On any given day, the University of South Carolina offers services, lectures, symposia, performances, and events that enrich, inspire, entertain, and serve the citizens of South Carolina. The following is a partial list of these activities.

A.C. Moore Herbarium
USC's herbarium, one of the oldest and largest in the Southeast with nearly 86,000 dried-and-pressed plants, is a repository for nearly every botanical species found in South Carolina. Located on the second floor of the Coker Life Sciences Building, the herbarium provides free plant identification services and offers free seminars for schools, other organizations, and the public.

Affiliated Research Center
The Affiliated Research Center is a partnership between USC's geography department and NASA that brings the latest GIS (geographic information systems), remote sensing technology, and satellite imagery techniques to the state's commercial business community to help solve location and siting problems.

AIDS Training Network
Since 1987, the S.C. AIDS Training Network at the Arnold School of Public Health has provided information and education to more than 35,000 people across the state. The network provides training to healthcare and medical professionals working with HIV and AIDS patients.

Belle W. Baruch Institute for
Marine Biology and Coastal Research
The institute sponsors a variety of educational programs for all ages at its coastal facilities in Georgetown and the North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. These include informal seminars, short courses for high-school students and the public, bird walks, seasonal explorations of salt marshes, and open houses of the Baruch Marine Lab.

The Best Center
"Kids Who Read Succeed" is the motto of USC's Best Center, the state's official preview center for recently published children's books and learning resources. Housed in the South Carolina State Library, the Best Center provides educators, parents, students, and librarians with access to the most recent books for children and young adults.

Caught in the Creative Act
Begun in 2000 by USC writer-in-residence Janette Turner Hospital, Caught in the Creative Act is a free course open to anyone who likes to read novels, short stories, and poetry. It includes guest lectures by many of the writers whose work is read in class. Dori Sanders, William Styron, Louise DeSalvo, and Sue Grafton have visited the classes.

Clinical and Skills Program
Through in-house legal clinics, third-year students at the School of Law learn about the standards of the legal profession by representing actual clients on real cases. Clinic students practice under a special rule, South Carolina Appellate Court Rule 401, which allows them to represent indigent clients, arms of state government, or clients referred to the clinic by a state or federal court or agency.

Cultural Arts
Each year, more than 125,000 people enjoy USC music concerts, theatre productions, and art and history exhibitions at sites around the state. The University offers nearly 300 concerts, plays, and exhibitions annually.

Distance Education
The University's professional schools use the latest technologies to extend graduate programs to thousands of professionals statewide and beyond. Teachers, social workers, nurses, engineers, and business people earn graduate degrees without leaving their local communities. Distance delivery provides stimulating opportunities for 1,000 high-school students statewide to earn college credit prior to graduation.

Gift of Music
In addition to musical performances, USC's School of Music enriches the community through teaching programs open to the public. The Community Music Program provides vocal and instrument lessons to young adults and adults. The Children's Music Development Center offers early music education classes for infants and young children. The school also hosts band camps for high-school and college students, as well as community workshops for musicians. Phone: 803-777-4280.

Japanese Saturday School
As a partner in state economic development, USC offers a Japanese Saturday School for Japanese children whose parents work for Japanese companies in South Carolina (e.g., Honda). The school provides training in the Japanese language as a native language and an understanding of Japanese culture, so that the children will more easily adapt to their native educational environment when their families return to Japan. Phone: 803-777-7034

Library Outreach
The University Libraries (Thomas Cooper Library, South Caroliniana Library, Business Library, Mathematics Library, and Music Library) are host to more than 1 million visitors a year. The libraries provide public access to 3.7 million volumes, 5 million microforms, 1 million government documents, more than 400,000 maps, and countless resources made available through the Internet. The libraries share information on rare and unique materials through regular exhibits, highlighted by programs with noted authors and scholars, and through educational Web exhibits now attracting more than 1.5 million virtual visitors annually. Professional librarians at service desks throughout the University Libraries answer more than 160,000 questions in person, by telephone, and by e-mail each year.

McKissick Museum
Each year, McKissick Museum under the auspices of the College of Liberal Arts plays host to more than 45,000 visitors locally and 500,000 visitors nationally through its changing and traveling exhibits program. Accredited by the American Association of Museums, McKissick is well known for its research, collections, publications, and interpretive exhibitions on the material cultures of South Carolina. Open to the public and free, the museum conducts seminars, lecture series, and children's programs, and manages a graduate-level certificate program in museum management. Phone: 803-777-7251.

Palmetto Poison Center
The Palmetto Poison Center at USC's College of Pharmacy is South Carolina's poison control center. The center answers about 35,000 calls annually on accidental poisonings. Local phone: 777-1117; in-state phone: 800-922-1117; drug information: 777-7805

Primary Healthcare Clinics
Nurse practitioners, nursing faculty, and students from USC's College of Nursing provide healthcare to thousands of Midlands residents annually through the college's primary care clinics, which include the Women's Healthcare Center, the Children and Family Healthcare Center, and the Primary Care Partners.

Psychological Services Center
Established in 1965 as a non-profit agency, USC's Psychological Services Center offers individual, family, and group therapy for low-income people. It is the only program of its kind in the state. Phone: 803-777-4864

Reading Initiative
Through the College of Education's South Carolina Reading Initiative, USC trains literacy coaches that are preparing more than 1,000 in-service teachers statewide in the latest research and best practices in reading.

Rural Healthcare
The USC School of Medicine established the John A. Martin Primary Health Care Center in Winnsboro nearly 10 years ago to provide care for the community and education in rural primary care for doctors and other health care professionals. It helps train students from the medical school, the College of Nursing, The Arnold School of Public Health, and the College of Social Work. This interdisciplinary approach has been replicated at rural primary care sites in Kershaw and Bennettsville. All sites have community outreach programs devoted to wellness and disease prevention.

Scholastic Press
Each year, the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies hosts about 3,000 high-school journalists from as far away as Texas and Maryland for workshops sponsored by the college's S.C. Scholastic Press Association, the Scholastic Broadcasters Association, and the Southern Interscholastic Press Association.

School of Law Community Services
For more than 10 years, USC law students have been involved in service activities for the community. These activities include working with South Carolina attorneys on pro bono cases, tutoring children, teaching reading, researching law for non-profit organizations, clerking with public defenders, raising funds for charities, and helping to ease the pain of child neglect and abuse.

SCIAA Digs
The South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology conducts research projects and excavations around the state, some of which include opportunities for citizens to help with excavation. Citizens are invited to help at the Santa Elena/Charlesfort site on Parris Island and the Topper (Allendale PaleoIndian) dig site.

Small Business Development Center
Housed in the Moore School of Business, USC's Small Business Development Center aids start-up ventures and helps nearly 3,500 business owners through consultations, referral services, and a variety of workshops and seminars.

South Carolina Network for Educational Renewal
USC and the College of Education promote school-university collaborations around the state for the improvement of schools and teacher-education programs.

Speech and Hearing Center
The Speech and Hearing Center of The Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health provides diagnostic and therapeutic services to children.

Split P Soup
Split P Soup is a K-12 project in which graduate English students and faculty encourage reading and creative writing through the study and writing of poetry. More than 1,800 students have participated in the program.

Center for the Study of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior
The center conducts research on suicide and life-threatening behaviors, and disseminates related information and data to the public. The center also provides psychotherapy; offers courses on suicide, death, and dying; and organizes workshops, conferences, lectures, and institutes on suicide problems. Professionals at the center evaluate and refer suicide students and other individuals in the community, and consult with life-insurance companies, hospitals, and jails. A major activity of the center is editing the official publication of the American Association of Suicidology, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.

USC Showcase
Each year in early April, the Carolina Alumni Association hosts USC Showcase. The open house attracts upwards of 8,000 visitors and provides the community an opportunity to learn more about the University. USC Showcase features exhibits, displays, music, and dance performances. Phone: 803-777-4111

Telemedicine Network
USC's School of Medicine introduced the first telemedicine network to South Carolina in 1992. It links physicians and healthcare providers in rural areas to specialists at hospitals and other facilities throughout the state.

USC Technology Incubator
The USC Technology Incubator program is designed to spur economic development by giving new businesses access to USC resources, reduced rent in the incubator's downtown Columbia offices, and assistance in finding service providers, such as lawyers and accountants.

Writing Center
USC's Writing Center provides solutions to writing problems (grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, etc.) through one-on-one sessions, workshops, and its Writer's Hotline. Each year the center schedules thousands of one-on-one sessions and answers countless questions from citizens outside the University. E-mail: grammar@sc.edu; Writer's Hotline: 803-777-7020.

Young Artists Workshop
Each semester, children ages 6-17 who are interested in art can take classes ranging from sculpture and painting to mixed media and ceramics taught by USC students in the University's master-in-art teaching program. More than 100 children participate in the program each year. Phone: 803-777-4236.

OUTREACH INITIATIVES FROM USC REGIONAL CAMPUSES

USC Lancaster's Gregory Health and Wellness Center serves the community with an after-school center, summer day camps, and cardiac rehabilitation and physical therapy programs. The Child Development Center serves economically disadvantaged children by working with 3- and 4-year-olds, preparing them for a successful kindergarten experience.

USC Salkehatchie created the Leadership Center to stimulate economic development in Allendale, Barnwell, Colleton, and Hampton Counties. The Center has been instrumental in generating grant funding for county programs and providing leadership training for county officials and citizens.

USC Sumter's End-of-Life Care Center coordinates educational outreach activities on end-of-life issues in the five-county service area of USC Sumter. The Role Models for Success program works to interest minority students in pursuing a college education.

USC Union established HELP, the Human Empathy Learning Program, to assist local non-profit agencies, to promote volunteerism, and to enhance student learning by connecting classroom lessons to real-world experiences.