for granted. But imagine Charleston without them. The impact on our local workforce alone would be catastrophic. Combined, the four institutions account for more than 15,000 full-time and part-time jobs. That’s the same number of jobs we lost from the closure of the Charleston Naval Station and Shipyard in 1996 –– and that was a serious economic blow by any measure. Think of how different our communities would look and feel.

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The College of Charleston’s main campus of 130 buildings is spread across 41 acres of some of the most expensive real estate in South Carolina. Eighty of our buildings are over 100 years old and several are over 200 years old, making the College the largest historic preservationist in Charleston. And what would King Street be like without the enormous economic boost that the campus community provides to its shops and restaurants? I think we know what it would be like, just think back to the 1960s and 70s.

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The College has always recognized the importance of its relationship with the City of Charleston. Our histories are intertwined and our futures are interdependent. The College’s 10-year Strategic Plan emphasizes our obligation to support and nurture the assets of Charleston that make our campus unique among every university in the world. Our power of place is so fundamental to our existence that we include it as one of our core values.

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The MUSC medical complex constitutes a city within a city. It hums around the clock and serves as a critically important hub for education, medical care, and research. As the state’s leading biomedical research institution, MUSC brought in more than $234 million in research funding in 2010. Each year, MUSC serves more than 830,000 patients. Imagine the gap that would exist in our region’s healthcare system without MUSC.

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Without The Citadel, countless Lowcountry charities and causes would go without the thousands of hours of community service that the military college’s cadets provide each year. Our nation’s armed forces would lose a key supplier of military talent. Evening students would lose their access to degree programs. And without the Corps of Cadets, Lesesne Gate, and the plebe system, there would be no Pat Conroy novels.

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Without Trident Tech, our local workforce would not be nearly as robust. Trident produces our nurses, police officers, mechanics, chefs, health care and dental care workers, childcare providers, photographers, graphic designers, cosmetologists, social workers, the list goes on and on. Our 4-year universities would lose a major supplier of transfer students. And, most notably, without Trident, there probably would be no Boeing. Think about that! No Boeing.

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Our local arts community and cultural offerings would be far less vibrant and diverse without the concerts, theater performances, exhibits, and athletic events that are synonymous with our colleges. The College of Charleston, for example, is woven into Charleston’s arts and music scene. Some of our music faculty are members of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and our campus provides several primary venues for Spoleto performances.

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Our universities draw visitors from all over the world: Parents visiting their students; professionals and academics attending conferences and symposiums; alumni returning for reunions and homecomings. They stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, and shop in our stores.

We bring high-profile speakers to our campuses: World leaders, U.S. presidents, entertainers, CEOs, and newsmakers. The College of Charleston and The Citadel have become key campaign stumps on the road to the White House. Our colleges and universities educate and supply the teachers who form the backbone of our public K-12 school systems. We partner with our school districts to improve literacy, develop new curricula, and provide pathways to college for under-represented populations. And our graduates become the parents who are likely to be involved in their children’s education and involved in our schools.

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Economic Development Ah, but there is a simpler way to think of our universities and colleges: They are economic engines. They are major purchasers of products and services. They buy computers, vehicles, office supplies, furniture, and food. They hire accounting, architectural, legal, cleaning, and catering services. They are real estate developers. They build dormitories, classroom and office buildings, libraries, museums, theaters, athletic facilities, and parking garages – all of which require building supplies and provide jobs for engineers, contractors, and construction workers. They seek out and attract philanthropic support, federal grants, corporate and foundation grants – bringing millions of dollars into our community. They help to develop and improve the quality of the workforce, and that has yielded a cluster of highly talented, productive people in and around Charleston. In South Carolina, 23.7 percent of the adult population holds at least a bachelor’s degree. But in Charleston County, it’s 37 percent. There has been study after study measuring the economic impact of our universities on the local and state economies. A 2007 study conducted by College of Charleston economist Frank Hefner, who you just heard from, estimated MUSC’s annual economic impact at $2.3 billion. A study that same year conducted by the College’s Riley Center for Livable Communities estimated that the College of Charleston’s annual economic impact in Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester counties at $648 million. And our new governor understands this. She gets it! Governor Nikki Haley has met with all our public university presidents and board chairs twice since being inaugurated. And we meet with her again next month. She is proposing that the state change its funding mechanism for higher education. She would like the funding to be dependent on the performance of our universities rather than the effectiveness of their lobbying, or the number of alumni in the legislature, or the availability of football tickets. She has proposed four performance measures: enrollment rates for in-state students, graduation rates, placement into jobs in South Carolina, and most significantly for today’s topic, contributions to the economic development of the state. This is both recognition of our universities’ historic contributions to economic growth, and a call for us to do even more going forward. To the extent that we do, according to her funding plan, state dollars would flow to support our economic development activities.

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Much as you incentivize your employees, she wants to incentivize our involvement in economic development. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have a capitalist in the Governor's mansion! How We Can Help You So, even before we begin to crank up our economic development engine to new levels at the governors urging, every person in this room, every business or organization represented here today has benefited in one way or another from the economic development activities of Charleston’s colleges and universities. In many cases, you’ve benefited indirectly without doing much of anything yourself. Now, consider this: What if you proactively reached out and asked for assistance or took advantage of the services offered by one or more of our colleges and universities? The benefits to the culture of your organization and to your bottom line could be dramatic. Here’s what we can do with you or for you – this is just a partial list of the possibilities. Latch on to one of these ideas and call us!

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Together we can develop your long-run talent pool. Yes, we do that now. But working together we can do it better! You can work with us by joining an advisory board or a steering committee. Together we can develop the degree programs and curricula that benefit your organization and your industry.

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You can fill your short-term talent needs by developing an internship program with one of our institutions. Or, hiring part-time student workers. Or, working with one of our Career and Placement Centers to identify graduating or even alumni talent. Or, grab the attention of our students by sponsoring a student event or being a guest speaker in a class.

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We can assist in the professional development of your employees in at least eight different ways. Encourage your employees to teach a course at a university or be a guest speaker or serve as an executive-in-residence for, say, a week each semester. The others, from executive education to customized workshops to degree programs are self-explanatory.

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And, by the way, our faculty don’t just teach. They are experts in their fields with research skills that can solve problems and lead to innovative breakthroughs in science and technology. So sponsor faculty research and/or help us commercialize our innovations and creativity. Or, use our talented students to solve your problems, do your market research, or enhance your information systems. This can be done thru course-related field projects or internships.

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Use our state-of-the-art facilities for retreats or conferences or training. And let us help you organize and plan the event. We’ll also gladly set up campus tours for your employees and visitors.

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Finally, connect with the younger generation in Charleston thru ads in our newspapers, sponsorships of student events, and signage at athletic venues. How do you get started with any of the above? Simply call the President’s office at any or all of our four institutions. Those are your gateways to professional development and improvement in your bottom line! 3. Conclusion The opportunities for partnering with our institutions are limitless. If it fits our academic missions, is legal, and helps our economy in some way, there’s a good chance we can collaborate. But make no mistake, job one at our universities and colleges is still and will remain the education of our students –– but that can be done in the context of the economic and social development of the Lowcountry.

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The takeaway today is this: The business of our colleges and universities goes well beyond traditional education. We are also buyers, builders, and boosters of your bottom line.