Faculty input on Clemson’s issues, decisions and direction is about to be enhanced. Toward that end, Jeremy King and Denise Anderson have been named presidential faculty fellows by President Jim Clements. In this role, the pair will establish networks within and beyond the university that facilitate communication, learning and feedback for enhanced productivity and focus on Clemson’s mission.
Anderson and King noted that the Faculty Senate is one vital part of such a network, but connects primarily with the provost and has a critical function in internal policy making. The presidential faculty fellows role provides a connection between the faculty, president and provost and is a means to tap faculty expertise for input on broader national issues that the president’s office frequently faces.
Clemson has a deep well of knowledge and talent in our faculty,” Clements said. “I need to draw from that on an ongoing basis. With their background as Faculty Senate leaders, these presidential faculty fellows will help me, their colleagues and the university by their service.”
“My goal is to make sure we have the most informed and rapidly learning [university] president in the country,” said King. “I believe the era of knowledge-based social enterprises—whether business, economies, or universities—is at an end, and we are transitioning to an era of wisdom-based social structures. The future of higher education, and the stakeholders it serves, will belong to those institutions that can learn the fastest, and employ decisions not simply because they can be done, or they can work, or they have good intentions or they fit status quo capability, but because they are wise in the sense of making us more productive in achieving mission in a way that fits both our culture and our aspirations.”
A professor in the university’s department of physics and astronomy, King is the current chair of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost Search committee and a former Faculty Senate president. Anderson, an associate professor and graduate program coordinator in Clemson’s department of parks, recreation, & tourism management, spent four years as a faculty senator and currently serves on the President’s Commission on the Status of Women and a number of other university committees.
“I am very excited and honored to have been selected to serve in this capacity,” said Anderson. “I think that having the opportunity to help ensure that faculty play a strong role in decisions on this campus is priceless. But it goes beyond that – Jeremy and I will have the opportunity work with faculty, staff, students, administrators, alumni, and many others to help ensure a better, stronger Clemson University during a time when change seems to be happening by the minute.”
During their two-year term as presidential faculty fellows, Anderson and King will split their time between their respective departments and the president’s office. The pair will begin their new roles immediately, and said that the term limits of the fellowships provide a means to cycle faculty with fresh perspectives and varying expertise through the roles, thus, building a cadre of faculty with broader experience and service.
