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USC continues discussion about renaming buildings

Recently, the commission has been in talks with the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina on how they've handled renaming their buildings.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The University of South Carolina Presidential Committee on University History met on Thursday afternoon to give an update on renaming buildings at the campus.

University president Bob Caslen created the commission back in October of 2019. They have been looking at the history of buildings and recommending those they feel the university should think about renaming.

The group has also been tasked with having recommendations of prominent African Americans the university should consider whenever renaming buildings in the future.

Recently, the commission has been in talks with the University of Virginia (UVA) and the University of North Carolina on how they've handled renaming their buildings.

"Both UVA and Chapel Hill, they were very, very helpful and I think they gave us some great information to use, especially concerning sustaining the movement that we have going on already," said one person on the meeting call. "The similarity of the two, UVA and Chapel Hill, they've been in it just between five and eight years."

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The committee is also looking at creating summaries of the history of buildings at South Carolina. The summaries will include why they are being researched, the individual it is named after and explain why and why not it should be renamed.

The committee also discussed the potential of naming schools on campus after people, similar to how the business school is called the Darla Moore School of Business.

Right now, there is not a clear timetable on when building names could be changed.

As a reminder, since the buildings at the University of South Carolina are public, it would take a two-thirds majority vote by state lawmakers in order to repeal the Heritage Act that protects names of state buildings.

The committee continues to collect information about the history of the buildings to put on a website and are listening to input on what the university should consider to rename buildings on campus.

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