Speaking of ... College of Charleston

Progress and Aspirations: President Hsu Reflects on Five Years at College of Charleston

• President Andrew T. Hsu • Season 3 • Episode 3

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On this episode of 'Speaking of College of Charleston,' host Ron Menchaca, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at the College of Charleston, has a year-end discussion with President Andrew Hsu, focusing on the accomplishments and future directions of the institution. 

President Hsu celebrates his five years in office, discussing the significant strides the college has made academically and financially through collaborative efforts involving faculty, staff, students and the wider community. He outlines strategic moves towards achieving national university status, including the introduction of new doctoral programs. 

Other highlights include a surge in applications, achievements in philanthropy, sports successes, creation of new academic schools, and the implementation of new programs and online platforms. President Hsu also addresses the value of a liberal arts education in today's economy and the college's strategies to navigate the imminent demographic challenges in higher education. 

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Ron Menchaca:

Hello, and Welcome to Speaking of College of Charleston. I'm Ron Menchaca, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at the College of Charleston. And on today's episode, I speak with President Andrew Chu. As the college winds down another exciting and productive academic year. President Xi looks back on his first five years in office, and highlights the numerous initiatives and achievements of our faculty, staff and students. This is our third year sitting down with President Chu at the end of the academic year. As we look ahead to spring commencement and celebrating the class of 2024. We reflect on all of the incredible things happening at our university. Without further ado, here's our talk with President Andrew Chu. Well welcome President Chu. Thanks for joining us.

Unknown:

All. Thanks for having me. Again,

Ron Menchaca:

this is our third annual podcast interview with you to do a kind of an end of the academic year wrap up. So thanks again for making time for us. So, President shoot may 2024, marks your fifth anniversary as President of the College of Charleston? Are you pleased with where we are at thus far and where we are headed as a university?

Unknown:

Ron? Absolutely, I'm so proud of what we have achieved together as a campus. The last five years really represent incredible collaborations among faculty, staff, students, alumni, administration, Board of Trustees, stoners and community partners to make this institution stronger. And both academically and financially, the institution really is becoming more relevant and more responsive to growing student demand and workforce needs. I'm so pleased on the progress that we're making toward our strategic vision, which is to achieve a national university status. You know, if you remember, five years ago, we developed our 10 year strategic plan at which I think the majority of the campus wanted us to move towards a national university status, which means that we have to be able to offer 30 doctoral degrees per year. And and of course, it's a multi step process, we first had to go to the state and worked with the General Assembly to create a new category of higher education in the state of South Carolina. And we then have the Higher Education Commission reclassified the College of Charleston as a DPU, or a professional doctorate University at the state level. And our next steps are to boast our our graduate degree offerings in order to be able to qualify in the current the classification as a doctoral granting University. The first step we took was back in 2023, we had our first PhD program in mathematics with computing approved by the state and and we had enrolled our first student. Now we're working with a campus and with the academic programs to create two new doctoral programs. One is a Doctorate in Business Administration, and the other is a doctorate in education. So we're making very good

Ron Menchaca:

progress. So 30 doctoral degrees, that's the magic number.

Unknown:

That's the goal. All right. Okay,

Ron Menchaca:

so as we're recording this episode, President Chu, we're winding down another productive and successful academic year, and we're looking head to spring commencement. Can you share a few highlights and achievements from this past year?

Unknown:

Sure. This is, like I said, a tremendous year for us. You know, we're making good progress both inside and outside of the classroom. And so many achievements that we have achieved individually and collectively. For example, we have a record year for applications. You know, we went from having 12,000 applicants back in 2019, five years ago, to now close to 32,000 applications. We're making good progress in philanthropy. record number of donors who engaged in a one day forgiving our CFC day that increase in alumni donors how boasts to create a more robust culture of philanthropy, on and beyond our campus. And I'm also proud to say that we're going to be celebrating three, seven figure donations to the university in the near future. Of course, our basketball team is proud of this campus, we went to the NCAA March Madness twice in a row. And then we were able to attract a national level talent in CHRIS MACK as our next coach. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Coach Mac can elevate us among the mid majors and make us even better program in basketball. And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Our Lady cougars, our women's basketball team went all the way to the W nit tournament under Coach Robin harmony. We created three new academic schools during the last year and that is School of Health Sciences School of Natural and Environmental Sciences and School of Engineering, Computing and mathematics. I think those schools will really help us expand the scope of our academic offerings. And of course, I could just go on and on, there's a very long list of what we have done, we have implemented new academic programs degrees we have put up historic, interpretive signages. In order to tell a more complete story of our campus. We're making available micro credentials through Coursera to help our students, alumni and faculty for real world training. We held another successful Charleston expo where our students were able to showcase their amazing research and scholarship. And we launched a new and refreshed institutional website. And in fact, we're moving towards from cfc.edu towards charleston.edu, which no doubt will help with our outreach for potential students. I'm also proud to say that this year, we reached the 30 student milestone of our 1967 legacy scholars, which is a scholarship that support our minority students. That's

Ron Menchaca:

great been an amazing, amazing academic year, and greater things to come. So kind of switching gears here switching topics on you for a second here, President Chu. There's been a lot of media attention in the last couple of years about the value of a college education, particularly a liberal arts education. I know this topic is very close to your heart. Can you share your thoughts on this?

Unknown:

I know I have talked a lot already about how our institution is trying to respond to student demand and workforce development needs through our applied science and professional programs. But I think it's important is to mention that those degree programs are essential to our current and future success. However, what remains essential to our university is our long liberal arts tradition, and as well as the liberal arts core that we teach all of our students. The liberal art tradition really shape our identity, both our university and our students. Today's economy needs more liberal arts trained graduates rather than less in order to deal with the fast changing nature of the marketplace and our society. A liberal arts programs or liberal arts training sharpens the critical thinking skills of our student and it makes our student more adaptable and flexible, especially as technology makes us reimagine our jobs and careers. As as we're doing now. What is going to set up our programs apart really is that they will come out of and with a stronger community occations skills and more finely tuned soft skills like cultural literacy, teamwork, global fluency, then graduates of other more traditional programs, the liberal arts is and always will be a differentiator or, or X Factor at the College of Charleston.

Ron Menchaca:

Wonderful. So another topic that's getting a lot of attention both inside and outside higher education is the so called demographic cliff or enrollment cliff. For our listeners who are unfamiliar with this topic, can you explain what it is and how the College is preparing for it?

Unknown:

Sure, the so called demographic Cliff refers to the fact that there were simply less babies born in 2008, and thereafter, and we are about to see a decline in the traditional college age going student population. So there's less supply coming through the pipeline, and and perhaps more competition for students that will come in the future as asked this student population decline, how it will impact different regions of our country, of course, it's going to be it's not going to be uniform in certain regions. You know, for example, the Northeast and Midwest is already feeling that effect. And in the Midwest for several years already. Some colleges and universities, especially in the Midwest and Northeast are seeing already declining enrollments and some colleges have already closed some of the smaller, private colleges. In the south, of course, demographic decline will not be as sharp. In fact, in some states, we're actually going to see an increase in student population for a small number of years. And we're also seeing more students in other regions wanting to come to the south, especially South Carolina in order to escape the winter weather. I'm hopeful that would we, as an institution have done over the past five years to strengthen our reputation, our academic quality, will make it more desirable, relevant to prospective students and their families, and will somehow, to some extent, insulate us from the negative effects of the demographic cliff.

Ron Menchaca:

So wrapping up here, President Chu just a couple more questions. Simple question. How can people keep up with you on social media and get in contact with you?

Unknown:

Sure. So social media is easy. If you go onto Instagram, or Twitter, which is I guess, now known as x, you can search SEO, FC HS you and you will be able to find me. And you can easily reach me through email, it's very easy to remember its president at COF c.edu. Or even better, you can type in precedent@charleston.edu.

Ron Menchaca:

It has a nice ring to it like that. So last question, President Chu, what's one moment from this past academic year that stands out to you and why? Well,

Unknown:

I was so excited when I first heard that our first 1967 legacy scholar is going to graduate this May. Amber Anderson was a 1967 scholar from our first cohort is actually graduating this May after only three years, what an achievement. You know, four years ago, this was just an idea in the in the mind of Professor Valerie Frazier, and now we have some of our best minority students graduating. So that's probably the most memorable moment for me for this past year.

Ron Menchaca:

That's great. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. President Chu. Thank

Unknown:

you, Ron. Good to be with you all.

Ron Menchaca:

Thank you for listening to this episode of speaking of College of Charleston with today's special guest President Andrew Chu. For more episodes and read stories about our guests, visit the College of Charleston's official new site, the college today@today.charleston.edu. You can also find this and past episodes on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a review. This episode was produced by Amy Stockwell and Ron Menchaca from the Office of marketing and communications with recording and sound engineering by Jessi Combs and Lance Laidlaw, from the Division of Information Technology. Thanks again and we'll see you next time.