USC Politics: "SC Lawmakers Could Reject All USC Trustees..."

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Lawmakers could oust all the University of South Carolina trustees up for re-election

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We need a structural overhaul of our BOT. The idea that we need 1 BOT member for each judicial district is absurd. The idea that the members don't have to be USC grads is absurd. The idea that all BOT members have to be selected by the General Assembly is absurd. Clemson doesn't have these problems. We do.

Politicians have always held USC up. It's all about power.

I'm saying our BOT should be structured like Clemson's. Lessen the number of BOT members. Eliminate the 1 BOT member per judicial district requirement. Eliminate all of them being selected by the General Assembly. Only 6 of Clemson's 13 BOT members are selected by the legislature. The rest are chosen by the outgoing member. That's exactly what we should be doing.

USC Board Must Fix ‘Fundamentally Misguided Governance Culture,’ Consultant Says

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A consultant group hired by the University of South Carolina has urged the school’s board of trustees to move away from what the consultant calls a “political culture.”

The 33-page report released Friday by the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) found the USC Board of Trustees’ culture was tainted by politics, infighting, a lack of diversity and a lack of input by faculty and a disproportionate focus on the Columbia campus, according to the report.

“The consultants found a fundamentally misguided governance culture — one that is a consistent threat to the university system board’s ability to address strategic issues in an effective manner and to its reputation,” senior consultants Richard Legon and Ellen Chaffee wrote in the report’s executive summary.

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AGB presented the report to the board of trustees during its two-day retreat. During the first half of the day Friday, Legon and Chaffee hammered the board for the flaws they uncovered in the review. In the second half, the association and the board talked back and forth about possible solutions.

For example, it’s been no secret that USC’s board lacks racial, social and professional diversity. Of the 21 board members, only one is an African American. Throughout USC’s eight campuses, roughly one in six students is African American, according to USC’s website.

Since the legislature elects the lion’s share of board members, USC’s board could boost diversity by implementing term limits, adding non-trustees to committees and developing a strategic plan to boost diversity on USC’s board in the long term, Legon and Chaffee said at the meeting.

Eddie Floyd, who has been on USC’s board since 1982, said the original reason some board members were appointed by the governor was to help increase diversity. However, McMaster’s two appointees, and his temporary replacement for the late Bubba Fennell, are all white men.

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The problem with the board is not necessarily its bylaws, the report said, but its “political culture,” which is defined by party loyalty, personal influence, and board members being beholden to lawmakers who accept them to their positions. Instead of a political culture, the board should move to a “fiduciary governance” culture, in which “the best interests of the institutions are the standard that drives governance,” according to the report.

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