Division of Business Affairs

With seven years of experience in theatrical stage management, Kelly Biscopink brings a wealth of knowledge to Sottile Theatre as the new Events Coordinator.

Graduating from the University of Dayton with majors in Theatre and English, Kelly’s training and work experience are primarily in theatrical stage management. She started working professionally as a stage manager during college in regional theaters and summer stock. Following graduation, Kelly work on Broadway National tours for almost 7 years. She got “off the road” in 2010 and transitioned careers into editorial/acquisitions work for a publishing house in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Drawn to theater work, Kelly joined the College in July 2012 in a role she considers her dream job – a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in a city that she loves and in a theater like Sottile, surrounded by history and art. She fell in love with Charleston when she played here on tour with Miss Saigon and Movin’ Out. For many years, Kelly barely saw anything outside of a tour bus or an airplane terminal or the backstage of a theater (which, surprise surprise, all look exactly the same in the dark). Working on such a gorgeous campus and being part of such a large community are bonuses to the job.

Because of her extensive experience operating as the point person for theatrical tours, Kelly understands what goes into mounting a production of any kind of theater space, both from a theatrical/artistic/technical perspective as well as from a financial/business perspective. While she admits that she may not know every solution to every problem, Kelly knows what questions to ask and who will have the answer. Her day to day responsibilities include handling all event bookings, invoicing and record keeping, managing/training/schedule the Front Of House Management staff, scheduling all necessary meetings for upcoming events, coordinating each events’ needs and disseminating schedules/information to the necessary parties, working with patrons to answer questions, generating event estimates, etc. Kelly also works closely with Jeremiah Lewis, technical director for Sottile Theatre, to ensure things run smoothly and expectations are met and/or exceeded.

As someone who has done big shows in small spaces and small shows in big spaces, Kelly has a good idea of how to continue developing Sottile Theatre so that more events can be brought to the Charleston community. She is most excited about actively growing the theatre. Kelly has plenty of ideas and she is thrilled to be able to put some of them in motion. She predicts that Sottile Theatre will soon be able to offer some new services for clients and some new events for patrons.

For more information about Sottile Theatre and upcoming events, visit sottile.cofc.edu.

Nestled along the Stono River and Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, Dixie Plantation consists of 862 pristine acres ranging from salt marshes to hardwood forests. The plantation was bequeathed to the College of Charleston Foundation by the late naturalist John Henry Dick.

Dixie Plantation is currently being used for water research, specimen collection, and environmental studies. Despite the lack of facilities on site, the plantation has been utilized by the School of Sciences and Mathematics for many academic pursuits.

The College plans to build environmentally sustainable teaching and research facilities for the sciences and liberal arts. Facilities will include two separate labs, a water system, a building for meeting space, and construction of a studio/museum. Current renovation projects are underway. They are expected to finish in early 2013.

The former barn on site was demolished and a new, modern building will take its place. The exterior of the building will mimic the former barn and the interior will feature an open floor plan. Students will use the barn for meeting space until the labs are available. A parking lot will also be added.

A studio will be constructed soon after construction on the barn finishes. The studio will house a museum for John Henry Dick, featuring historical items and other artifacts from his personal collection. At this time, there are no plans for public access.

The water system will include domestic water supply, ensuring drinkable water is available for the community. Other work will include maintenance/preservation on the two tenant houses and cemeteries.

In addition to facilities, the College has completed a 4.3-mile interpretive nature trail.

During renovation, Roland Craft will serve as the Dixie Plantation caretaker. For more information about the history of Dixie Plantation, please visit dixieplantation.cofc.edu.

The Office of Sustainability hires its second full-time employee.

Jen Jones, a former graduate assistant for the Office of Sustainability, was recently hired as the Facilities Coordinator for the Office. The position requires that Jen coordinate sustainability efforts between various departments on campus, most specifically those that have implications for the physical infrastructure at the College. This includes, but is not limited to, waste management, emissions tracking, and coordinating efforts to install projects such as rain barrels, water re-fill stations, etc.

As one of two full-time employees in the Office, the other being director Brian Fisher, Jen fills in where she is needed. While her focus is in facilities, she also helps with the intern program and helps to coordinate their projects. Jen is also involved with the newly re-established Sustainability Planning Network (formally the Sustainability Committee) and helps to coordinate efforts with the ECOllective Student Project Committee.

Jen provides a dedicated personnel position to act as a liaison between other offices on campus and the Office of Sustainability. All positions throughout the office need to be flexible and adaptable to address the challenges that arise, and each member works in multiple areas. With that being said, Jen’s focus as the Facilities Coordinator creates a central point of contact for sustainability projects that revolve around facilities.

The Office is working with various departments and divisions on campus to create a more sustainable approach to operations of the College. The Office is working to transcend boundaries and necessitate communication and collective action beyond them.

As a former graduate assistant, Jen had a role in establishing the current phase of sustainability at the College. She was part of the student group who presented the establishment of the “green fee” (formally known as the ECOllective Fee) to the Board of Trustees’ Budget and Finance Committee. She was also the student representative on the search committee for the director’s position. For Jen, it is rewarding to be able to stay on and finish her work on a full-time basis. She has been so impressed with what the Office has accomplished in the last year and a half. She is looking most forward to where the College will be in two years, five years, 10 years, and beyond.

Gail Long, Internal Auditor

Briefly describe your role.

The Internal Auditor for the College assists in identifying and evaluating risks and ensuring compliance with the College’s internal policies and procedures as well as state and federal regulations.

What is the function of your department?

The function of this department is to assist management and members of the College of Charleston Board of Trustees in the effective discharge of their responsibilities by furnishing them with analyses, appraisals, recommendations, and information concerning activities reviewed.

How long have you been working at the College?

I have worked at the College for six years.

What brought you to the College?

After working in private industry for 25 years, I wanted to experience a non-profit environment. I am also an alumnus of the College.

What do you like most about your job?

I like the ability to work independently and interacting with a wide variety of people and departments.

What are some of your favorite memories from the College?

I have enjoyed getting to know many of our student employees.

What are your hobbies and interests?

I spend a lot of time with my horses and walking my dog.

What is something that your colleagues would be surprised to learn about you?

I worked on a global project in Holland from 2002-03.

The Internal Auditor monitors the Ethics Hotline at the College.  The Hotline number is 843.953.3186 and is available 24 hours a day.

Pruned trees, beautiful flower beds, and neatly trimmed grass are just a few of the aesthetic features that welcome students, faculty, staff, and visitors to the College’s campus each and every day.

The Grounds Department is responsible for the grounds maintenance of the downtown campus, with the exception of Residence Life facilities and Grice Lab at Fort Johnson. The department is also responsible for the plant beds in the parking lots. They decorate the stages for both the December and May commencement ceremonies. In addition, they make the gate arrangements and hang wreathes and roping on campus for the holidays, as well as decorating the Silcox gym for the annual faculty and staff holiday party.

At the helm of the Grounds Department is Paty Cowden, Groundskeeper at the College. Cowden has an assistant supervisor, three crew leaders, a street sweeper operator, a pesticide spray technician, and nine crew members to maintain over 50 acres. Every morning, each crew is assigned an area which they police for trash and debris. This sweep typically lasts an hour. Once this task is completed, all crew members meet to issue daily assignments. The enhancement crew is responsible for the care of over 200 container gardens on campus, which includes watering, fertilizing, deadheading, and seasonal flower replacements. The two maintenance crews mow, edge, weed eat, and blow all the turf areas as needed. They also prune, weed, and mulch all of the plant beds. Grounds also does bed renovation, such as a recent renovation at the corner of College and Greenway where the big clock is.

One of the greatest challenges Grounds faces is keeping the grass in Cistern Yard looking good. They have tried almost every type of sod available in their zone (the USDA has a map of plant hardiness zones so people will know what plant material to use in their zones), but due to the amount of shade, and competition for nutrients with the oak trees, the sod almost immediately starts declining soon after planting. Grounds has resorted to seeding, which presents its own problems. The only seed that can endure the summer heat is expensive and must be treated on a regular basis with organic products to help it survive. Several years ago, the College developed an infestation of wire worms, which are a farm crop pest. Wire worms devour the seed just as it is germinating. The College created a utopian environment for them and now keeps their population in check with a sevin dust application. When back to back events are held in Cistern Yard, it takes quite a toll on the grass.

With a demanding workload, the Grounds Department relies on the dedication and special talents of its crew. The department gets the job done and has fun doing it. Various types of training, from equipment operations to first aid/CPR, are provided to encourage each person to take advantage of the opportunities to add new skills to their resumes. The department also tries to take a field trip once a year to visit some of the beautiful gardens South Carolina has to offer, such as Brookgreen Gardens and the Botanical Gardens at Riverbanks Zoo.

Hard work and a handful of green thumbs keep the College’s campus looking pristine.

A portion of the second floor in the Bell Building is under renovation to provide space for the Center for Social Science Research (CSSR). The Center will be a modern facility that will enable discoveries across disciplines and will transform social science research at the College. The project is partially funded through a $1M grant from the National Science Foundation.

State-of-the-art observational suites and single subject behavioral and cognitive testing rooms will allow for diverse projects in psychology and related research in the social sciences. The Center also provides consolidation of research spaces that have been located at various locations across campus into a central location that allows more research collaboration, including more interdisciplinary activity. The creation of an archaeological wet lab and associated space will provide secure facilities to protect reference collections from hurricane activity.  This facility is one of the few buildings on campus that is located immediately adjacent to a large parking structure, improving and increasing disability access and participation in human subject research.

In the short-term, the project will allow for the immediate occupation of functional research laboratories for faculty members and their student research trainees who previously had no or suboptimal facilities. One basic performance metric will be the number of faculty and students with access to research laboratories, and the associated increase in the average square footage of usable research space per faculty. Other short-term metrics include the number of IRB research protocol applications submitted and approved to execute research in the CSSR space. Additional short-term metrics that reflect the impact of the CSSR with regard to research-training include the number of bachelor’s essay, independent study, and other individualized research-training experiences executed in this facility.

Long-term metrics include the number of community outreach initiatives or partnerships, programs, conference presentations, submitted and published manuscripts, published technical reports, and grant funding applications submitted and funded that are based on research activities conducted at the CSSR.

The scope of the renovation includes the reconfiguration of space previously used as a weight room then by the Office of Admissions and Anthropology seminar space into functional research suites. The design-build construction consisted of a lab for archaeological research, a computer lab for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) research, joint-use Psychology and Anthropology computer lab, Psychology data collection spaces, testing labs, and cognitive labs. The build-out included demolition and removal, associated new construction including infrastructure renovations, new partitions, upgrading and rezoning HVAC systems, new power and lighting, wall, floor,  and ceiling finishes, plus furniture and all the necessary cyber structure to support computers, flat panels monitors, projectors, and screens, plus functionally specific software and network and Internet access.

This is the College’s first design-build project in that the project is bid and awarded as a single project to an architect/contractor team. This method proved to provide efficiencies during the build-out phase of the project that resulted in fewer change orders and faster construction.

Finally, the understanding and compliance with the grant funding requirements associated with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added challenges. The federal requirements included stipulations not previously required on state projects and resulted in a degree of complexity that required significant time and administrative work on the part of numerous members of the project team.

The project reached substantial completion earlier this month with furniture and IT/AV to be installed early next year. The CSSR will be ready for functional use in February.

Ed Pope, Human Resources

Briefly describe your role.

I serve as the VP of Human Resources.

What is the function of your department? 

The College’s HR department handles all matters related to employment including recruiting, benefits, training, employee relations, classification, compensation, reporting, and employee records management.

How long have you been working at the College?

I’ve been at the College since mid-July 2012.

What brought you to the College?

I have always wanted to return to working in higher education. My wife, Heather (a Charleston native), and I also had long-range plans to eventually move back to Charleston. This unique opportunity at the College was a perfect match. I’ve always been impressed with the people I’ve encountered at the College over the years, and the passion they have for the College made me want to be a part of this great community. Heather and I are looking forward to being involved with College activities and supporting the Cougars whenever we can.

What do you like most about your job?

My favorite part of this job is working with our outstanding employees to help them with whatever issues they may be having. I enjoy collaborating with managers and employees to create solutions and find ways to meet their needs.

What are some of your favorite memories from the College?

I remember my days as a cadet at The Citadel walking through the College’s campus on weekends wondering what it must like to go to a “normal” college. This campus was a nice reprieve from the rigors of cadet life.

What are your hobbies and interests?

I like to work in my yard, fish if I ever get a chance, and spend time with my wife and our two bird dogs, Rosie (our Vizsla) and Covey (our German Shorthaired Pointer). We like to take them to the beach or hiking in the mountains whenever we can.

What is something that your colleagues would be surprised to learn about you?

I enjoy running, although I’m not running as much as I should be now. I’ve run several half marathons in recent years, and I am planning to run the Kiawah half marathon this December.

While many offices on campus start their day around 8:30 a.m., Mail Services begins operations before 7:30 every morning.

The first stop of the day includes a visit to the East Bay post office. Mail is picked-up at 7:30, Monday through Friday, and on Saturdays during peak mail seasons. An initial sort is made on the platform in order to ease production at the College mail facility. This sortation consists of separating parcels for students and faculty and staff, in addition to faculty and staff accountable items such as express mail, certified mail, and pieces requiring delivery confirmation. Mixed letters and flats are also picked-up at that time. Mail is brought back and unloaded at the mail services office on campus.

All of the parcels that are separated for the students and faculty and staff accountable items are rolled over to the student mail operation for initial scanning and labeling. While that is being done, the administrative mail crew is sorting the letters and flats to various departments throughout the campus. The student letters and flats are also separated from this mix for later sortation into the student box section.

Once all the mail from the post office is sorted, the mail couriers bundle up the mail by department and depart to deliver all inbound mail and collect any outgoing and intercampus mail. In the meantime, the student mail crew opens up the service window at 8:30 a.m., to assist students with parcel delivery, stamp sales, and parcel mailing.

About mid-morning, UPS will drop off a load of parcels for processing and delivery. Throughout the day, drops are also made by FexEx, UPS Express, DHL, and private couriers for delivery.

On the return from morning deliveries, the couriers sort intercampus mail, meter all outgoing letters, flats, and parcels, and prepares for afternoon delivery of UPS parcels and any other accountable item.

On returning from the afternoon delivery, all outgoing mail that was collected is metered and prepared for postal collection and dispatch. All intercampus mail is sorted for the following day.

During the past fiscal year, Mail Services handled, from the US Postal Service alone, an average of 192 parcels, 1,198 flats, and 1,012 letters daily. The annual volume of all USPS mail was over 613,000 pieces. UPS dropped for delivery, almost 15,000 parcels, and FedEx added another 6,000. Mail Services also received almost 5,000 drop-offs from local florists, bakeries, and other miscellaneous couriers. There were almost 32,000 pieces of campus mail collected and redistributed.

One of the greatest challenges faced by Mail Services is navigating the tight quarters during peak mail seasons. Some peak times include the beginning of each new school year. Items such as rugs, bookshelves, clothing, surfboards, TV’s, and books are received during that time. Each holiday also increases letter mail and parcel volumes. Easter and Valentine’s Day are always big holidays. Other challenges include having students return their box key when they leave campus quarters and keeping up with the changes in mail regulations and prices. Despite the stressful times of heavy mail volume, tight quarters, and staffing changes, Mail Services maintains a sense of humor and gets the job done.

Under the direction of Kenny Greene, Mail Services is organized into two groups: student mail operations, which employs a manager and three employees, and administrative mail operations, which also have a manager along with three couriers. There are also two student workers that assist at the service window.

Mail Services operates as a miniature post office. Through them, you can purchase stamps, mail letters, and ship parcels via USPS and UPS. They also accept prepaid packages for all mailing/shipping companies.

Mail Services is located in the bottom level of the St. Philip Street parking garage. Hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. For more information regarding services offered, please visit the Mail Services web page at mailservices.cofc.edu.

Renovations at 72 and 74 George Street are complete.

72 George

In August 2011, renovation of the historic three-and-a-half story Greek Revival style Charleston house at 72 George Street began. The home was originally built by John King in 1837. According to Jonathan Poston, author of Buildings of Charleston, “The College was responsible for shifting the house a full 90 degrees to make room for the Physicians Memorial Auditorium in 1972. The move was made after the building was braced with steel crossbeams and adjusted every few feet to prevent cracking.”

The building received small additions between 1888 and 1902. They were removed prior to the building’s renovation in 1972. Removal of interior walls during the current renovation revealed crudely constructed brick walls. It is assumed that the walls were hastily rebuilt after the earthquake of 1886 that damaged other structures at the College. The new exterior stucco color was selected based on some small areas where the original stucco color was visible prior to starting the current renovation.

The current renovation was designed by AJ Architects and, the general contractor was Mashburn Construction. The building was outfitted with new plumbing, electrical, and HVAC systems, refinished hardwood floors, lead/asbestos abatement, restored and operational winders, new exterior operational shutters, an ADA accessible exterior ramp and first floor bathroom, a conference/media room on the first floor, and offices throughout the remainder of the building.

74 George

The three story brick single house at 74 George Street was most likely built in the second quarter of the 19th century, similar to 72 George Street.  It first appears on the 1888 Sanborn map that shows a two story building attached to the rear of the building, most likely serving as a kitchen, carriage house, slave quarters, or a combination of the three.  In 1972, 74 George Street was moved 23 feet and had its rear additions demolished to make room for the construction of Physicians Auditorium and the Rita Hollings Science Center.

The renovation work included all new HVAC, electrical, and plumbing systems; new fire alarm and sprinkler system; addition of a handicap ramp system and accessible bathroom on the first floor; repairs to all windows including re-opening original window openings on the north wall; new window shutters and hardware; restoration of French doors on the piazza; restoration of the original heart pine floors; and landscaping around the building.

The challenge with the renovations of both buildings was trying to incorporate modern systems, such as plumbing, HVAC, and fire sprinklers, into historic buildings. These buildings were built almost 175 years ago so a great deal of creativity was needed in regards to safely placing new conduit, plumbing, and other pipes into the walls. Additionally, these buildings were constructed in a time when buildings codes did not exist, so every attempt was made to bring the buildings up to modern safety standards while maintaining the historic character of the buildings. One example of this is the new sprinkler system which was designed to provide an additional level of safety to the occupants while not being visually obtrusive.

English faculty now occupy both buildings.

If you’ve been inside the Education Center recently, you might have noticed the new Provisions On Demand (P.O.D.) Market.

The convenience store concept was launched by ARAMARK in 2009. Since then, P.O.D. Markets have opened on over 50 college campuses across the U.S.

P.O.D. Market features a variety of on the go snacks, beverages, and prepared meals ranging from salads and wraps to crackers and candy. You can also find Starbucks “We Proudly Brew” coffee at this location.

Since opening last month, P.O.D. Market has received a warm welcome by the College community. The convenience and accessibility appeal to many students, especially commuting students who don’t typically eat at the on-campus dining options such as City Bistro and Liberty Fresh Food.

The next time you’re contemplating a quick snack or meal, keep P.O.D. Market in mind.

For more information regarding P.O.D. Market, visit cofc.edu/diningservices.