Coastal Carolina University

Carolina University, in a bill signed into law by South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell on the steps of the Singleton Building. Ronald R. Ingle, the last chancellor of Coastal Carolina College, became the newly minted university's first president. The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers football team opened its inaugural game vs. Newberry College on Sept. 6, 2003, in front of a crowd of more than 8,000 at the newly opened Brooks Stadium. In 2004, Coastal Carolina University celebrated its 50th anniversary; the same year, enrollment reached 7,000 students, and CCU opened the first phase of the University Place housing complex across S.C. 544.
Throughout the 2010s, the university experienced a building boom achieved as a result of a local 1-cent sales tax for education-related construction (the present Brittain Hall was originally dubbed "Penny Hall" in honor of the penny tax that helped fund its construction). In 2014, the university established its first doctoral degree program, in coastal and marine science systems …