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University of South Carolina history professor Walter Edgar, who is also an author and radio host, spoke at the Bluffton campus as part of a yearlong series of events to mark USCB's Golden Jubilee. In 1959, a Beaufort campus of the USC system opened.
He traced the area's education history from the 1795 charter authorizing the original Beaufort College to USCB's accreditation as a four-year university in 2004.
"The theme is very easy," Edgar said. "The theme of my remarks is the desire and commitment of the Beaufort community since the 18th century to have an institution of higher education."
Local interest and financial support made Beaufort College possible in the early 1800s and continues to play a major role in USCB's success today, he said.
A group of trustees advocating for Beaufort College raised more than $60,000 to fund the project -- an impressive sum in 18th century dollars, Edgar said. Money from the sale of confiscated British estates after the Revolutionary War also contributed, he said.
Beaufort College opened in 1804 with the motto "Virtue, Liberty, Science" and served as a feeder school to South Carolina College in Columbia and northern universities such as Harvard, Edgar said. It closed when the Civil War began.
In 1959, Beaufort's association with the University of South Carolina became official, when USCB opened as a two-year college on the Beaufort College site to give Lowcountry students access to the state's flagship public university system.
Although history doesn't always repeat itself, Edgar said, "in the case of USCB, there clearly is a common strand."
Again in the 21st century, the Beaufort community relied on financial support from local residents and local government to improve access to higher education, Edgar said.
After USCB became a four-year college, it began serving students on the 200-acre Bluffton campus in 2004. The university now serves more than 1,600 students on two campuses.
USCB chancellor Jane Upshaw thanked more than a dozen organizations, donors and current and former elected officials on Friday for their dedication to the university's growth.
"The support of our region is inherent in our mission, in our shared vision and our hopes and dreams for the future," she said.
She said USCB will continue to develop as an "institution of distinction that is student-centered and community-engaged."
