Red-letter days are coming fast and furious for Clinton and Laurens County.
The first was July 20 when ground was broken for a new Clinton Public Library, a Capital Projects Sales Tax project.
The second will be August 12 when ground is broken at the old Fairgrounds in Laurens for the new, $7 Million Laurens County Ag Center, the largest of the 16 Capital Projects Sales Tax projects.
The third will be August 15 when a ribbon-cutting marks the opening of the newest college serving Clinton --- The University of South Carolina Union Laurens at Bell Street (photo below).
The college is moving into the 2004-constructed wing of the Bell Street campus, which holds iconic status in the history of the Clinton-Joanna-Cross Hill community. Unlike the Martha Dendy School, which fell into disrepair but also is a CPST project to bring it back to life, District 56 continued regular maintenance at Bell Street, even with no prospects for several years of a permanent tenant.
Now, the building - also home to the State Champion Clinton High and Clinton Middle School Science Olympiad Teams - is surging back to life.
“The support has been really impressive,” said Dr. Randy Lowell, campus dean and professor of psychology, “sparked by David O’Shields (School District 56 Superintendent).”
On a recent tour of the USC Union new home, Lowell outlined the initial uses of space in the sprawling campus. He said a stipluation by USC Union was to maintain a dedicated space for the Science Olympiad Teams. “We certainly didn’t want to kick them out,” he said, and now Team Clinton has its own sign at the building’s front entrance.
Lowell said that Cameron Coone, director of outreach and coordinator of the Laurens location at Bell Street, and the college’s bass fishing team’s coach, will be the on-site director of the new campus. The college has applied for technical assistance from the state’s Higher Education Commission to move some technology from the Harper Street, Laurens, location to Bell Street as a final piece to the puzzle of activating the campus. That technology links USC Union Laurens to the University of South Carolina statewide network allowing for remote learning; however, he said, some professors already have expressed a desire to do in-person instruction in Clinton.
The move will allow Clinton High School to have a Middle College program at the Bell Street site, and plans are in the works for dual enrollment options to be offered at Thornwell Charter School, also in Clinton.
To start, four classrooms in the newest part of the building (2004) will be the in-person and remote locations for science. Chemistry can come on-board once the hoods for workstations are installed, and the college envisions the campus as a major contributor to its fledgling nursing program.
“We have the first graduating seniors this summer in nursing,” Lowell said. “There are six nurses and they all have jobs,” pending their passing the national nursing test.
The college has plans to produce as many as 16 nursing graduates a year.
Full instruction is offered at USC in Union because the college there has mannequins used for the hand-on nursing instruction. Acquiring more of the life-like equipment could facilitate having that program expanded into the Clinton campus, much closer for propective students in Cross Hill, Lake Greenwood, and even the Greenwood community.
The upper division in nursing instruction remains in Union, linked to instruction at USC Aiken and USC Sumter.
In the four classrooms initially established in the Bell Street building, links with USC Union are complimented by Promethean boards that allow for in-class instruction, should a professor desire to offer classes at the Clinton/Laurens County location. Right now, Comparative Religions is a good bet to come into the Bell Street campus. Eight students minimum would be needed for a class; otherwise, instruction would be “beamed in” from USC in Union.
Lowell said, since Covid, there has been more on-line learning offered by USC Union and USC’s Palmetto College.
Two of the four classrooms are set up as laboratories, something that USC Union did not have access to at its Harper Street, Laurens location. This allows Anatomy and Physiology, the entry level courses to Nursing, to be considered for USC Union Laurens at Bell Street. “We had no infrastructure like this at Harper Street,” Lowell said.
There were some exceptions made to instruction requirement during the Covid pandemic, Lowell said, but those exceptions now have expired, as the pandemic has waned.
At Bell Street, USC Union Laurens also has access to a greenhouse (photo left). Although the District 56 original “pitch” of the building included an offer to remove it, Lowell said agriculture professors have nixed that idea. Some air conditioning repairs and cosmetic work can give the college a place for growing, and possibly selling, its own plants. Ideas are in the works for partnering with the community garden not far away across from Friendship AME Church, and United Way’s new community garden in the same Lydia Mill community.
Also in this 2004 wing of Bell Street school, the cafeteria space is being transformed. Cubicule offices have been established for on-campus professors - everyone has their own window - and what was a stage area will be a small computer lab. The site has the space for a working kitchen, and students likely will have access to a small canteen at some point. A large front lobby houses the reception desk and an information kiosk, as well as seating. A large, metallic Gamecock is already on the wall.
While USC Union is excited about the classroom space, the building’s potential to expand athletics - and the recruitment of student-athletes - is not overlooked.
The bass fishing team will store its boats and equipment here. The golf team is being set up in an older portion of the building that looks like it once was the shop class. Plans are envisioned for a driving range in the school’s expansive back yard. Cross-country could make its move to Clinton from Union, also.
State Rep. Doug Gilliam, R-Union and Clinton, is the college’s volunteer rifle team coach, and Lowell said he already has recruited to young women from Walhalla to the program, which practices now in the USC at Union gym -- the Bell Street campus also has a spacious, “old-school” gym.
“There are a lot of possibilities,” Lowell said.
“The school district has pitched in substantially to make this happen, and the City of Clinton has expressed that they want to help as much as they can. It has been a really good collaborative effort to pull it off.”
Prospective students can register until classes start - remember what we said in the beginning about red-letter days - on August 24.
