This article is part of The Daily Gamecock's April Fools' edition. It is not real.
Webmasters recently added a feature onto the program’s website that allows students to upload their own USC Connect posters detailing their undergraduate experiences. After nearly a year of deliberation, the Quality Enhancement Proposal Committee has decided to translate these posters into 60-by-100-foot banners to be hung at some of the most visible locations around campus, including the Volleyball Competition Facility, the Roost and the Horizon garage.
This was determined to be the most effective use of the university’s $2.5 million investment in the program to meet the Quality Enhancement standards of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), according USC Connect director Irma Van Scoy.
“I would expect that if students and faculty can see the program is growing, then The Daily Gamecock will stop running articles about my salary,” Van Scoy said.
The initiative had overwhelming support from the two students who attended this month’s USC Connect forum. Second-year exercise science student Robert Paulson plans to hang his poster at Columbia hall so that his friends in Capstone can look outside their window every morning at his 50-foot impressive image. He is the first and only student who has correctly answered the Sphinx’s riddle to successfully upload his poster. Other students who have attempted to upload their own templates have been devoured in the process.
“I hope other students who gaze at my poster will be inspired by my success,” Paulson said. “I’ve really been able to be engaged at the University through the Clay Club, Fight Club and attending guest lectures at the Green Quad.”
When asked to describe how these activities have prepared him for the workforce, particularly Fight Club, Paulson declined to comment.
Vice Provost Helen Doerphinghaus expects to see Paulson’s and hopefully other students’ posters on display by fall 2015 pending whether or not USC survives the rapture this December.
The QEPC will also be adding a link to a specialized version of The Sims on the USC Connect website. The link was developed after Van Scoy said she wanted to come up with an intelligent “gaming” system in which students can set up avatars and open doors to new opportunities, such as internships, study abroad experiences and elaborate costume parties at their virtual residence halls. A virtual residence mentor will be provided to ensure the parties don’t get too out of control. The Daily Gamecock filed a Freedom of Information Act request with USC to determine the salaries of these RMs, but received no response at time of publication.
As for the proposed overhaul of the university calendar, the committee will instead front $400,000 of the QEPC budget to hire four town criers to announce the commencement of university events at specified times throughout the day.
The criers, the gaming system and the posters will all be recycled shortly after 2015, said Vice Provost Helen Doerpinghaus, as the SACS requires only five years of investment in the quality enhancement plan. The posters will be given to the College of Engineering to be used in the construction of a 200 foot feline for the annual Tiger Burn preceding the Carolina-Clemson football game. Doerpinghaus hopes the event will be a final testament to USC’s dedication to SACS higher education standards.
“It’s going to be a very tangible expression,” Doerpinghaus said. “The state is very concerned that we spend enough money to make students reflect on what happens beyond the class, so it’s not just kind of a throwaway experience that doesn’t mean anything.”