On Thursday, USC President Harris Pastides announced huge results for the Carolina Promise fundraising campaign and big plans for the university’s next 10 years through the Carolina 2025 plan.
We applaud the efforts of President Pastides and everyone involved in the Carolina Promise campaign, which brought in much-needed funds to the university and will help our school continue to improve and grow. We thank the donors for their generous investments in our institution. $1,043,265,730 is a great deal of money.
Now that the major push for funds has subsided (though fundraising never stops at a major university), the question still remains — where does that money go?
With most of the donations earmarked for specific purposes, it would be helpful as a student body to know exactly where the funds will be spent. We learned lots of specifics from Pastides’ speech, and what we heard sounded great. More advisors, more faculty and more residence halls are definitely needed.
But if we are to feel connected to the changes that are planned for our campus, we should know more about what they are. The university’s website detailing the fundraising totals is a great start, but it can and should do more to inform the students about the Carolina 2025 plan.
Even if all of us are gone by the time the Carolina 2025 vision has been fully realized, we are all part of making it happen. And we are already reaping the benefits of some of the funds raised. So, we urge the university to include students to a greater degree in the conversation happening about the next 10 years here at USC.