S.C. State fails to get $7 million transportation grant

ORANGEBURG – South Carolina State University failed to land a $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation that would have allowed it to launch research programs at its troubled transportation center.

Dale Wesson, vice president for research, told a committee of the Board of Trustees Thursday that the money would have been “a real shot in the arm” for the James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center. But, Wesson said, the university is applying for other research grants. He thinks those awards will be easier to land now that a portion of its transportation complex is complete.

S.C. State’s center became one of the USDOT’s University Transportation Centers in 1998, but the agency cut off funding in 2006 and has not recognized it as a designated transportation center since 2009.

Read more in Friday’s editions of The Post and Courier.