Remembering the Days: A USC Podcast

Were there always so many squirrels on the Horseshoe? And how else has campus changed in the past 200 years in regards to insects, birds, snakes and such? Take a stroll with naturalist-in-residence Rudy Mancke to learn what's changed and still changing in the natural world of campus. 

Like other universities across the nation, the University of South Carolina needed more land in the 1960s to keep up with skyrocketing student enrollment brought on by the Baby Boom. In a previous episode, we talked about the campus migration that created the east campus in the University Hill neighborhood. This episode explores the underpinnings of the campus expansion into Ward One and Wheeler Hill, which were largely obliterated by the 'urban renewal' efforts that acquired more land for the university.

In the late 19th century, students at South Carolina College who were stalwart members of the institution's two debate societies felt that their esteemed clubs were somehow threatened by the existence of fraternities on campus. So they contrived a way to boot the Greek letter organizations off campus. It was a quirky chapter in the university's history that, ultimately, ended badly for one side. 

They were tiny, blazing hot in the summer and had more than their fair share of bugs, but the long-gone University Terrace Apartments were a first home for many married couples at the University of South Carolina. For Missie and Joe Walker, living at UT was the first rite of passage in their 40-plus years of marriage. 

When students at the University of South Carolina elected a new Student Government president in 1971, the event made national news. That's because, just eight years after the university was desegregated, an African American student won the election, riding a wave of support from white and black students who were tired of the 'establishment' and 'the system.'

When the Gamecocks take to the football field every fall, Williams-Brice Stadium roars with the full-throated spirit of 80,000-plus diehard fans, a battalion of marching band members, cheerleaders, baton twirlers and dancers. It’s a far cry from the first football game played on the University of South Carolina campus in 1898 when a few hundred fans huddled on simple wooden bleachers on a field situated about where the Russell House now stands on Greene Street.

Since its inception more than 200 years ago, the University of South Carolina has had three different names and several nicknames. But Juliet was right — that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

More than 50 years ago, the University of South Carolina expanded its campus eastward, building an 18-story dormitory/conference center in the middle of the University Hill neighborhood. Residents there protested the project, and students did, as well, in 1972 when a pedestrian bridge was built to link to the new east campus. 

Patricia Moore-Pastides and her husband, Harris Pastides, lived in the President's House from 2008 to 2019 with thousands of university students as their closest neighbors. As you might imagine, there were some interesting moments in those 11 years. 

The current President's House has been home to every university president since 1952. Former university first lady Patricia Moore-Pastides talked to the now-grown children of those former presidents to find out what life was really like in the President's House all those years ago.

In the long history of schoolteachers in South Carolina, Matilda Pinckney's story stands out. Born a slave on the historic Horseshoe at the University of South Carolina, Pinckney was later trained at a Normal School on the university campus and would go on to a 30-plus year career as an educator. 

Since its founding in the early 19th century, the University of South Carolina has been keenly interested in building its library collections. Since then, the library's holdings have grown exponentially and now include rare books and special collections that make it a destination for scholars near and far. You can check out a lot of them from your own couch. 

In 1955, one year after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional, the School of Education dean at the University of South Carolina had the temerity to agree with that position. He paid a heavy price for speaking up.

In the spring semester of 1974, the streaking fad swept college campuses across the country. For about a week, the University of South Carolina laid claim to the largest group of streakers — 508. Now, 47 years later, one of them recalls that warm night in early March when he and the other Gamecock streakers made their historic run. 

From the early 1800s to the 1920s, the University of South Carolina built three observatories for the study of astronomy. The first one is long gone but the third, the Melton Memorial Observatory, remains operational. On clear Monday evenings, the observatory's telescopes offer spectacular views of the night-time sky.