Southern studies director remembers his 47 years at USC
Such was the theme of the lecture Edgar, director of the Institute for Southern Studies, gave students and faculty Wednesday night as a part of the Carolina Scholars Association's Last Lecture Series.
USC began to transform into a larger institution in the 1960s, Edgar said, with President Tom Jones, who focused on its chemistry, English, physics and history programs.
At the time, Edgar worked in an assistantship with the head of the history department after he graduated from Davidson College.
That job put him in the only room on campus with air conditioning, though he worked for that right, as he was expected to assist 400 students.
Edgar derived inspiration from Charles Coolidge, a professor at the university, for his daily tests and grading scale. Edgar said Coolidge taught him to consider students' improvement and to not only base his grade on a standardized, average scale.
"Give students a goal and don't just make it a numbers game," Edgar said. "Deal with them individually."
Throughout the 1960s, Edgar said prohibition had not yet been enacted for football games and the basketball stadium was always packed.
Edgar remembered smoking and drinking coffee between classes on a concrete bench beneath an oak tree at McKissick. The Horseshoe, he recalled, was filled with parking spaces.
At the time, USC was known for its sense of community.
But between 1965 and 1969, Edgar said USC's student enrollment increased by 60 percent, and the number of graduate assistants doubled.
All throughout that change, though, Coolidge's History 101 class was the most popular at the university.
"When his class had an opening, it was like a Black Friday stampede," Edgar said.
In 1968, USC tried out its first computer-based registration system, which Edgar remembered failed miserably and resulted in the firing of two advisors.
But changes at the university transcended merely structural ones.
Edgar recalled that a great transformation swept the university in the late 1960s that put USC on the national scene. There was an increase in the student population and according to Edgar, an increase in excellence.
But in its midst, a more profound change was taking hold of the nation.
As the years rolled on, more and more African-Americans enrolled at the university. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, it was a crisis for the university and the country.
Edgar saw other formative moments in U.S. history as well. He served in the Vietnam War until he was offered a full time teaching job by USC in 1975.
It was then that Edgar proposed a Public History program with the new USC President William Patterson.
"The Public History program was radical, and it became a passion for me," Edgar said.
But that was just the first change Edgar himself would bring to USC.
In 1979, Edgar went on to found the Institute for Southern Studies, which he now directs.
USC, Edgar said, has lost a bit of its vintage sense of community, but he thinks it has handled its growth well. A degree from USC is now competitive, he contended, both internationally and with institutions like Harvard and Yale universities.
Clay Mettens, a third-year music composition student, said that though he thinks all professors who have been featured in the series have been good, Edgar's lecture had a rare, exciting quality.
"Dr. Edgar has been here for over 47 years. Professors who haven't been here as long don't have the same perspective of USC as he will," Mettens said.
Elise Porter, a third-year English student and one of the coordinators of the Last Lecture series said she had seen lectures through the series in a wide array of subjects, including jazz, English, anthropology, biology and chemistry.
Porter said the lectures help professors pass their wisdom on to students in a more accessible environment and described Edgar as a "gem" who had a lot to offer future generations.
"It gives students a way to hear, and professors a way to share," Porter said.