2025 State of the University Address

September 17, 2025

Introduction of President Amiridis by SGA President Courtney Tkacs:

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming to the 2025 State of the University address.

My name is Courtney Tkacs. I am a senior in the Honors College at USC, majoring in political science and public health, and I serve as president of the USC Student Government Association.  

It is my honor today to introduce President Michael Amiridis to deliver his 2025 State of the University address at USC.  

Michael Amiridis became the University of South Carolina’s 30th president three years ago, on July 1, 2022. Today marks his third State of the University address.

Today, the president will reflect on some of the highlights of the past year and share insights about the future of our university.

Please join me in welcoming President Michael Amiridis to the podium for this special occasion.

 

2025 State of the University remarks by President Michael Amiridis:

Thank you, Courtney, for your very kind remarks.  

Courtney and her fellow Student Government leaders have already been hard at work in these early weeks of the new semester. I want you to know that we very much appreciate your great leadership on campus and beyond the campus as well.

Good morning to all of you, welcome, and thank you for being here. It is a privilege for me to work with every one of you in support of the success of our university.

I want to recognize and thank the members of our Board of Trustees who are joining us this morning, and the Chairman of the Board, Thad Westbrook, as well as the members of the Board of Visitors. Over the past three years, we have worked diligently together to advance our ambitious goals for USC. Your dedication to our university has provided vital support at every step. And I’m delighted to see our mayor here as well, and I know how much he is engaged with our university.

On countless occasions, I have stood before you and shared the words contained in our great seal, "Learning humanizes character and does not permit it to be cruel." 

We are living in a time when differences of opinion become divisions – divisions among groups, among colleagues, among friends, even among family members – and, in some cases, tragically lead to violence and bloodshed.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk on a university campus, as well as other terrible events in recent months, in different parts of our country, are never justifiable in our society.

As an academic community, we are obligated to continue the work of humanizing character, bridging our differences and not permitting cruelty; to continue investing in transformative research that drives innovation and improves the quality of life for all; and to continue engagement with our communities, focusing on what unites us as fellow citizens, and building a stronger South Carolina and a stronger society. This is how we should be living our mission and amplifying our impact.

You have also heard me talking about our university’s momentum during a challenging era for higher education. This is still true, despite the increase in the challenges, since we operate in a complex landscape that seems to be evolving daily.

But our momentum not only keeps us moving forward; it also gives us more strength, and our energy drives us to ever greater success. This is our new standard, and this is the state of our university in 2025.

We are achieving more, we are growing our impact, we are setting new records, and – most importantly – we are delivering better outcomes for our students and for our state.

The strength of our momentum comes from working together. The success of our university is not the work of a few individuals, but of our entire community.  

In the next few minutes, we will take a look at what we have accomplished this past year.

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I like to start by talking about some new faces who have joined my cabinet in the past year, as well as some familiar faces who have taken on new leadership roles at USC. These individuals are helping to shape Carolina’s future.

Dan Dillon became the Vice President for Marketing last November.  During this presentation, I will share with you a video he and his group have provided for the beginning of a new USC marketing campaign!

Jeremiah Donati came to USC in January of this year as our new Athletics Director. Just a few weeks ago, Jeremiah notched a great win by finalizing a new athletics agreement with Nike. But don’t expect any Nike shirts today; you will have to wait until next summer.

Anna Edwards became my new Chief of Staff in January. Anna has been a cornerstone in our Division of Student Affairs and Academic Success for two decades. After 20 years in Student Affairs, she has seen everything and handled everything!

Mary Anne Fitzpatrick is no stranger to many of you, but as of August 11, she has a new role. Mary Anne has great academic experience in many administrative leadership roles, and she has now started a two-year appointment as Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.

Craig Wilson is the newest face to join our leadership team.  He is the new Chancellor of Palmetto College, and he started just one week ago.

And finally, Sarah Kirby will join us next week as our first Associate Vice President for Clinical Affairs, to oversee the planning, design and execution of USC’s new neurological and rehabilitation hospital and clinics. This is probably the most important project in our recent history, and we are excited to have Sarah’s experienced leadership in this key position.

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The past year has been a great one for record-setting achievements across the university – in enrollment, in research, in fundraising, and in legislative support, and in many other areas.

Let’s start with our students. First, we set a new record with applications for admission. This is very important, because this number tells us how well our message is reaching prospective students.

This year, 60,000 students submitted applications for admission. Sixty thousand. This is an increase of 13 percent from the previous year and 43 percent since 2022.  

Applications increased from South Carolina residents and from out-of-state students at roughly the same percentages. I want to thank the guru of Enrollment, Scott Verzyl, and his team for their excellent work!

These prospective students want to come here because we have a nationally acclaimed first-year student experience, well-known and top-ranked academic programs, and growing opportunities for research, internships and career-building skills.  

Our facilities, a great Greek life on campus (and maybe a Greek president and first lady), our athletics, our Southern hospitality, and even our weather (they don’t stay here in the summer!) – all of these play a role as well.

You may know that the number of high school graduates will start decreasing next year and will reduce the nation’s college applicant pool. Many higher education institutions across the country are worried about this change. But in South Carolina and beyond, the brand of USC is very strong. It’s becoming stronger every year. We have established a great reputation, and all indicators suggest that we will go against the trend.  

I would also like to emphasize that South Carolina students have priority access to the state’s flagship university. New initiatives have made it possible for us to admit, enroll and award degrees to more South Carolinians than ever before in our history.  

In the fall of 2023, we began guaranteeing admission to South Carolina students in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. In two years, we have had a 20 percent increase in the freshman class from this category. What this says to me is that the best South Carolina high school graduates are more and more choosing USC.

And we are not just recruiting and enrolling South Carolinians. We also graduate more South Carolinians from the entire state, including small towns and rural areas. This is a critical component of our mission, because we are the university for the entire state of South Carolina!

We’re also making college more affordable for all South Carolinians. With the continuous support of the General Assembly and Governor McMaster, we have been able to hold in-state tuition at exactly the same level for seven years in a row.  

During this seven-year period, the inflation has been approximately 30 percent. With this in mind, next time you hear about the increased cost of higher education, please remember that we have effectively decreased the cost of higher education here.  

We are also in the second year of offering the USC Commitment, which covers the cost of tuition and fees for South Carolina students who come from lower income families and graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class. We had 100 of them in the freshman class this year!

After the record-breaking numbers of applications, it is no surprise that our enrollment numbers also reached new highs. We enrolled a record-setting 7,800 freshmen, and for the first time, enrollment crossed the 40,000 mark, with 40,200 students on campus this fall.  

We are growing – we are growing to meet the specific needs of our growing state and to fulfill our educational mission. And we are in the right position to balance this well with strong resources.

As a result of our growth, last May we awarded a record 6,062 degrees, and we had to add an extra ceremony to our spring commencement exercises. That was a lot of hands to shake, but frankly, I love it! I enjoy it, and I am proud of each and every one of these graduates.

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Two months after I became president in 2022, we held the first Imagine Carolina brainstorming retreat, with hundreds of students who volunteered their ideas to improve the student experience on campus. It is time for a second retreat after three years, and we will do this again this coming Sunday.

Over the last three years, we have taken action on many of our students’ suggestions.

We significantly improved student advising, which they told us three years ago was a priority. Three years later, with our new centralized advising system, created by the Office of the Provost, we are recognized as a national leader in this area. Thirty other universities have consulted with us because of our success with the new advising model we have implemented. Overall, student satisfaction with advising has climbed to 85 percent, with improvement in all areas of advising: academic guidance, experiential learning and career readiness.

We have also made significant headway in improving Wi-Fi on campus. Vice President Brice Bible and the Division of IT have greatly improved the wireless coverage in the Thomas Cooper and Hollings libraries, the Russell House, and Close-Hipp and Gambrell. And more classrooms and student spaces will be upgraded during this academic year.

We have also increased the resources for mental and physical health – which was another very important need highlighted by the students. We adopted an integrated care model with Student Health Services and Counseling and provided support in more than 50,000 student appointments last year. And Campus Recreation – which actually needs another facility, with the number of students we have – recorded nearly 750,000 student engagements last year with physical health, activity and well-being opportunities.

And then there’s parking. Parking is always a challenge in an urban environment, but even there, we are making some gains everywhere we can. For example, we installed a new parking guidance system in the Bull Street Garage, with real-time guidance to open spaces – and reminders also of where you parked! – through a new app. And we have expanded services, such as night shuttles, and increased the number of available parking permits.  

And the list goes on. But I want to confirm that our priorities continue to be consistent with the needs of our students, and I look forward to hearing from them on Sunday! I want to thank Vice President Rex Tolliver and the Student Affairs Division for the outstanding support they provide to our students.

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Another issue we are focusing on is Artificial Intelligence. This is going to provide an opportunity not only for our students, but also for our faculty and staff. AI is increasingly playing a role in all of our lives, and this is just the beginning. We want everyone to have the opportunity to learn more about how this new set of tools can be used effectively in their work. One of our most accomplished alumni, Darla Moore, was at the Business School on Monday, and she made a very similar case to our students – much more elegantly than me today.

In August, we became the first campus in the state to offer free enterprise access to ChatGPT for our entire university community. Already, many of you are finding success with this tool, while others are learning at this point.  

We are excited about the possibilities. We are learning and adapting for the future, and we are positioned to be a leader among our national peers for the use of AI on campus.

You may have heard me talk about the importance of internships in preparing our students for their transition from degree to career. With the financial support of our state, our South Carolina Internship Program is thriving.  

In the third year of this program, we are expanding in-state internships in high-demand industries, in an effort to retain USC graduates in our state after graduation. To date, approximately 1,300 student applications have been approved, and more than $3.6 million has been awarded to fund internships at more than 400 businesses and organizations across our state.  

This fall, we added a fifth option to the list of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Certificates that we started two years ago. It should be no surprise that the newest certificate focuses on AI Literacy, based on what I said just a few minutes ago. Every one of these certificates addresses the skills that employers nationwide are looking for, and we are enabling our students to gain these skills while, at the same time, they are completing their degrees. In 2023, we started with 25 students enrolling in one of the certificates, and this fall, nearly 1,200 students are taking advantage of these opportunities. And this does not count the ones that have already graduated.

Finally, we launched this past year a First-Generation Center and Living and Learning Community in Maxcy College, under the leadership and great work of the Office of the Provost. We have already received very positive feedback from the students, and the initial data we have indicate significant academic improvement among the students who are using the support provided by this Center.  

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We are also very proud of our student-athletes. Once again, they had a great year.

Our stellar Women’s Basketball Team and the world-renowned Coach Dawn Staley won their third straight SEC championship, and they reached the NCAA Final Four for the fifth consecutive year!

But it was not only Coach Staley’s program that won an SEC championship. For the second year in school history, the Gamecocks won three SEC Championships in a single season, with the equestrian and women’s golf teams bringing home titles as well.

At the same time, the football team and the SEC Coach of the Year Shane Beamer came very close to the College Football Playoff. And there is still hope for this year – don’t give up! And the softball team and their National Coach of the Year, Ashley Chastain Woodard, were so close to a trip to Oklahoma.

But the best accomplishment of our Athletics department is that our student-athletes have completed 37 straight semesters with an average GPA above 3.0 and ranked in the top three in our conference – and, by the way, our conference includes 5 AAU schools. This is what student-athletes means!

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None of these efforts to support our students could succeed without the hard work of our faculty and staff. To continue our momentum and growth, it is critical to support our faculty. We committed to increasing the size of our faculty through a hiring initiative that started two years ago; 162 new faculty have joined our institution since August 2024. So, in a full year, we had 162 new faculty.

At a time, when some other universities are freezing new hires or even eliminating some positions, we are attracting excellent colleagues at all ranks from across the country.

Many of our individual faculty members were recognized for their achievements during the past year. Unfortunately, I cannot list them all, but I want to highlight a few.

Jessica Barnes, associate professor in the Department of Geography and School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment, was awarded a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship — this is one of the nation’s most prestigious honors for scholars, artists and scientists. Her fellowship will support her research about the effects of air pollution, and specifically air pollution in London.

Nursing professors Demetrius Abshire, Carolyn Harmon, Sheryl Mitchell and Malissa Mulkey were inducted into the American Academy of Nursing. This prestigious honor recognizes their contributions to nursing science, education, leadership and health policy.

Scott Weiss, music professor and director of orchestras at USC, received the South Carolina Order of the Palmetto, the highest civilian honor awarded to South Carolinians by the governor, for extraordinary achievements, contributions and service.

Greg Carbone, a professor of geography, was named the Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year, USC’s most prestigious undergraduate teaching award. He is recognized for his dynamic and innovative teaching methods.

Guoan Wang, professor of electrical engineering, was elected as a 2024 National Academy of Inventors fellow, the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors.

And Peiyin Hung, professor of health sciences policy and management, received the 2025 Outstanding Researcher Award from the National Rural Health Association.

These awards are great indicators not only for these individuals, but for the quality of our faculty!  

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We had a great year in research, setting a new record for a third year in a row. USC attracted $323 million in sponsored awards during the last fiscal year, supporting projects in critical areas in the STEM fields.  

Over the past three years, we have increased our sponsored awards by 36 percent.

The numbers indicate that the university is doing very well in a shifting and uncertain funding environment. And we are also ensuring that our focus does not waver as we continue groundbreaking research and projects that make a tangible difference for South Carolinians.

One of these awards was to our College of Education focusing on “Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.” This project, led by principal investigator Ali Brian, is funded by $5 million from the U.S. Department of Education. With this grant, USC is leading a seven-year, statewide effort to help more than 21,000 South Carolina middle and high school students from low-income backgrounds as they prepare for in college.  

This project provides tutoring, mentoring, summer bridge programs, financial aid guidance and more to ensure that these students have the skills and the support to thrive in college and beyond.  

Another research project with a strong South Carolina and national impact is being led by Benjamin Jackson, a professor of orthopedic surgery at our School of Medicine in Columbia.  

His research is funded with $850,000 from the U.S. Army and is conducted at Fort Jackson. It focuses on a new treatment for 170 soldiers who have been diagnosed with tibial stress fractures, a common and debilitating injury for basic trainees and also infantry soldiers.  

Without effective treatment, soldiers lose time on duty, delay completion of their training, and even face medical discharge. The new treatment Dr. Jackson is studying involves the use of a bone-building medication with the potential to significantly reduce the recovery times.

Dr. Lisa Fitton from the Arnold School of Public Health received a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the Diagnostic Identification of Language and Reading Disorders Among Bilingual Learners. This project aims to improve how schools identify language and reading disorders among young bilingual children, particularly, in this case, Spanish-English learners.  

Currently, these students are often misdiagnosed or overlooked.  Dr. Fitton’s research aims to establish accurate, evidence-based diagnostic tools to ensure that these students get the right support early and – as a result – improve literacy outcomes and reduce reading difficulties and sometimes school dropout.

And, finally, our Carolina Institute for Battery Innovation in the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing, has been awarded a total of $25.5 million in federal and state funding to date. This institute is focused on advancing grid-scale battery technologies and supporting their commercialization.  

USC is becoming a global leader in this area. I saw a ranking recently from a specialty magazine in this area, and they had us in the top three in the world. It’s good to see us ahead of MIT! Led by chemical engineering professor Bill Mustain, the research emphasizes materials innovation, component testing and grid integration.  

Within the next 18 months, the Institute plans to open the first phase of a new facility on Whaley Street, as a dedicated home for research, manufacturing, teaching and partnerships, which is important, with industries that will send their researchers to work on our campus.

I want to thank our Vice President for Research, Julius Fridriksson, and his team for their ongoing efforts and investment in faculty and infrastructure, to enhance our competitive edge in research. The support from this office is also helping to increase our grant submissions and to improve the overall quality and competitiveness of these submissions that we send.

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You may have heard that USC was named one of the Best Employers in our State for 2025 by Forbes. We depend on our dedicated staff members to achieve everything we are talking about today! And we have a great Staff Senate to represent the interests of our staff and to keep the lines of communication open with the university leaders. We celebrated our second annual Staff Appreciation Day in May. And this past year we also extended the Staff Excellence Awards.  Ten outstanding staff members received the inaugural awards last spring. We really celebrated what they have achieved.

We are also seeing impressive results across campus thanks to our staff engagement with the Office of Organizational Excellence, led by Stacey Bradley and her group.  

We established this office two years ago to improve service delivery and operational efficiency. More than 50 departments have taken advantage of this resource. Not only we are seeing improvements in time saved, quality of service and cost efficiency, but we are also attracting national attention as a model for other universities. And that’s the second time I am saying we are becoming a model for other universities!

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I already mentioned our plans for a new clinical neurological hospital and rehabilitation center.  This is a giant step forward for our university and our state. Our vision is to create South Carolina's first stand-alone, comprehensive medical facility – a facility which specializes entirely in the integrated care of patients with brain and nervous system illnesses; a world-class facility for the 21st century, the first of its kind in the Southeast.  

The need for this facility was immediately recognized by our state’s leaders when we asked for their support. We are in full agreement that we cannot accept our state’s current position among the worst in the country for death rates from brain trauma and stroke, as well as being in the bottom five states as a neurology desert. 

As the flagship university of the state, we have the obligation to step in and address this problem. With robust support from our legislature, our governor and the state Department of Health and Human Services, we will provide critical neurological care, advanced neurosurgery, innovative treatment and research, and on-site rehabilitation. We have the vision, and we can attract the expertise needed, and I hope you will be as excited as I am to watch this take shape and transform the quality of life in our state.  

This facility will also engage and elevate all our Health Sciences colleges, as should be expected for an academic health care system. And finally, we will work to further strengthen our relationships with the other hospitals in our area, with whom we have been good partners for many, many years.

Another brand-new initiative taking shape on our USC campus right now is the Center for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse, which was approved by our Trustees last June and held their first event last Friday. Since today is Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, this is the perfect time to talk about it! This center will explore and teach core elements of our civic life and responsibilities as Americans, and will promote bipartisan discussion, which is not very common these days.  

If you missed last Friday’s excellent event – and I missed it, because we had thousands of parents that evening – there are lectures planned for tonight and tomorrow at the Law School in honor of today’s federal holiday.

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We cannot continue to achieve our goals without an improved infrastructure. Unless you have driven by the BullStreet District lately, most of you have probably not seen the cranes and the construction crews working at our new Health Sciences Campus.  

But you will have the opportunity to see them soon on our main campus, as our master plan moves forward with more projects in the coming year.

We have already completed a few smaller projects, just in time for the fall semester.

In August, we held a ribbon-cutting for the Garnet Station dining area on the first floor of the Russell House, and it has already become a popular destination for the students at the center of the campus. One of the things our students asked for, during Imagine Carolina in 2022, was to improve the dining and seating options at our student union, and the Garnet Station accomplishes part of this. With the new facility, we served 17 percent more meals on the first day of class compared to the same day last year, which is great progress.

We also opened a new pedestrian bridge over Wheat Street, making the walk from the South Quad to the main campus – and there’s a lot of traffic there – not only a little shorter, but more importantly, safer.

The East Tower of Science and Technology Building was completed in time for the Fall semester. We’ve added new classrooms, labs – all of them state of the art – and study spaces to complete the work on this building at the intersection of Main and Greene streets.

Finally, the Thornwell residence hall renovations will be completed in October. This will allow us to start moving students from McBryde to this modernized building right next to the Horseshoe.

As I mentioned before, the cranes and hard hats are very visible at the Health Sciences Campus.  Last February, we broke ground for our new School of Medicine. Seven months later, you can see that several floors of the framework are in place, and the structure is already a visible feature of the skyline. Everything is on schedule, and we expect our School of Medicine to move there in the fall of 2027.

Nearby, renovations are also progressing steadily at the 15 Med Park building that will house our USC Brain Health Center, which we are expecting to open to patients this coming spring. This building will be equipped to offer advanced diagnostics, treatment and research. It will also serve as the hub for our statewide Brain Health Network, which has already logged more than 1,000 patient visits at the first four clinics we opened this year in underserved communities across South Carolina.

These are the projects under construction today, but there is much more to come!

I mentioned we will be moving students out of their temporary housing assignments in McBryde this fall. With that move, McBryde will have served its final students. We’re very excited about it, by the way! We will demolish this entire structure in the spring and replace it with a modern, 900-student-beds residence hall.

Just across Sumter Street from McBryde is our Honors College residence hall. We will finally build the third wing of this hall, adding another much-needed 180 beds.

Together, these two projects on opposite sides of Sumter Street will allow us to house more than 1,000 students closer to the geographic core of our campus. Both projects are due to begin construction next summer – and demolition in the spring – and will be completed for the fall of 2028.

Speaking of the heart of campus, we have work to do at the Thomas Cooper Library.  Renovations will begin there next year and will be completed in phases over multiple years, while the building remains in use. And that’s a difficult project. Our goal is to replace aging electrical and mechanical systems, but also to transform the library’s shared spaces into more modernized and usable destinations where students can study and they can interact. If you go there on a weekday evening, you will see immediately the need for these kinds of spaces. 

Having more students living near our historic core means we need to revitalize and redesign some of our historic buildings in the Horseshoe and Gibbes Greene. McKissick is a perfect example. This is the building that all prospective students go through when they visit, but only very few go back once they enroll. We are now in the design phase to reimagine this building, and you can see how vital and attractive it can become. We expect to start renovation in 2027. 

We are also in the process of selecting an architect to design another important new building, the STEM Innovation and Research Building, which will be at the corner of Main and Greene, in front of the Science and Technology Building. This fits with our Master Plan goal to expand and improve our campus’ research footprint, especially for interdisciplinary teams. But it’s also very important to create a new Innovation Center, bringing together students and faculty from different backgrounds – something that we don’t have right now.

And, finally, we have plans to create more recreational spaces behind 300 Main Street and improve the recreational fields off Bluff Road. This project should begin next summer and be ready for students to use next fall.

Executive Vice President Ed Walton and our USC architect Derek Gruner and their excellent teams have been very busy during the last two years, preparing for all of this, and they will be even busier in the next years. I want to thank them for these great improvements, but also for the work of the financial group, which secures the funding needed. Without money, we can’t do anything.

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In philanthropic circles, donors are also noticing that USC is a great investment. We have just witnessed, by far, the most successful fundraising year in university history, with $260 million in private support during fiscal year 2025 – or, as our Vice President for Development, Michelle Dodenhoff, likes to describe it, more than a quarter of a billion dollars! It takes a great effort and a great Development group to reach such an achievement. 

In April, we celebrated the largest single gift in the history of our university — $75 million from alumnus Peter McCausland, his wife, Bonnie, and The McCausland Foundation. 

This gift will transform the College of Arts and Sciences. In recognition, the college has been named the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. This also marked the naming of three USC Colleges in less than 2 years – following the Joseph F. Rice School of Law and the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing. These are savvy and very successful professionals who have confidence in USC as a good investment and who want their names affiliated with our university. And more is coming, by the way.

But it was not only multimillion-dollar gifts that helped achieve this milestone fundraising year. Among those giving to USC were more than 41,000 donors who want to be a part of our forward momentum. This includes over 18,000 alumni, more than 10,000 first-time contributors, and a record of $43.5 million in new corporate and foundation commitments.

Several of our colleges and units across campus also had cause to celebrate donor gifts last year.

The School of Medicine Columbia received its largest-ever gift – an anonymous $23.5 million donation – don’t ask me; I don’t know who these people were! – to support interdisciplinary research, simulation-based learning and scholarships. 

The Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing announced a gift to establish the new Dr. Barbara Hickman Whye Innovation, Inclusion and Impact Center, focused on expanding access to engineering and computing careers.

And finally, the largest single gift in the history of Athletics, from Blanchard Machinery, which is led by two alumni, Boyd and Rosier Blanchard. 

We also experienced another strong year with the performance of our investments at our USC Foundations, under the leadership of Jason Caskey. Coupled with significant donor support, this led to an endowment of $1.1 billion, the highest in the university’s history and the first time that we have exceeded the $1 billion mark at the end of the fiscal year.

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As I mentioned earlier, we have also received great financial support from Governor McMaster and the General Assembly.

A significant portion of this historic level support is funding for the new hospital and the brain health network, the tuition mitigation, student internships, energy innovation and faculty hiring in critical areas. These are all core components of our mission to serve South Carolina, and our government relationships group is very effective communicating this message again and again and again!

The newest economic impact study, released this year, shows a $7.4 billion annual impact on the economy of our state – $7.4 billion. We are educating a highly skilled workforce; we are leading in innovative research, which supports business, industry and health care; we are creating jobs; and we are contributing to the tax base. It is clear that the University of South Carolina is a great investment for the state of South Carolina. And we are communicating this – and please communicate this, every one of you!

An example of this is the South Carolina APEX Accelerator, which is part of USC’s Office of Economic Engagement led by Dean Steve Cutler. This office is dedicated to building partnerships that are driving economic and workforce development. The Accelerator makes connections among our university, South Carolina businesses and the government, helping these businesses to navigate and secure federal contracts. Just to give you an example: Over the past year, we assisted more than 2,200 small businesses – located in all 46 counties of South Carolina – to obtain $537 million in Defense department contracts and subcontracts.  

And this is just one example of how USC fosters economic growth statewide.

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All right, I promised you a video this morning! And since no one has left yet, the time has come.  Our Vice President for Marketing, Dan Dillon, and his Brand Collaborative team have been working to launch a new brand campaign, and the first ad in this campaign aired last Saturday.

In case you missed it, let’s watch it together now. {30-second video}

The goal of this campaign is to highlight our alumni and how they discovered who they are, and what they were meant to do, while attending the University of South Carolina.

You may also have seen ads highlighting the value and impact of our university, for the benefit of South Carolina and its citizens. This perspective is reflected in the messaging of that campaign, which correctly describes USC as “the University FOR South Carolina.”

Let’s take a look at this sample video as well. {30-second video}

For those of you who haven’t seen your college in this one, you will see it – there are many others! Keep an eye out for these campaigns as we share our unique story with our key audiences.

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I hope you share my pride in the work we have done together over the past year, and I hope what you have heard this morning will energize you for the road ahead. It’s not an easy road ahead, but we are doing great.

Before we close, I want to say a special thank you to our Carolina Band for providing the music for us this morning. And they will put the final touch on our event with the Alma Mater in just a moment, after Courtney’s closing remarks.

I know many of us shared the pride of seeing our Carolina Band perform last November in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, under – let’s put it this way – very challenging weather conditions. They represented our university beautifully, in front of a nationwide audience with 17 millions of viewers!  

I also want to thank the many individuals who worked on organizing and executing today’s event.

Thank you, also, to everyone who came to celebrate what we have accomplished over the past year.  

And remember: We are ready to tackle the next challenges and make our vision a reality.

Forever to thee!