Administration

Bennie L. Harris, Ph.D., is USC Upstate’s fifth chancellor. Harris succeeds Brendan Kelly, who served from 2017-2020, and assumed his new post on July 1.

Dr. Pamela Steinke serves as provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and SACSCOC Institutional Liaison.

Matthew Martin was introduced as the director of athletics and vice chancellor for intercollegiate athletics at USC Upstate on Aug. 14, 2023.

Prior to joining USC Upstate, RJ served as associate vice president for university advancement at Winthrop University, charged with oversight for the areas of annual giving, major and planned gifts, advancement services and donor relations. Under his leadership, Winthrop achieved a milestone number of unrestricted annual gifts during 2018, while also reaching the second highest total for overall fundraising in 2019.

She has almost 30 years of experience in admissions and enrollment services. She is a USC Upstate graduate and has completed the Harvard Admissions Leadership Program and certification in enrollment management.

Sheryl Turner-Watts is the chief financial and operations officer and vice chancellor for finance and administration/Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) for athletics and her responsibilities include all facets of the budget planning process and ensuring the design, implementation and maintenance of systems of control/compliance to ensure the integrity of the financial and fiscal operations.

Adam Long serves as the Chief Information Officer at USC Upstate. Long previously served as USC Upstate’s director of institutional research and business intelligence where he led a professional staff with comprehensive responsibility for institutional research, data and reporting administration, and enterprise applications. 

Christopher Taylor serves as vice chancellor for external affairs and chief of staff in the Office of the Chancellor at USC Upstate.

Kesha Boyce Williams is responsible for providing strategic leadership, oversight and tactical and technical direction to the institutional marketing and communications team in support of the University’s strategic direction. In her role, Williams helps to raise the profile of USC Upstate by fostering a spirit of collaboration and delivering creative, compelling and high-impact content.

An award-winning student affairs professional with more than two decades of progressive leadership experience in higher education administration, Tierney leads our Division of Student Affairs and works across our institution to provide strong, effective management of initiatives that will affect the quality of life for our students.