Coastal Carolina University is the current national champion in college baseball, having won the College World Series on June 30, 2016. The CCU Chanticleers are the first team since 1956 to win the CWS title in its first appearance in the series. The win has brought the university an extraordinary level of recognition, including kudos from the New York Times for our "elegant, Chaucer-inspired mascot." The title run has also focused attention on our achievement as an institution of higher education in our state and region. CCU is a comprehensive, public liberal arts institution located in Conway, S.C., the seat of Horry County, which also includes the Myrtle Beach resort destination. In the fall of 2016, CCU's enrollment was 10,479 with a student-to-faculty ratio of 18:1. CCU offers baccalaureate programs in 73 major fields of study as well as 18 master's degrees, two educational specialist degrees, and the Ph.D. in marine science: coastal and marine systems science. CCU has developed its second doctoral program, in education, which is in the final stages of the state approval process and will be offered in 2018. CCU embraces the teacher-scholar model with emphasis on high-quality teaching and engaged learning. The characteristics of the institution that set it apart from other universities of comparable size and mission have to do with history and location. CCU was founded in 1954 by a community of citizens who were eager to improve the educational, economic and cultural capacities of the region. Throughout its history, the institution has maintained a close, reciprocal relationship with the surrounding region, which during the past 60 years has advanced from a primarily agricultural district to a major Atlantic coast resort. The University's development has been correspondingly dynamic. Begun on a shoestring with evening classes in the local high school, Coastal was for 30 years a branch campus of the University of South Carolina. Since becoming an independent, state-supported institution in 1993, the institution has flourished, and CCU is now the fourth largest four-year university in the state. Capitalizing on its proximity to the coast, CCU has built a world-renowned marine science program. Studies conducted by the department play a vital role in shaping public policy relating to coastal resource management issues along the South Carolina and U.S. coastline. CCU's Hurricane Genesis and Outlook (HUGO) Project, a hurricane outlook model system developed by CCU scientists, produced extremely accurate forecasts for the 2015 and 2016 hurricane seasons. The team's calculations for the 2016 season proved correct in nearly every category (number of named storms, number of major hurricanes, number of landfalls on the East Coast and the Gulf Coast) and outperformed many other prominent storm models in the last year. Also during this past year, CCU announced its first student Fulbright grant recipient. Peter Seifarth, a senior theatre arts major, will conduct research on sociopolitical theater in Kathmandu, Nepal, during the 2017-2018 academic year. CCU has a unique and distinguished theatre program, which includes a B.F.A. in three separate concentrations: acting; design and technology; and physical theatre. CCU was the only university in the state that was invited to participate in the 2017 "Posters on the Hill," the annual research competition sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research in Washington, D.C. Three students presented the findings of their two-year study about public perceptions of the local homeless population. In athletics, CCU moved up to the FBS level as a new member of the Sun Belt Conference on July 1, 2016. In their first year in the new conference, CCU women's volleyball and men's soccer won the Sun Belt Championship. The men's basketball team advanced to the CBI Tournament finals.

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