USC President Michael Amiridis and First Lady Ero Aggelopoulou-Amiridis
In a city neighborhood far away on the coast of Greece, a boy and girl grow up together, fall in love, and come to America in pursuit of higher education. As a young man, he completes his doctorate in chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. As a young woman, she begins her undergraduate education. The couple become engaged and marry. Fortunately for the University of South Carolina, the young Michael Amiridis prefers academia to the corporate world, so the young family moves to Columbia, South Carolina, where he pursues his love of teaching and research.
After more than two decades at USC, where he served as executive vice president for academic affairs and provost from 2009 to 2015, Michael and Ero, his wife, moved to the University of Illinois Chicago. During their time away, their two children kept the USC tie strong as undergraduate students pursuing their own degrees. Their parents frequently returned to Columbia, the city they still considered home, for special events. Michael served as UIC’s chancellor until accepting a call to return to Columbia to become the 30th president of the University of South Carolina in 2022.
President Michael Amiridis and First Lady Ero Aggelopoulou-Amiridis share their pride, hopes, and dreams for USC in this exclusive interview with CMM Editor and Associate Publisher Margaret Clay.
Q: What is your vision for the school, and what do you hope to accomplish?
President Amiridis: We have three priorities, focusing on the experience and success of our students, on the impact of our research, and on the operational excellence of our university. These three priorities are at the core of our mission and will move us into a new period. Higher education today is going through a transition at an unprecedented rate. I hope that, at the end of this period, we will be known nationally and internationally for what we do and how we do it.
Q: When you accepted this position, you said one of your main missions was to build trust in higher education. How’s that going, and what have you done in this effort?
President Amiridis: In order to gain trust, we need to focus on the core mission of the university and make sure that people know what we are doing and what the outcomes are of our work. In my opinion, this is how we can regain trust across the political spectrum.
Q: What is USC’s economic impact on the state?
President Amiridis: I believe the last study was done in 2021 and showed an economic impact of $6.2 billion a year. I’m confident that the next study will show an even higher amount, in part because of our continuing growth and in part due to the inflation we had in the last three years. A very important factor of this number for Columbia is the number of people we bring to our city throughout the year: visits by prospective students and their families, graduation celebrations, Parents’ Weekends — you can’t find a hotel room or a table in a restaurant during that weekend – and, of course, seven weekends in the fall when it feels like the entire state comes here. And by the way, 25 percent of the out-of-state students who graduate from USC stay for a period of time in South Carolina after their graduation. Some of these aspects are measurable, and others can’t be put into a statistic.
And let’s go beyond the $6.2 billion number and consider the effect on the lives of our graduates, and let’s also consider the effects of our faculty members’ important findings through their research. It’s almost impossible to put a number on quality of life, and this is what we also do very well.
Q: The university and the City of Columbia have been partners on many projects — how is the relationship with the city, and where do you see it going in the future?
President Amiridis: I still remember when I came here in the mid-’90s seeing a lot of potential and some confrontations. Thirty years later, I’m very fortunate to walk into a great relationship between the city and the university — built by a number of former presidents and mayors — and I have a wonderful relationship with Mayor Rickenmann. We spend time together, and we spend time with our students. One of the things that has surprised me is that our students now have no hesitation about crossing Gervais to get to the northern side of Main Street. This central part of the city was revitalized during the period of time I was in Chicago, largely because of our students. Our students ask me and the mayor what else can they do to continue to improve their Columbia experience. This is the best relationship we could have.
Q: What are the university’s expansion plans in the city, particularly as USC grows closer to the river?
President Amiridis: Over the past 15 years, we have implemented the university’s plans all the way to Huger Street, where the last big project is the construction of a student housing community. We have exhausted our property as a university. Nevertheless, we are eager to be part of the thinking process on the other side of Huger Street, which can transform both our university and our city. I see a strong interest from the city, and I’m very optimistic about what we can do together.
Q: Do you feel the university focuses more on educating the students of South Carolina or students of the region and nation? How can you accomplish both?
President Amiridis: As the flagship university of the state, we do give preference to South Carolinians. We had more than 52,000 applications this year, which is another record, compared to 47,000 last year. Approximately 75 percent of these applicants are out-of-state students, but we give priority to our in-state applicants, and by the end of the admissions process, we have an approximately 50-50 freshman class between in-state and out-of-state students. We also bring approximately 1,000 new transfer students every year who are almost exclusively South Carolinians. So, overall, we pay attention to the South Carolinians, and at the same time, we have unique opportunities to educate other students in the nation, some of the best in the country.
The presence of the out-of-state students is not only a benefit to the state but also a benefit to our in-state students. Sitting in the same class with fellow students from across the nation and across the world and experiencing different perspectives is a great benefit. I think we have a good balance, and we should continue with the same model.
Q: To what do you attribute this incredibly high out of state demand?
President Amiridis: They have heard about the student experience we offer in the classroom and beyond the classroom; they know the reputation of our academic programs; they love the hospitality of our state and the great weather during the winters; they want to experience SEC athletics; and they are smart, so they put all of these things together!
Q: With the university continuing to have a record number of applications year after year, how does the university manage the increase in student staffing, housing, food, classroom space, parking, and security?
President Amiridis: We need the facilities and we need the people, and we are very careful about it. We will never increase the number of students at the cost of putting quality at risk. During the last two years, we have added beds and new residence halls, as well as new and renovated academic facilities, classrooms and labs. We also just announced internally that we will be hiring 100 new full-time faculty members — 50 this year and 50 next year. So, as you can see, we are growing as a university at the same time as the number of students grows. And this is how we are maintaining quality.
Q: How is USC exposing students to local career paths and opportunities within the Midlands market? Are there local recruiting career initiatives?
President Amiridis: There is a new initiative I’m very proud of. This is our South Carolina Internship Program. The idea is to get more and more of our students, while they are still students, to take an interest in South Carolina. It will make them more employable, and they will have a significant advantage compared to the competition they will face in the workforce. If you take an internship with a corporation or nonprofit or hospital, you will probably get an offer from them when you are looking for a permanent job. This is the reason we want our students to do these internships in South Carolina, because then they will be more likely to stay here.
With support from the General Assembly, we are giving students in this program a $3,000 financial supplement as an incentive to participate in these in-state internships. The program is funded through S.C. Education Lottery funds, and the total amount that the state appropriated for this program last year was $4.5 million. This means we can give $3,000 to 1,500 students across the state within the USC system, including the two- and four-year campuses outside of Columbia as well. This incentive program encourages students to stay in our state!
The General Assembly is very interested in this program because it helps show how well our students are prepared for the workforce at the time of graduation. The only requirement we have for our students is that they take an hour-long survey at the end of the internship and that their employers do the same. This will help us understand their perspectives and continue to improve our efforts in this area.
Q: How can the university better position South Carolina to attract new industries and companies to locate in the state so that graduates will be able to get jobs and stay here?
President Amiridis: We can achieve this by working with the state and the corporate groups that are active in South Carolina. One example is our recent work with Commerce Secretary Harry Lightsey and the state Department of Commerce, as well as other universities in the state. Collectively, we succeeded in receiving a designation from the U.S. Department of Commerce as one of 31 regional technology and innovation hubs, out of 300 applicants. This designation will enable our state to compete for federal funds to support technology innovation projects and to position us as a global leader in the field of energy. This effort will also generate attractive new jobs for our graduates by either creating new companies here or bringing in existing ones.
Q: How is the new Interdisciplinary Certificates Program doing? This was one of your first initiatives, correct?
President Amiridis: Yes, and it is designed to give USC students access to in-demand job skills that will make them more marketable. The certificates include digital skills, strategic communications, data analytics, and project leadership and people management. We chose these four areas because one of the most successful consulting firms in the world identified them as the top four skills employers want. We started this in 2023, and although we still have a lot of work to do, approximately 500 students are already pursuing these certificates. I expect that this number will quickly grow to thousands of students each year because they will realize that supplementing their degree with even one of these certificates will make them much more attractive to employers.
Q: On the flip side, how do you nurture an environment in which you give students a broad-based liberal arts education, when so much pressure exists to take career-oriented courses?
President Amiridis: Our goal is to prepare our students to be competent professionals, as well as engaged citizens. This is the idea of a liberal arts higher education, which has served this country very well for decades. We cannot graduate engaged citizens without a strong liberal arts curriculum. At the same time, we cannot advance science without advancing culture and society as well. A lot of the problems we are facing today cannot be solved by technology, and we need the expertise of scholars in the social sciences and the humanities.
Q: Speaking of which, what do you see as the threats — and the opportunities — for USC with AI?
President Amiridis: Well, the genie is out of the bottle, and you can’t go back! I think as an educational institution, we must embrace AI because it is here and will not go away. We need to use it as a tool. Some institutions feel threatened, but, in my opinion, the best approach is to take this tool and use it appropriately in the educational process. At the same time, we will also need to create boundaries and regulations with AI, because this powerful technology can also be used in unethical and illegal efforts. The European Union has already set up some regulations, and I hope that we will see similar efforts at the federal and state levels.
Q: What are your views regarding students’ free speech and how they exercise it?
President Amiridis: While remaining steadfastly committed to protecting the First Amendment on our campuses, we are, at the same time, very careful about threats because sometimes speech leads to real threats and problems. So, I feel we strike a good balance in our approach at USC.
Q: What is your view on using standardized testing as part of the admissions process?
President Amiridis: During COVID, we had a great opportunity for an experiment because of the restrictions on prospective students, and now we have a large database, created over a period of four years, since students were admitted with and without standardized testing. For a number of years before COVID, our data was indicating that GPA and rank in high school were stronger predictors of collegiate success than ACT or SAT scores, and information from the COVID period appears to be supporting this. We have not yet made a final decision on this topic, but we expect to present the data to our governing board, which has the final decision. As of now, standardized testing is still optional.
Q: Do you feel college sports are becoming professionalized? How can USC strike the right balance in the new world of NIL?
President Amiridis: Well, if I had all the right answers for these questions, I’d be a national celebrity! I believe that we are in a transitional period and what we see today will not be the model tomorrow. I don’t think we will become the minor leagues of the professional sports — that would be a disaster for college athletics. I think it is important that we protect the women’s sports and the Olympic sports. College athletics are the foundation for and the primary support of the U.S. Olympics. These sports don’t attract a lot of TV viewers or have big contracts, but without them, we would not be able to go to Paris this summer and celebrate the success of the USA. We cannot afford to lose or restrict these programs and the value they bring to college athletics in favor of financial models that focus only on revenue-generation sports.
Q: Do you support another expansion of the SEC conference?
President Amiridis: The SEC is not interested in another expansion right now. We are ready to welcome Oklahoma and Texas this year, which took a lot of time and effort, and otherwise are focusing on our 14 universities. We don’t see the interest to expand and don’t want to put more of a burden on our student-athletes to travel more than they have to across the country — it doesn’t make sense, and there’s no appetite.
Q: Dr. Aggelopoulou-Amiridis, What are your top priorities as First Lady of USC?
Dr. Aggelopoulou-Amiridis: As an educator and as a mother, I’m fully committed to the idea that students need to have a positive experience both inside and outside of the classroom. I think it is important for them not only to have a great degree in their hands when they graduate, but also to have emerged as emotionally and physically healthy young adults. With that in mind, my priority is being engaged with initiatives that either support or celebrate students’ out-of-classroom efforts as well as initiatives that address the challenges they face. Just to give you a few examples: I speak to and for first-generation students because I think I can relate to them, as both Michael and I are first-generation students ourselves. I invite our art students to exhibit their best works at the President’s House to showcase their talent and to empower them. Michael and I created a student competition for the design of our university’s holiday card. I also fundraise and advocate for our Gamecock Food Pantry and work to raise awareness and resources for some of our low-income students who face basic-needs insecurity. Overall, my goal is to shine a light on the achievements and the challenges that young people face and underline that it’s not only possible but necessary for students’ academic success to go hand in hand with personal and emotional growth.
Q: President Amiridis, what do you wish for people to know about the university? What are you most proud of?
President Amiridis: I would like people to know more about our emphasis on the success and the quality of our students. Our students are what lift me up when I am disappointed or tired. And seeing the success of our graduates is the biggest privilege of my job. I think it’s important for the rest of the country to learn more about the University of South Carolina. We have a welcoming and diverse environment to offer, without being polarizing, and we have a great university.
