County hosts SC State and international doctoral students; OCDC highlights intern work

The council heard presentations from South Carolina State University representatives and visiting doctoral students from the United States International University of Africa in Nairobi, and county economic-development staff introduced an intern assisting with industrial-park data.

Chair introduced Doctor Matthew Warthoff Guwaffe, dean of the SC State College of Business and Information Systems, who thanked the council for hosting and described SC State's experiential learning programs and student partnerships with Orangeburg. A visiting representative from United States International University said 21 doctoral students were in Orangeburg for two weeks for research and community/industry engagement and asked to allow a student to speak.

Ty Davenport, director of economic development at the Orangeburg County Development Commission, introduced an intern, whom he named as Alyssa Davis Hudson Regier, and said she has been compiling a spreadsheet of needs for the county's industrial park, including water and sewer gaps, site plans and other project data. The intern spoke briefly about her site-plan and data-collection work and said she hopes to apply her engineering training locally after graduation.

A visiting student, who identified himself as John (clarified as Ndungo), thanked the council and described the delegation's positive experience in Orangeburg.

No action was taken on these presentations; the items were for information and appreciation. Attribution: quotes and names come from introductions and remarks given on the public record at the meeting.