Caroline Sawyer
Award-Winning Tv Producer And College Professor Leads Learning By The River
story by JEANNE REYNOLDS photos by SUSAN DELOACH
Keep reading if you love learning those little insider “secrets” about Beaufort. Did you know Beaufort has its own S.C. Educational Television (SCETV) studio? It’s tucked into the back of a nondescript tan brick building on the Technical College of the Lowcountry campus along Ribaut Road. Not only that, this studio hosts an award-winning national TV show watched by millions of people across the country.
By The River — an especially apt name for a program produced in a studio with a multimillion-dollar view of the Broad River — is a collaborative production of SCETV and the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB). The 30-minute show features in-depth interviews with Southern authors and readings by Southern state poet laureates. Recent guests have included best-selling authors such as Karen White, Patti Callahan Henry, and Mary Alice Monroe, plus a host of rising stars in the literary skies.
The show is now recording its fifth season — including two years as a national program distributed by American Public Television — under the leadership of Dr. Caroline Sawyer, producer and associate professor of communication studies at USCB.
“We started with South Carolina authors only and began thinking it could be a great regional show if we pulled in authors from Georgia, Florida, and the surrounding area, so we reframed it a Southern authors series,” Sawyer says.
That led to a successful pitch to national public television distributor American Public Television — a prestigious but challenging evolution.
“It’s a heavy delivery lift,” Sawyer says. “We must have the entire season mapped out in advance and deliver episodes eight weeks before they air. As a national program, there are additional technical and content requirements, special logos, and promos. It’s definitely a team sport: from the show host and producer partner, Holly Bounds Jackson, to the support of the leadership of SCETV to the administration at USCB and all the student crew members, it takes all of us to do this.”
Last-minute changes when authors cancel or the Lowcountry experiences its occasional hurricanes add to the complicated mix, but Sawyer insists it’s a lift of love. “It’s our love letter to Southern stories, and the authors and poets who write them.”
The program is also a love letter of sorts to USCB’s communication students, giving them a unique opportunity to work on a national TV show as camera operators, production assistants, associate producers, digital producers, and social media producers.
“This program provides the ultimate experiential learning opportunity for USCB communication studies students and allows us to take the educational experience to a new level,” Sawyer says. “There’s so much opportunity for students here, so much need for professional video production.”
TRAVELING A WINDING PATH
Sawyer traveled a career path as long and winding as the Beaufort River to arrive at USCB. She grew up in Houston and attended Baylor University, earning a bachelor of business administration degree in marketing while also serving as manager of the women’s basketball program. Her head for business and love of sports drew her next to Austin Peay State University near Nashville, Tennessee, for a master of arts degree in corporate communication with a focus in sports broadcasting.
“Austin Peay was just starting a sports broadcasting program with a focus on in-arena marketing,” she explains. “It allowed me to take my creativity and love of sports and mesh it with video and campaigns. And there were lots of opportunities being so close to Nashville: Country Music Television, the Titans NFL team, and the Predators NHL team. It was the perfect combination of being in a small town and a big market.”
Sawyer spent two years there in the master’s program, then stayed on five more years to teach before beginning a Ph.D. program in communication at the University of Memphis, commuting three hours each way. She later moved to Memphis to finish her degree program while teaching in the university’s sports management program. Once she reached the dissertation stage, she took advantage of a new opportunity to live and teach in California, eventually teaching nine different classes at three other schools. Despite that hectic schedule, Sawyer says she loved the new experience.
“It was night and day from Tennessee,” she says. “It was a great growth opportunity to experience a different type of living and a different culture.”
WRITING ON A BLANK SLATE
When Sawyer completed her doctoral dissertation, she began looking for the next step on her path, applying for college teaching positions all over the country.
“I applied to USCB as my ‘backup’ job, but I got here and fell in love with it,” she says. “No one was teaching this here, so it was a blank slate. I could make what I want out of it.”
What she “made” was both an intense college program with a heavy emphasis on digital communication and broadcast production, and an award-winning public television series. And it’s no coincidence student learning is at the core of both.
“I’m a hands-on person and a hands-on instructor. In and out of the classroom, I embrace experiential learning — learning by doing,” she says. “My courses consist of learning theory and applying that theory into practical projects that help students build skills and their resume.”
“You get a good bang for your buck at USCB,” Sawyer adds. “The faculty know and care about the students. You get high contact. And the leadership here is very supportive of specialty projects that involve students. They’ve created an environment that allowed me to develop something like By The River and take it national. They ask, ‘What do you need? How can we help?’ You’re not standing in line for resources.”
SETTING HER OWN PACE
Sawyer seems almost surprised when she realizes she’s been at USCB for six years — the longest period of time she’s spent in one place during her career.
“I love the pace,” she says. “I’m able to set it to my own version of a fast pace that’s not so go-go-go all the time. And I love the people and the history. It’s a cool time to be here. We live in a time where we’re reconciling our history. I find that awe-inspiring that we’re willing to confront the narratives we tell ourselves. The students here enjoy learning about the local history and participating in telling stories about it. It’s an opportunity to contribute back to the community while learning.”
Some of that community contribution comes from work with USCB’s Sand Shark Center for Innovative Media, a specialty area where students can work on projects, and the community — primarily nonprofits — can come to ask for help. Sawyer and her students also work on collaborative community media projects, such as mini documentaries on the Mather School and Shanklin Elementary School for the Beaufort County School District.
Working at USCB placed an unexpected step on Sawyer’s path when she met another newly hired communication instructor, Sean Kingsbury, now the director of human resources at Clearwave Fiber. The two quickly became close colleagues before marrying in 2021, now sharing their home with a pair of Chihuahuas.
“He makes me feel calm all the time,” she says. “He’s my solid ground.”
Sawyer also finds calm in one of her favorite hobbies: quilting. “It’s like meditation,” she says. “I don’t need a team. I can do it at my own pace. And it combines all the things I love about video production: taking scraps of little things, putting them together to tell a story, and then giving it away. With video, you want it to be perfect. With quilting, I want it to be done. It gives me a space to enjoy my creativity without being perfect.”
Although it’s hard to image Sawyer with “down time,” she says she and her husband enjoy local restaurants — Shellring in Port Royal with its pet-friendly seating is a favorite — and other popular features of the Beaufort lifestyle, from the Spanish Moss Trail to festivals to the farmers market.
“I love being part of this community,” she says.
Watch By the River online at https://www.scetv.org/watch/by-the-river or https://www.pbs.org/show/river/, or look for SCETV on your local cable provider or streaming service menu guide.
APPLAUSE, PLEASE!
By The River has collected an impressive roster of national and regional awards in less than five years on the air:
• Southeast Emmy Nomination for interview/discussion
• Silver Telly Award for cultural series
• Bronze Telly Awards for set design, cultural series, nature and wildlife for TV, and diversity and inclusion for TV
• Excellence Communicator Award for cultural series
• Distinction Communicator Award for interview series
• Anthem Award for education, arts, and culture series
