instrumental visit

A young man in a tuxedo and a young woman in a black dress sing passionately during a vocal performance in a grand auditorium.

The School of the Arts recently completed a landmark Boston tour, culminating in a Symphony Hall grand finale. Conducted by Yuriy Bekker, the College of Charleston Orchestra and Opera served as the centerpiece of the Boston Instrumental Festival.

This multidisciplinary visit also included studio art students, who explored the city’s premier galleries at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art while visiting graduate studios for a glimpse into their professional futures.

School of the Arts Dean Jayme Klinger Host emphasized the tour’s broad impact, noting that the trip was “an outstanding way to bring together our CofC community to celebrate past, present and future Cougars through engagement with alumni, supporters and pre-college students and educators.”

The professional impact was deeply felt by students like freshman music major Eli Halso, who reflected that performing in the Boston Symphony Hall “grants not only a sense of accomplishment and achievement, but even more the feeling that music-making not only can be, but is currently a reality.”

The tour proved that, for College of Charleston students, the future of their artistry has already begun.

A man wearing a pink sweatshirt gestures with his hand while speaking to a small group of seated students in a classroom.

KIND GESTURE

Thanks to the initiative of artist Brian Rutenberg ’87, theatre students enjoyed a rare glimpse into the world of stage and screen when character actor Richard Kind, a friend of Rutenberg’s, spent several days on campus in February, sharing his craft, wisdom and trademark humor.

Known for his memorable sitcom characters on shows like Mad About You and Spin City and voice work for Pixar, Kind led masterclasses within the Department of Theatre and Dance, covering everything from the business of show business to improv and characterization. His visit also included meaningful engagements with students from the Honors College and the Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program.

The day culminated in a lively public conversation between Kind and Rutenberg at the Albert Simons Center for the Arts, where Kind captivated the audience with industry insights and personal anecdotes.

A 3D digital model showing a long historic two-story building with multiple chimneys, surrounded by a brick wall and a small pig.

A rendering of the Revolutionary War-era barracks that the College used for classrooms in the early 1800s in what is now the Cistern Yard.

revolutionary discovery

Today, the Cistern Yard is one of the most peaceful spaces on campus – a place where students can go to lounge on the grass and visitors can admire the moss-draped live oak trees. With this tranquil setting, it’s hard to imagine that, 250 years ago, the yard served a very different purpose: It was a prison camp for 6,000 American soldiers and their officers during the Revolutionary War.

After the British captured Charleston during the 1780 siege, they confined the American prisoners in two long barracks built in 1757 in response to quartering threats in homes from British soldiers. One ran along College Way where Towell Library is today, and the other likely stretched across the yard along St. Philip Street, according to John McCurdy, a history and philosophy professor at Eastern Michigan University and an expert on the housing of British soldiers before the Revolution.

For prisoners, life inside the roughly 430-foot-long, 40-foot-wide structures was harsh and historic: The imprisonment became the most significant capture of American prisoners of war by a foreign power until World War II.

We know – thanks to Harlan Greene, the former Special Collections scholar-in-residence at the College – that the barracks was one of the first classrooms used at the College. Greene became interested in the site after purchasing an 1814 depiction by artist John Rubens Smith and, through further research, confirmed that the image depicted the College’s barracks.

“J. Harold Easterby had documented the barracks in his 1935 history of the College, and its footprint was visible on maps and plats of the city,” explains Greene. “But to find a visual representation of it from a contemporary source who visited it while it was in use was really exciting.” – Maddie Jacarusonormal

courting new talent

The men’s and women’s basketball teams will have two new faces on the court next year, and it has nothing to do with the transfer portal. The new Cougars will be the coaches, John Groce and Amanda Butler.

Coming off its first Coastal Athletic Association Championship and March Madness debut, the women’s team will be led by Butler, who spent the last two seasons as an assistant at the University of Louisville, helping guide the Cardinals to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Sweet 16 run this year. Butler also spent six years as the head coach at Clemson, where she was named Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year in 2019, and 10 seasons as the head coach at the University of Florida, leading to five NCAA Tournament appearances.

“College of Charleston is a dream job of mine,” she says. “Opportunities like this one don’t come often, and I’m honored to be the choice to lead such an elite group.”
Matt Roberts, director of athletics, praises Butler’s leadership skills: “She will work diligently to build upon our recent success and continue our program’s ascent as one of the top mid-major women’s basketball programs in the country.”

Groce becomes the men’s basketball team’s 26th head coach and its ninth in the Division I era. Groce led the University of Akron to three straight Mid-American Conference championships and NCAA Tournament appearances. Boasting a 29-year Division I career, Groce has accumulated many accolades, including the 2025 Hugh Durham National Mid-Major Coach of the Year award and MAC Coach of the Year honors in 2020 and 2025.

“John Groce is one of the most decorated head coaches in the country,” says Roberts. “He and his staff made a tremendous impact on the Akron community during their nine seasons at the helm. The winning speaks for itself, but his leadership of men and his passion for people is what impresses us the most.”

Three professionals stand against a white background, with the center man in a grey suit smiling and holding a Wilson basketball.

From left: Amanda Butler, Matt Roberts and John Groce.

| photo by Mike Ledford |

A three-story historic building with yellow siding, dark shutters, and ornate black ironwork balconies, surrounded by lush green foliage.

Mystery Solved

The historic homes that line campus all have a story to tell, but few get an epilogue like 14 Green Way did in February when Fred Kerner, the great-grandson of the original 1872 owner, Albert Osceola Jones, visited. It all started with a mysterious family relic: a leather-bound diary with hard-to-decipher writing that Kerner’s maternal grandfather, Albert Victor Jones, possessed. A census search revealed that Kerner’s grandfather was a “mulatto” born to A.O. Jones, an African American who also turned out to be the diary’s author. He had moved to South Carolina from Washington, D.C., after the Civil War and served as the first Black clerk of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868 to 1876 during Reconstruction. Kerner’s daughter, Julie, lives in Charleston and learned about 14 Green Way. During the visit, the Kerner family learned more about A.O. Jones and viewed his letters in Special Collections. But the story doesn’t end there: The Center for Family History at the International African American Museum is transcribing the diary to unravel more insights into the trailblazer.

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