ONCE AGAIN, Columbia College is proving why it is such an asset to our community. In the midst of a political hubbub over some lawmakers’ desire to cut funding to the Governor’s Commission on Women, Columbia College stepped in with a genuine offer of help.

The private, Methodist-affiliated women’s college will assume the research and program development duties of the commission. The panel of political appointees will continue as well, maintaining the commission’s traditional advocacy and lobbying role.

Columbia College President Caroline Whitson sees the Commission on Women as a natural partner to the college’s Leadership Institute. That highly respected arm of the college provides seminars, networking and similar experiences for women from high school through adulthood. Columbia College is admired as well for its infusion of leadership skills throughout its academic programs for women.

Dr. Whitson says Columbia College will begin its work for the commission by looking at national benchmark studies on the status of women in South Carolina. It is no secret that such measures have shown the Palmetto State lacking. Things such as our domestic violence rates are too high, our numbers of women in elected office too low. Columbia College will continue to look at such measures annually, hoping to help show progress on them in future national reviews.

The dismal results to date on many of those indicators of the status of women in our state contributed to a hue and cry over the status of the commission’s state funding. An ill-timed crack by the governor’s spokesman about the commission didn’t help, offering the impression that neither Gov. Mark Sanford nor his advisers were concerned enough about the fate of women in our state.

This partnership between the state and Columbia College will not silence all of those critics. Some would prefer to see the Commission on Women retain its status as a state-funded entity. Indeed, it was the presence of a funded and staffed Commission on Women that helped keep South Carolina’s “D” on the 2002 Status of Women in South Carolina report from falling to an “F.”

However, we feel that this public-private partnership is the solution to this situation. It may prove to be a model for dealing with certain types of issues and concerns. Columbia College has the knowledge and ability to do the types of research Dr. Whitson offers. We expect the school will have no problem raising private funds to support the effort, budgeted at $250,000 initially. Dr. Whitson pledges the school will work in cooperation with the state’s public colleges and universities, including those that have their own women’s studies programs.

Columbia College has done much in its more than 150-year history to enhance the status of its students and our community. We look forward to seeing some of those benefits extended to women across South Carolina through the work of this unique partnership.