In addition to the exciting news that I shared with you earlier this month about our recent $6 million SC RISE grant, I wanted to update you on a few other items of note:
Strategic Plan Progress Dashboards
As promised, the vice presidents and I have reported progress made to date on the strategic plan’s phase 1 initiatives. Dashboards have been added to the strategic plan website, and they detail the work completed so far on each initiative. We plan to update these dashboards at least quarterly. I encourage you to view them here.
Latest Investing in Winthrop Edition
I am pleased to share with you the latest edition of our facilities update, Investing in Winthrop. In this iteration, read more about our plans for the winter/spring months. Many individuals contribute to the remarkable progress you see happening all around us. Thank you to our facilities management leadership team especially for the efforts to move these projects along!
Cornhole and Esports Win Titles
Our cornhole team started the new year by winning two coveted national titles at the American Cornhole League National Competition, held Jan. 2-3 in Myrtle Beach. Luke Bryant (physical education) and Josh Quinn (sport management) won the doubles championship, and the two then competed with teammates Gavin Hamann (entrepreneurship) and Jaxson Remmick (sport management) to win the team championship. Then in the singles competition Bryant won second place and Quinn took third place. What an impressive haul during the team’s inaugural season! Congratulations to Head Coach Dusty Thompson and all of the players.
Also, the esports Super Smash Brothers team was named the Luminosity Makes BIG Moves 2025 Collegiate Crews Champions earlier this month. During the inaugural Scholastic Esports Awards, Head Coach Josh Sides was named Director of the Year and Winthrop League of Legends Coach Connor Doyle took home the Coach of the Year Award. In addition, Bharat "Lima" Chintipall (computer science) was named the #15 Super Smash Brothers Ultimate player in the world! Congratulations to Josh, Connor and all of the esports players.
In other news, Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs/CFO Kevin Butler, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing Joseph Miller, and I will be traveling to Columbia tomorrow to present our 2025-26 budget request to the Higher Education Subcommittee during House budget hearings. I will update the campus as this process takes shape. In addition, I encourage you to be on the lookout on Friday for a fantastic Athletics announcement about a multi-year sponsorship, and I’m happy to share that our music students are once again, after five years, returning to the storied Byrnes Auditorium stage for band and ensemble practices and classes. More details will be shared soon on specific events that are being planned to celebrate Byrnes and its impactful reopening.
Thank you, as always, for all that you do for Winthrop. We are off to a wonderful start of the spring semester!Edward
Edward A. Serna
President
