USC alumna donated $1 million to McNair Center in September
Entertainment executive and USC alumna Marva Smalls will address graduates at this month’s commencement ceremonies. Smalls, who donated $1 million to the McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research in September, will receive an honorary doctorate degree.
Smalls is a Florence native and still maintains a home there, though she primarily resides and works in New York. Her donation — the third seven-figure sum given to the center by a South Carolina businesswoman — will fund scholarships for students from the state’s Pee Dee region who intend to study aerospace engineering.
The Pee Dee encompasses Smalls’ hometown as well as Lake City, from which the center’s namesake, Ronald McNair, hailed. McNair was the first civilian African-American astronaut and died in the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, shortly before he was to take a job at USC.
The scholarships furnished by Smalls’ donation will go to both undergraduate and graduate students and are expected to help expand the new, small programs in aerospace engineering and some subsets. Three of five programs are currently up and running with a handful of students enrolled.
Carlisle Floyd, another native of the Pee Dee region, will also receive an honorary doctorate at the ceremonies. Floyd is a renowned opera composer and librettist, originally from Latta.
At the Dec. 16 ceremonies, 1,650 baccalaureate, master’s and professional degrees are expected to be awarded to graduates from the Columbia campus. Another 850 students will graduate from USC’s seven system campuses.