College of Charleston

The 19th amendment promised women the right to vote would not be denied because of gender.  But it was an empty promise for women with dark skin.

"It's an historical legacy that can't be ignored because it's inconvenient," says Sandra Slater.  She's an associate history professor at the College of Charleston and the director of the school's Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program.

Slater has been talking a lot about the suffragist movement this year as part of the centennial celebration of the passage of the 19th amendment.

Maddie Wallace was on spring break in the Bahamas when she got the news; she would not be going back to school.  The coronavirus was declared a pandemic and the College of Charleston planned to shut down campus.  She finished her classes online in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

"I was at home in my childhood bedroom," she laughs.

"My mom would peek in my room and be like, 'are you done yet?'  I'm like, 'Mom I'm in class.' "

There's nothing like moving home to cramp a college student's life.

As the College of Charleston celebrates its 250th birthday, at its center is Randolph Hall.  Built in 1820, students still gather here. 

Less prominent, an organization that tries to help the school comes to terms with  its past, the Center for the Study of Slavery.

"You are sitting in the office of the center right now," says Dr. Bernard Powers.  He founded the center two years ago after retiring from the history department.

Artist Christian Orendt talks with Jeanette Guinn about The Carrion Cheer: A Faunistic Tragedy an installation at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art on Calhoun Street as part of Piccolo Spoleto.

People picture coral reefs as bursting with color and teeming with a variety of undersea life, which many are. But their number is shrinking, says College of Charleston biologist Phil Dustan, because they are hyper-sensitive to temperature changes, and climate change is warming the ocean to intolerable levels for many reefs. In his 40-plus years of studying reefs, Dustan said, the Florida Keys, for example, have probably lost 90 to 95 percent of their living coral reefs.

You know it’s spring in Charleston when the cars are thick with yellow pollen, as well as  a colorful array of out of state license plates.  Porta- Potties line the streets, novice runners sport bright, new shoes and college kids seeking sun and warmth stretch out behind the beach dunes.  Typically, the signs appear in April, alongside two annual events; the Cooper River Bridge Run and the Volvo Car Open.

Erwin Redl investigates the process of “reverse engineering” by (re-)translating the abstract aesthetical language of virtual reality and 3D computer modeling into architectural environments by means of large-scale light installations. In his current show at the Halsey Institute of Charleston, his work displays strict methodologies which employ binary logic as well as tropes of minimalism to exuberant extremes.

  The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition of recent work by Brooklyn-based sculptor, Alyson Shotz. With an artistic practice that examines the properties and interactions of light, gravity, mass, and space, Shotz bridges disciplines in her work, drawing on scientific methods, mathematical principles, and literature, among other diverse fields. Often employing nontraditional materials such as glass beads, linen thread, stainless-steel filaments, and welded aluminum to create large-scale abstract sculptures, Shotz expands upon conventional notions of sculptural space and form.