University president sightsees, develops policy
After a busy year at USC, university President Harris Pastides looked forward to catching up on what he calls the “three Rs”: resting, replenishing and reading.
Pastides, now in his fifth year on the job, traveled to Greece and Turkey with a group he called the “Carolina Travelers” — about 20 friends of the university, donors and trustees. The group explored Greece with Provost Michael Amiridis, who showed them around his home country.
“We went on island visits, eating and sightseeing,” Pastides said. “A smaller group of trustees went to Istanbul, which was my first time ever there.”
In South Carolina, Pastides worked with other university officials to seek out advocacy opportunities and work with state government.
“Work rarely stops for a university president,” Pastides said in an interview from Indianapolis.
Pastides said he wants to work toward finding sustainable funding, because his five years in office have been marked with financial distress across the country.
“I think people would agree not that the problems are over, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “We’re planning to work very hard on that.”
Pastides said he looks forward to students’ arrival each year.
“I’m looking forward to the return of the students and, in particular, the freshmen,” he said.
Pastides said the beginning of the year is bittersweet, because with each freshman class’s arrival, a quiet summer atmosphere disappears.
“It’s the end of the quiet season in terms of parking and noise,” he said. “But it’s still overwhelmingly positive.”
But outside of planning and traveling, Pastides said he spent some quality time with his family, which he and his wife, Patricia Moore-Pastides, don’t often have the opportunity to enjoy.
The Pastides’ spent time with their two married children and their only granddaughter, who learned an important new word this summer.
“Hearing my granddaughter say my name for the first time was very memorable,” he said.
The plan was for her to call him “Papou,” which is the Greek word for “grandfather,” but when that proved too challenging, she settled on “Poo.”