2025 Report from the Board Chair

February 11, 2026

To Members of the University of South Carolina Community:

The University of South Carolina Board of Trustees celebrates a record-breaking 2025 at the state’s flagship institution of higher education.

The University FOR South Carolina is enjoying new high marks in applications, enrollment, fundraising, research and state government investment.

Due to conservative budgeting practices and state support, the university remains financially strong and stable, so that we can offer an affordable, high-quality education to more South Carolinians than ever before. The University of South Carolina is doing this while maintaining more nationally ranked academic programs than any other institution in the state, investing in high-demand majors and helping students gain internships in critical-need fields.

 We also are supporting a healthier South Carolina with efforts to open the state’s first standalone neurological hospital and rehabilitation center, expand brain health clinics across South Carolina, launch a Brain Health Center in 2026, and educate an increasing number of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals.

Here are some of the accomplishments recorded by the university in 2025 that will help transform the lives of all South Carolinians.

USC set several records this year in enrollment, research impact, and state and donor investment to help ensure the state flagship remains in good fiscal health and boosts its educational and research missions. 

• Fundraising: Securing $259.7 million in private support, nearly double the original goal of $140 million.
• Research: Attracting $323 million in sponsored awards for a record third straight year
• Enrollment: More than 7,800 new freshmen arrived at USC Columbia for the fall 2025 semester, boosting the overall student body past 40,000 for the first time.
• State government investment: The South Carolina General Assembly invested more than $450 million across the USC System’s eight institutions with support of bold advancements in engineering, neurological care, nursing, pharmacy, law, teacher education and student internships.

Trustees supported the university in accomplishing so much in 2025 and celebrated many successes of the USC community:

• Approving a state budget request for 2026-27 that freezes tuition for in-state students for an eighth straight year in Columbia and ninth straight year on system campuses, expands the number of medical school students, helps recruit a world-class medical team for the planned neurological hospital and rehabilitation center, and supports the development of the new Center for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse.

• Accepting the largest single gift in university history — $75 million from Bonnie and alumnus Peter McCausland and The McCausland Foundation to name and transform the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. The board also accepted an anonymous $23.5 million gift for the School of Medicine Columbia.

• Naming of the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management as the David and Nicole Tepper Department of Sport and Entertainment Management, recognizing a transformative gift of $5 million from The David and Nicole Tepper Foundation.

• Creating the Center for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse to promote broad understanding of the core ideals and values that have shaped American government and history just in time to help celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary.

• Offering free AI tools to all students, faculty and staff in partnership with OpenAI, becoming the first in the state to offer free enterprise access to ChatGPT. 

• Adopting a statement of principles regarding use of AI for education and university operations.

• Working with the Commission for Public Higher Education, a consortium of higher education systems from several states offering a new accreditation model that will focus on academic excellence, student outcomes, process efficiency and the pursuit of quality assurance for public postsecondary education. USC Board Secretary Cameron Howell is working as a special advisor to the commission. University Organizational Excellence Officer Stacey Bradley was approved as interim secretary. 

• Approving the next step of the Williams-Brice Stadium Reimagined project with additional premium areas, student section upgrades, locker room renovations, concourse improvements including concessions and restrooms, and back-of-house additions to improve service to fans in the stadium.

• Advancing facilities projects, including major enhancements to the core of USC’s historic campus in Columbia with the Honors College residence hall wing, new residence hall at the McBryde location, and renovations to McKissick building, Barnwell College, Thomas Cooper Library and Booker T. Washington.

• Applauding meaningful completed capital projects on USC’s system campuses, including USC Upstate’s Learning Commons (library expansion and collaborative-learning building), USC Beaufort’s library renovations, USC Aiken’s Student Success Center, and USC Union’s main building renovations.

• Touring USC Aiken’s Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, an innovation hub for fostering modern industrial practices, advancing new technologies, and training the future manufacturing workforce, developed in conjunction with the Savannah River National Laboratory.

• Attending the groundbreaking for the new School of Medicine Columbia, a cutting-edge, 300,000-square-foot-plus medical education and research facility that will be part of USC’s transformative Health Sciences Campus.

• Supporting the opening of USC's Brain Health clinic in Orangeburg, the seventh clinic to expand neurological care across the state, and the awarding of a $1 million grant by the Duke Endowment to fund three new Brain Health clinics.

• Attending the opening of Gateway 737, a 940-bed student housing complex near Colonial Life Arena, developed by USC Development Foundation.

• Reaching a new 10-year athletics agreement with Nike to serve as the official apparel company to supply all 21 of South Carolina’s athletic programs. 

• Receiving results of a new economic impact study that the USC system contributes $7.4 billion annually to the South Carolina economy. Statewide employment tied to the USC’s eight system campuses has reached 61,700, accounting for one out of every 39 jobs in South Carolina, while the flagship accounts for $3 billion in annual labor income, or roughly $1 out of every $50 earned in the state.

• Designating the new Carolina Autism and Neurodevelopment Research Center to improve the lives of individuals with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

• Selecting three tenured faculty members to receive 2025 Carolina Trustees Professorships, funded by donations from the USC Board of Trustees: English professor Ed Madden, environmental chemistry professor Susan D. Richardson and USC Upstate history professor Robert McCormick.

• Approving new academic initiatives in Columbia, including an undergraduate certificate in artificial intelligence literacy, a communications degree, and postbaccalaureate certificates in operation and supply chain management, artificial intelligence in business, and public safety executive leadership.

• Approving new Palmetto College Chancellor Craig Wilson, a higher education administrator with more than two decades of experience, who was vice provost for Outreach, Distance and Continuing Education at the University of Arizona.

• Approving Julian Williams as vice president for system affairs and community engagement, overseeing USC campuses outside Columbia and enhancing community engagement within the Columbia community and throughout the state.

• Approving contracts for new volleyball head coach Sarah Noble; Deputy Athletics Director Wesley Mallette; and football assistant coaches: offensive coordinator Kendal Briles, co-defensive coordinator coach Torrian Gray, running backs coach Stan Drayton, offensive line coach Randy Clements and defensive ends/outside linebackers coach Deion Barnes.

• Welcoming new trustee Strom Thurmond Jr., who represents the 2nd Judicial Circuit.

• Producing higher education opinion columns that highlighted how USC is set up to remain strong for years with growing enrollment and conservative budgeting, the role universities play to improve the world by condemning antisemitism and offering forums to engage in civil discourse, and how flagship universities must prove in actions that they are educating students and serving communities.

• Congratulating USC for retaining its top ranking in international business and first-year student experience among public institutions, according to U.S. News and World Report.

• Conferring degrees on more than 11,400 students from the USC system in the spring and this winter.

• Conferring honorary degrees on Lindell A. Bradley, USC’s first Black varsity student-athlete; Margaret M. Spellings, former U.S. Secretary of Education and University of North Carolina system president; U.S. District Judge Sherri Allen Lydon; Drew Gilpin Faust, former Harvard University president; and Dr. Jonathan Lee Gleason, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Prisma Health.

• Sending four trustees and the board secretary to the 2025 Annual Conference on Trusteeship sponsored by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

• Congratulating women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley on the unveiling of her statue across from the Pastides Alumni Center.

I want to thank President Michael Amiridis and his team for their stewardship of USC, as well as my fellow trustees for their work in ensuring USC plays an essential role in improving our state, our nation and the world through education, research and workforce development.

After another remarkable year, the USC Board of Trustees is ready to continue its service during the university’s 225th anniversary as we work in 2026 to boost the system’s academic and research excellence to shape an even better Palmetto State.

Forever To Thee,

Thad H. Westbrook, Board Chair