USCA chancellor recounts growth of the university

Chancellor Tom Hallman, pictured on the Pickens-Salley House at USC Aiken, was the guest speaker at January’s Senior Men’s Club of Aiken meeting.

In the January meeting with the Senior Men's Club of Aiken, held at Houndslake Country Club, Dr. Thomas Hallman recalled in dramatic fashion the amazing growth experienced by USC Aiken since the college opened 50 years ago.

From a very humble beginning at Banksia in 1961 (now the Aiken County Historical Museum), USCA boasted just one secretary and three faculty members. Today USCA has 340 faculty and staff and also another 180 part-time employees.

In the late 1960s, the college moved to the present location with a 144-acre campus. The first building on the new campus was the Robert E. Penland Administration Building, which opened in 1971.

In 1995, the campus was enlarged to a total of 453 acres for additional expansion by donation/purchase of land from the Graniteville Co.

The modern Roberto Hernandez baseball stadium, dedicated in 2003, and the USCA Convocation Center, dedicated in 2007 on the other side of the Robert Bell Parkway, are the beginnings of many new facilities to be added in the future.

Hallman stated the next major capital expansion will be a pedestrian bridge joining the two parts of the campus. All of the land of the college was originally owned by the Graniteville Co.

Hallman emphasized that the college is irrevocably tied to the community, a community which has been very supportive over the past 50 years.

USCA's students represent 20 states, 85 percent are full-time students, and 85 percent is younger than 25. About 50 international students, mostly athletes, are included in the 3,300 presently attending.

Hallman was especially proud to report that, for the past 14 years, U.S. News and World Report has placed USCA among the top three public comprehensive colleges in the Southeast.

Hallman has announced that he will retire in June after spending most of his career in education. His professional resume includes time spent as a high school teacher and coach, executive director of a school-to-work initiative and more than 30 years of work in public higher education in South Carolina.

His formal education includes a Bachelor of Arts in political science from The Citadel in 1969, a Master of Education from The Citadel and a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of South Carolina in Columbia in 1993.

Since 1983, he has worked in various administrative roles at USC Aiken, before being named chancellor in 2001.

The Senior Men's Club of Aiken meets at noon on the third Wednesday of the month at Houndslake Country Club.

For information about club membership, call 226-0338.

The speaker for the February meeting will be Whit Gibbons of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, and his topic will be "The History of SREL: Six Decades of Research, Environmental Education and Wildlife Protection."