South Carolina has carved more than $2 billion from its budget over the past three years, slashing about 3,000 state jobs in the process, and more cuts are expected this fiscal year. Teachers and librarians have been laid off. Services have been delayed or cut.
Unemployment remains high. Some employers have unfilled jobs, but unemployed workers are taking longer to find jobs that meet their skill level in their geographic location. Tax reform is on the table and education needs improvement. Congestion is growing and roads lack repair.
Amidst all those problems, Liberty Fellowship Summit 2010, organized by the Liberty Fellowship, is attempting to help people who care passionately about South Carolina shine a light on bright spots and search out potential solutions to some of the hardest challenges facing the state.
About 700 people have registered for the summit, to be held Nov. 30 at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. Many more are expected to be involved throughout the year in smaller forums, to be held primarily online.
“I think it’s a critical time for our state,” said Chad Prosser, director of the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism and a member of the 2008 class of the Liberty Fellowship. “I think this will be a positive event.”
Dan Heath, co-author of “Switch” and “Made to Stick,” will be the keynote speaker, discussing “How to Change When Change is Hard.”
About 140 Liberty Fellows will lead the collaborative discussions. The various areas to be covered include economic development, education, public policy and health/environment.
South Carolina colleges and universities have completed research on issues in those areas so participants can hold fact-based discussions, said Hayne Hipp, the former CEO of the Liberty Corp., and the founder of Liberty Fellowship.
Following the smaller discussions, the summit will end with a panel discussion and a networking period.
The research papers and a summit summary will be posted on the Liberty Fellowship website, www. libertyfellowshipsc.org. The next step will be forums in the four interest areas held throughout the year by webinar, with people eventually breaking off and creating action groups to make things happen.
Jenny Johnson, Liberty Fellowship executive director, said the summit will help South Carolina residents learn a change model that focuses on the positive and relies on both analytical and emotional skills. Once people think about change in a positive way, some of the challenges facing the state could be attacked by different action groups from different angles.
“We’re too small and have too many economic challenges for the arrogance of those silos that have held us back,” he said. “We don’t need more people who say ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t.’ It’s clear the status quo is not going to get us there.”
Prosser said he’s excited about the summit’s possibilities.
“You will have a large number of Fellows, who are comfortable with each other. It also will bring in a number of other people,” he said. As long as people talk and then go out and act, it will be a boon for the state.”
The intense two-year Liberty Fellowship program, started in 2004 by Hipp with partners Wofford College and The Aspen Institute of Colorado, is designed to inspire long-term leadership in South Carolina by bringing together classes of 20 proven leaders between the ages of 25 and 45. A new class is started each year and to date there are 140 Fellows. Mentors are matched with each of the Fellows.
The insight I got is there are a lot of smart, very committed people in South Carolina who care about the issues,” Hipp said. But “they didn’t have a platform to meet on.”
Gustavo Suarez, an immigration attorney with Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart law firm and a member of the class of 2012, said, “I’m a huge fan of the program.”
“It’s a laboratory of ideas. It’s getting people sitting down and talking,” he said.
Personal friendships and personal growth are part of the results, but Fellows also gain time and perspective to reflect on the challenges of leadership, Prosser said. The transformative program works because “everyone who participates has that – seeing South Carolina be a better place to live and work – as a common goal.”
Elizabeth “Betsy” Fleming, president of Converse College, was a member of the 2006 Liberty Fellowship class.
At the time the class began, her mentor was Crandall C. Bowles, chairman and chief executive of Springs Industries Inc.
Bowles said then that the Liberty program paired the two women together and they met and talked. It underscored the importance of exchanging ideas, although the Liberty program had objectives beyond corporate mentoring, Bowles said.
“I think it’s difficult to have a close relationship where you really know the person over a period of time and help them make decisions and perform all those roles,” Bowles said at the time. “But I think when you do have a person like that in the course of your career, it can be immensely helpful.”
Another “of the benefits of the program is that it is a very diverse group of people,” said Prosser, who was already the leader at South Carolina PRT when he joined the class. When they get together to talk and listen, they learn a lot about differing ideas and philosophies. They gain a connection to different ideas.”
Hipp said, “The discussions are inevitably intense and sometimes contentious.” But participants are civil, he said, and find areas of agreement. What Hipp wants to do now with the Summit and forums is to “bring all of South Carolinians who care about the state” into the discussions.
Each Fellow is responsible for a project that will impact the community and the state. For example, Doug Smith of Spartanburg began the New Statesman Society, a group that brings together new legislators to talk about the history of the General Assembly and legislative ethics.
Another Fellow worked with her mentor to create a method of accrediting interpreters in the court system and to get the General Assembly to accept it.
