Blog Author: Jonathan

Federal law has, since 1993, required businesses with 50 or more employees to provide unpaid family and medical leave. That leaves 40% of workers ineligible, and of the rest, nearly half report they cannot afford the time away. Unpaid family leave is equivalent to little or no leave for many single mothers and women in low-income jobs.

Many of the best jobs in America, and here in the Charleston region – the most secure, most in-demand, and highest paying – are in the tech field. Generally, they require education heavy in science, technology, engineering, and/or math – STEM.

In 2019, the American Heart Association (AHA) began teaming up with the construction industry to improve the heart health and overall fitness of industry employees.

The implications for the workforce in the Lowcountry could be significant, particularly in light of efforts to diversify the job market here.

Even prior to COVID, one in three families with young children was reported to be struggling to afford diapers. Diapers are not covered by federal subsidies like Food Stamps (SNAP) and WIC, but their cost can cause an economic hardship for low-income families.

Written by: Barry Waldman Women comprise 51% of the U.S. population and own 39% of its businesses. Yet women-owned businesses account for merely 4% of the revenue generated nationally. Minority women-owned businesses generate a fraction of one percent of revenue. Women and minorities lack the business grooming, mentorship, and access to capital that help men…

Begin With Books promotes early childhood literacy one book at a time from birth through age five. The Charleston-based organization affiliated with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library delivers one free book each month to preschoolers in low-income neighborhoods in the Lowcountry.

The Lowcountry Graduate Center recognizes that a healthy agricultural community is paramount to a Lowcountry economy dependent on its culinary industry.

Sayer says meeting with other educational professionals is a significant benefit. Classes of 15-20 have allowed her to establish relationships with educators from around the area, trade best practices, and share common frustrations. The Lowcountry Graduate Center, located on the campus of Trident Technical College, has served as a central meeting point for educators spread from Mt. Pleasant to Ridgeville.

In order to reach herd immunity, 70% of the population must become immune. Contracting Covid has proven to convey only short-term immunity, meaning that the vaccine is the only route. With children comprising 27% of the state population, nearly every adult will have to get vaccinated in order to protect everyone. A recent poll found that about a third of Americans do not plan to get vaccinated.

It has been well-documented in this space and elsewhere the scale of the present and looming teacher shortage hamstringing South Carolina’s public schools.

The lack of affordable housing is a nationwide issue that restrains economic growth by shackling disposable income for families with modest incomes and preventing them from living near the available jobs. The problem is particularly acute in the Charleston area, where housing prices are booming, inventory is tight, and hospitality and tourism are a bedrock of the local economy.

What happens when you take an accelerating teacher shortage fed by educator defections and sagging enrollments in education programs, plus the added fuel of a global pandemic?

As we have documented previously, diabetes is a rampant and preventable scourge in South Carolina, affecting the daily lives of half a million adults and dramatically increasing their mortality risk. Recent research suggests that type II diabetes – i.e., diabetes with adult onset – is significantly less associated with genetics than with lifestyle.

Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in South Carolina, a top 10 state for the disease with more than half a million adult sufferers. Diabetes increases the risk of stroke, heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, and even death. And it is largely preventable.

The most wonderful time of the year? Not for everyone and certainly not for a lot of people this past year’s holiday season. Even in ordinary years, the Christmas-New Year holiday season adds stressors to the lives of American adults, one in four of whom struggle with a diagnosable mental health disorder, according to the…

This year, with the coronavirus racing across our continent, it is doubly important to get your flu shot as soon as possible. It is painless and inexpensive; in fact, many employers and other organizations provide them for free.

Lauren Rhoads is a high-performing business student at the College of Charleston, the kind who color-codes her to-do list and does the lion’s share of the work in group assignments. This senior business major was cruising through her college career with internships lined up and jobs awaiting until Covid hit.

Unlike its former location, the Lowcountry Graduate Center now resides on a campus with a full-fledged library. The main library on the Thornley Campus – i.e., the main campus off Rivers Ave. in North Charleston – is now open and available for use to all graduate center students and faculty. The library is located in building 510 directly across campus, southeast from Relish, the restaurant in the 920 building that houses the LGC.

These kinds of stories are legion at companies that have joined the Charleston Healthy Business Challenge, a collaborative program of MUSC, and the City of Charleston, sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina and offered for free to businesses throughout the Lowcountry.

“The driving question isn’t, ‘When will the jobs come back?’ But rather, ‘Where will the jobs be and what skills will they require?’”

The grant process reflects the LGC’s commitment to growing workforce talent for economic development in the Lowcountry. According to the Talent 2020 and Beyond report produced by the Charleston Regional Development Alliance and the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, the talent gap is most acute in the areas listed above and is hampering growth in these industries.

As you might imagine, moving an entire graduate center across town for geographic centralization is a mammoth undertaking under any circumstances. In the midst of a pandemic that is revolutionizing the way educational services are delivered, it was a prescription for chaos.

With the sixth-worst response rate in the nation, South Carolina is endangering some of the billions of dollars it receives in federal payouts dependent on once-in-a-decade Census counts.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned during this extraordinary and unprecedented time of virus-hiding it is that children don’t learn as well electronically, or for as long, as they do at school.

Like all regional economies around the nation, the Charleston metro’s robust economy has skidded nearly to a halt. As one example, pending home sales dropped 11% in April, and listings fell 26% compared to the year before, following a torrid start to the year.

$500 AAUW Scholarships Available for K-8 STEAM Teachers Attention K-8 STEAM teachers: what would you do with $500? Would you pay for supplies, take a course, purchase a piece of equipment for the classroom or treat your class to a pizza party? The American Association for University Women (AAUW) is offering a pair of grants…

And so, we are cooped up in our homes, many of us with young children who must be kept engaged in activities lest their brains shrivel and our nerves fray. The good news is, we have never been better positioned to conduct our lives from our living rooms. We are connected to the entire world via electronic devices, and that world is intent on providing us with all the information and entertainment we could possibly want.

Research has found that 60% of university students have math anxiety, even accounting for the math and physics departments. But math is practical to daily life and fun to think and talk about. You just have to know how to pose the question.

While many jobs in advanced manufacturing, IT, healthcare and other high-demand positions offer premium pay and benefits, many other jobs in high demand, like construction trades and hospitality, offer low pay.

Did you know that Charleston’s burgeoning tech sector now comprises 600 companies, with jobs paying more than twice the regional average? In a community known for tourism and manufacturing, the area is increasingly becoming a tech hub.

Today, South Carolina is no longer worst in the nation for domestic violence (on last accounting, we’re fifth worst) but it is still a major issue. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence says our state still needs to toughen its laws…

In 38 years, textbook prices skyrocketed three times the rate of inflation. For years, students were a captive audience for booksellers. The College Board estimates that the average student will spend more than $1,200 on textbooks this years.

At the turn of the 21st century, 17 tech firms dotted the Charleston business community. Now, there are two tech centers and hundreds of startups within the Charleston Digital Corridor.

In Fall 2019, The Citadel will establish a Tri-County cohort of the Specialist in Educational Leadership program. The course can be completed in two years, and it will be offered the Lowcountry Graduate Center in North Charleston.

The U.S. is the most expensive country in which to deliver and raise a baby. A 2013 study estimated that it cost a minimum of $30,000 to give birth in a hospital and $10,000 for a family with modest means to raise a child in their first year. Moreover, an infant mortality rate in South…

Being a school principal is like being the president of a small nation, except it’s more important because the futures of children are at stake.

Have you ever found yourself falling down a rabbit hole of research, searching in vain for the information you desperately need for a paper or homework assignment? Are your search terms unspooling your efforts, taking you far afield from the information you need? There’s an app for that! Well, not an app, exactly, an actual…

Generally speaking, today’s college classrooms are pretty tricked-out with technology. The days of blackboards and overhead projectors are gone, replaced by “smart” boards and screens, and computers to play videos and surf the Internet. It makes teaching and learning easier, but as with any new technology, if anything goes wrong, it can really hamstring the…

Many summer classes are hybrid in-person/online or feature small class sizes. For those taking courses outside their core competencies, that can be extremely helpful. At the Lowcountry Graduate Center, classes generally contain no more than 20 students and many are much smaller.