Lunch and Learn Series   

Baseball Is Back In the Burg! Tyson Jeffers, General Manager of the Hub City Spartanburgers, will speak about professional baseball coming back to Spartanburg. His lecture will include details on building Fifth Third Park, starting the newest Minor League Baseball team from scratch and what to expect from the organization and the facility in 2025 & beyond!

Wofford and the Northside: Bill Barnet, businessman, philanthropist, and past Spartanburg Mayor will share with us the lessons learned from the growing relationship between the Wofford campus and its neighbors across Church Street in the Northside Community as it has developed over the last 10 years. 

Mistakes People Make in Medicare and How to Avoid Them:  Scott Cochran, President of Spartanburg Methodist College and Wofford graduate, will share information about one of the three biggest expenses facing retirees, Healthcare. (FYI, housing and transportation are the other two.) This lecture will look at five common Medicare mistakes that people make and how to avoid them.

LITTER: Environmental and Personal Liabilities and Actions to Offset Them: Joyce Harrison will discuss the litter problem impacting South Carolina from the mountains to our coasts. Our South Carolina Aquarium, located on the banks of the Charleston Harbor, has been tracking litter data since 2016. In 2019 they realized that much of the litter on our coasts was emanating from inland sources via our statewide watersheds. This presentation will identify litter problems, impacts, and solutions. We’ll explore actions we can all take to improve outcomes for our health and the health of our planet.

Spartanburg City (Back In The Day before Urban Renewal): Dr. Brenda Lee Pryce has been a champion of the Southside since she was born there in a boarding house on South Liberty Street. She has worked and sought ways to make life better "South of Main" (the title of her book) from serving at the state level as the first elected black woman from Spartanburg to spearheading campaigns for funds for education, memorials, parades and historic sites. She will address life for families and the community during 1960-1970 before Urban renewal.

Everything You Need to Know About America You Can Learn From a Comic Book. Dr. Dwain C Pruitt, Chief Equity Officer and Vice President for Community Initiatives, Office for Civil Rights, Compliance, and Community Initiatives.  Comic books and comic book characters are silly and don't have any value, right? This talk suggests that is not the case. As one scholar argues, comic books and their heroes offer a "funhouse mirror" reflection of American life and values as communicated to children. Therefore, the history of the superhero from Superman to the present has much to tell us about how Americans have understood themselves and the world.

"The heyday of a woman's life is the shady side of fifty"--or Is it? Twentieth Century Women and the Experience of Aging. Based on an extensive study of women's personal writings about growing older, Dr. Melissa Walker will explore suffrage leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton's contention that the years after 50 are the best in a woman's life. Dr. Walker will focus on three Southern women from the generations before the Baby Boom.

How the Spartanburg City Police Department integrates technology to address crime trends and quality of life issues. Captain Timothy Metz, Commander of the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), will share how the Spartanburg Police Department integrates cutting-edge technology to detect and deter crime. Explore the ways the Spartanburg Police Department has partnered with community stakeholders, housing managers, and private businesses to expand the capabilities of the Real Time Crime Center.