Month: August 2016

Dear Friends,

The school year is off to a fantastic start. More than 5,100 freshmen and transfer students have begun classes and the energy on campus is amazing!

Last month I hosted a dinner for all faculty in the college who earned promotion last year. This is undoubtedly my favorite event of the year as we get to celebrate collectively a milestone in the life of a faculty member. Faculty from architecture (David Lee), art (Valerie Zimany), English (Dominic Mastroianni), French (Kelly Peebles), geography (Billy Terry), history (Abel Bartley), landscape architecture (Hala Nassar and Paul Russell), performing arts (Justin Durham) and religious studies (Ben White) attended the event. As you can imagine, the conversations were fascinating and as diverse as the disciplines in attendance. I am extraordinarily proud of these faculty members and congratulate them for their career accomplishments.

Last week, the long-anticipated dedication of the Clemson Design Center in Charleston (CDC.C) took place at the historic Cigar Factory in Charleston. It was a magnificent event with many local and Clemson dignitaries attending, including President Clements, Provost Jones, Mayor Tecklenburg, VP Dalton, General Counsel Hood, CAF President Garvin and many faculty, students, staff and alumni.

This consolidated space for our architecture and historic preservation programs realizes more than 20 years of dedicated work by many. The Clemson Design Center in Charleston will allow Clemson to provide design and historic preservation leadership, education and service opportunities for our students and faculty.

In addition to the Clemson Architecture Center in Charleston, which has a 27-year history, and our Master of Science in Historic Preservation program, which was formulated as a partnership between Clemson and the College of Charleston more than 11 years ago, there will be two new programs housed in the space. A continuing partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina and our Architecture + Health program will have a studio housed in the CDC.C, and a new Master of Resilient Urban Design will begin accepting students this spring in anticipation of a launch next fall.

We couldn’t be more excited about the prospects for the Clemson Design Center in one of America’s great cities.

Finally, I welcome two new program directors to the college. Cameron Bushnell, associate professor and associate chair of the Department of English, has been named director of the Pearce Center for Professional Communication, replacing Mike LeMahieu. John Morgenstern, also a member of the English faculty, has been named director of the Center for Electronic and Digital Publishing, home of the Clemson University Press. John replaces Wayne Chapman who retired in August. We look forward to continued great leadership for these two important programs in the college.

Best wishes for September and Go Tigers!

Rick

CAAH’s calendar is in stellar shape, with special events and activities planned throughout the year. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends — there’s something here for everyone, with more to come as the year unfolds. So read on, and stay tuned. Enjoy!

Heads up, CAAH students! Global engagement opportunities abound

Be part of the more than 260 College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities students going abroad each year! Clemson offers over a thousand options for study abroad, many of which are available at in-state tuition rates. Some last two weeks, some are semester-long, and some last a full academic year.

In just the past year, CAAH students studied in more than 30 countries – engaging in classes, internships, research, volunteering or creative inquires abroad. While abroad, you can earn credits for your major or minor in order to stay on track with graduation. Scholarships are available, and you do not have to speak a foreign language to go abroad.

To explore the wide array of opportunities, you should plan to visit a Clemson Study Abroad Fair (offered in September and February), attend a 101information session, or meet with the study abroad coordinator for CAAH, Ms. Spencer Davenport, at sdaven2@clemson.edu. Check out the Clemson Abroad website for more information and resources to plan your international experience.

Faculty and staff interested in global learning can contact the director of CAAH Global Engagement, Ms. Regina Foster, at rkomo@clemson.edu. Ms. Foster can advise you about developing an abroad program or experience for students and about global opportunities for faculty professional development.

We hope to CU Abroad!

News from the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts

Fall 2017 is shaping up to be another busy one for the Brooks Center!

• New York-based production company Worklight Productions returns to present the musical Cinderella in September. The Brooks Center and Worklight Productions have a longstanding relationship that has allowed Worklight to engage Clemson students to help put together the technical elements of their touring productions before heading out across the country.
• The Clemson Players will hold a reunion in October, with all past and present members invited to attend a weekend-long retreat filled with activities and old friends.
• The Department of Performing Arts will host four theatre students from London’s Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, as the student exchange partnership between the two departments enters its second year. A total of eight students, four from London and four from Clemson, have already participated in the program that allows students from both countries to live and experience theatre in completely different environments.
• The Brooks Center will also present a number of exciting performances, including the Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling in October, as well as The King’s Singers in December. Visit the box office for tickets and details.

CAAH Student Services plans fall recruitment events

Welcome back to the CAAH Ambassadors, who will be assisting with family weekend and recruitment events throughout the fall. Student Services is encouraging prospective families to attend events planned for Sept. 16 and Nov. 4. Watch for event specifics here.

Student Services is also launching new services in prelaw advising this fall. Students interested in prelaw, and faculty interested in learning more about this new resource, should contact Mrs. Jessica Martin, director, at jessicm@clemson.edu.

Clemson to host construction conference in Charlotte

Clemson’s Department of Construction Science and Management, in conjunction with the department’s Corporate Partner Companies, is hosting a one-day conference on the construction industry in Charlotte, N.C. on Oct. 18. The conference, “The Ever-Changing World of Construction: Today’s Challenges – Tomorrow’s Opportunities,” will bring a slate of industry experts to share market intelligence and perspective to help participants deal with today’s challenges and effectively prepare for anticipated industry trends.

 Speakers and panelists include:

• Bill Caldwell, president and CEO, Waldrop Mechanical
• Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO, Sage Policy Group, Inc.
• Daniel Groves, CEO of Construction Industry Resources and director of operations and workforce consultant for the Construction Users Roundtable
• Phil Kuttner, AIA, LEED AP, chief executive officer, Little
• Mac Carpenter, president, BE&K Building Group
• James M. Benham, co-founder and CEO, JBKnowledge, Inc.
• Mittie Cannon, workforce developer, AMEC Foster Wheeler
• Mark Whitson, Southeast Regional Leader, DPR Construction
• Steve Skinner, executive vice president and general manager, Skanska USA

To register, or for more information, please contact the Department of Construction Science and Management at 864-656-0181.

Department of Philosophy and Religion events

The Department of Philosophy and Religion is looking forward to a number of new and continuing events in the coming year:

• The Lemon Lectures in Social, Legal and Political thought will host several speakers in the next academic year as part of the Law, Liberty and Justice program.
• In August Dr. Mashal Saif will conduct Clemson’s first-ever conference in Pakistan, entitled State, Society and Democracy in the Postcolony.
• In September Dr. Kelly Smith will host SoCIA, a workshop of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology, which will focus on issues surrounding extraterrestrial life.
• In November the department will co-host the Mid-Atlantic Regional Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl competition.
• In February the department will host Dr. Bart Ehrman, the 2016-17 Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar at Clemson and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
• Kelly Smith will continue a special program that provides the Medical Ethics curriculum for the USC-Upstate School of Medicine in Greenville in the coming year.

An artist returns to his roots: Clemson’s Center for Visual Arts hosts “Stories on My Back”

“Stories on My Back,” an installation by Clemson MFA alumnus Richard A. Lou, will open the 2016-17 season in the Lee Gallery.  On Friday, Sept. 23 at 5:30 p.m., the artist will give a presentation about his work with a reception to follow in the gallery.

Lou’s multimedia installation combines photography, found objects and sound walls of tamale husks. The artist writes, “As a contemporary image-maker I am interested in collecting dissonant ideas and narratives, allowing them to bump into each other, to coax new meanings and possibilities that dismantle the hierarchy of images. The work serves as an ideological, social, political and cultural matrix from which I understand my place in this world and to make a simple marking of the cultural shifts of my community.”

For more information about exhibitions in the Lee Gallery, as well as other Center for Visual Arts galleries and venues, visit www.clemson.edu/cva.

Design + Building alumni activities planned

Design + Building alumni (architecture; construction science and management; landscape architecture; planning, development and preservation) who graduated in 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996 and 2006, will be welcomed back to campus for a Lee Hall “Reunion of the Decades” Sept. 15-17, 2016. Events include:

• Thursday, Sept. 15: An evening reception, sponsored by the CAF, honoring the anniversary of Dean Harlan McClure’s 100th birthday, with a presentation by his family of original artwork by Dean McClure.
• Friday, Sept. 16: A noon barbecue will be hosted by Design + Building departments, followed by afternoon opportunities for alumni to interact with students and classmates. The “Reunion of the Decades,” a ticketed event hosted by the CAF, will be held that evening at the Madren Center.
• Saturday, Sept. 17:  A block of tickets will be reserved for the Clemson Tigers vs. South Carolina State Bulldogs football game.

Architecture + Health alumni event scheduled

Architecture + Health alumni will gather in Clemson on Saturday Aug. 20^th, following the conclusion of the AIA AAH South Atlantic Regional Chautauqua 7.0 in Greenville (to be held on August 19^th). Program news and updates will be shared, including academic work and research activities. Attendees will also participate in kickoff planning for the 2018 50th anniversary of the Clemson Architecture + Health program.

Department of History fall events

The Department of History will welcome illustrious British historian Sir David Cannadine for a lecture and visit to campus later this fall. Sir David is the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton and has published extensively about modern Britain. The exact date hasn’t been set yet; so please check your September issue of CAAH Monthly for a calendar link to all CAAH events. Warmest thanks to the Humanities Advancement Board for their sponsorship of Sir David’s visit.

History alumni will return to Hardin Hall for a reunion on September 9 – a special opportunity to reconnect with old friends, classmates and professors.

News from the Master of Science in Historic Preservation Program

Faculty and students in MSHP are excited about a new agreement with the Bermuda National Trust to begin a multi-year effort to complete architectural documentation drawings for 250 buildings in World Heritage town of St. Georges.

This fall, faculty and students are completing historic structures reports on all CCC-era buildings, structures and landscape features at Kings Mountain National Military Park and Kings Mountain State Park in South Carolina.

Languages conference set for September

Clemson’s German and Spanish programs – in collaboration with the German-American Chamber of Commerce – are hosting the International Forum for German and Spanish in the Professions. The forum, the sixth annual fall conference highlighting German companies in our region, spotlights German companies with investments and operations in Latin America. The daylong event will be held in the Hendrix Student Center on Sept. 28.

In addition to German and Spanish students from Clemson, students from USC-Upstate and Kennesaw State University are planning to attend. The event will feature a keynote speaker on the complexity of working between three cultures and a panel discussion on challenges and opportunities for a German companies operating in Latin America.

Clemson Design Center in Charleston opens

This fall, Clemson’s Charleston-based students in architecture, historic preservation, Architecture+Health and landscape architecture, will be the first to study in the new Clemson Design Center, based in the historic, renovated Cigar Factory on East Bay Street.

“Clemson is thrilled with this solution to house our allied design programs in Charleston under one roof,” said Dean Richard E. Goodstein. “It has been a long-time goal of the university’s to integrate the creativity, scholarship and service outreach of these programs in one central location.”

RCID Research Forum fall schedule set

Clemson’s Ph.D. program in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information design will launch its 2016-2017 Research Forum series on Aug. 22 at 9 a.m. in the Class of 1941 Studio for Student Communication, Daniel Hall. Daniel Frost, assistant professor of political science, will speak about his research, followed by a Q&A. Frost will be the 76^th scholar to present his research in the RCID Research Forum.

All are welcome to attend. The full roster for fall is shown here. All sessions begin at 9 a.m. in the same location:

• Aug. 22: Research Forum, Daniel Frost (Political Science )
• Sept. 5: Oyewole (Wole) Oyekoya (Director of Visualization Clemson Computing and Information Technology )
• Sept. 19: Megan E. Eatman (English)
• Oct. 3: David Blakesley (English)
• Oct. 17: Salvador A Oropesa (Languages)
• Oct. 31: Michael Meng (History)

CAF Lecture Series announced

The upcoming fall 2016 special lecture series sponsored by the Clemson Architectural Foundation (CAF) will engage students and faculty with professional and creative perspectives from a variety of speakers from diverse backgrounds and locations. All lectures will take place in the Lee 2-111 Auditorium.

• Aug. 24 at 4 p.m. – Witold Rybczynski, writer and architectural critic. Witold’s lecture will serve as the School of Architecture’s convocation lecture.
• Sept. 14 at 3 p.m. – Rick Archer, principal at Overland Partners, San Antonio, Texas.
• Sept. 28 at 4 p.m. – Eran Chen, AIA, LEED®, Israeli-born architect, founder and executive director of ODA, an award-winning architectural firm based in NYC.
• Oct. 3 at 4:30 p.m. – Sara Zewde, an emerging African-American designer at award-winning Gustafson Guthrie Nichol landscape architecture firm based in Seattle, Washington.
• Oct. 12 at 4 p.m. – Allison Williams, FAIA, AECOM vice president and director of design for the firm’s West region.

Department of English events

Two featured events from our colleagues in English:

• Rosemarie Garland-Thomson will visit campus in mid-October. Thompson is professor of English and bioethics at Emory University. Date and time TBD.
• The annual Clemson Literary Festival is set for late March 2017. This year marks the tenth anniversary of Litfest. We look forward to celebrating the anniversary and to another great festival of readings, panels and conversation, and we’ll keep you posted as authors are booked and events are set.

News from the School of Architecture’s Fluid Campus

• In Charleston, a newly formed advisory board for Clemson’s Integrated Path to Architectural Licensing (IPAL) initiative will be meeting to help the school launch this innovative new program.
• In Genoa at the Daniel Center, lecturer Joseph E. Schott will be serving as the professor-in-residence for the fall and spring semesters, capably assisted by long-time director Silvia Siboldi Carroll, and faculty Luca Rocca, Giuditta Poletti, Francesco Saverio Fera and Nicola Delledonne.
• In Barcelona, Miguel Roldan, director of the Barcelona Architecture Center, has assembled an amazing group of faculty who will lead Clemson students, together with students from Texas A&M and Roger Williams universities, in an immersive semester of professional study.
• In Clemson, new and established faculty, many new students and even more continuing students, will be welcomed “back to school” at the school’s convocation lecture by Witold Rybczynski, Aug. 24 at 4 p.m., Lee 2-111.
• Across all locations, the school will be preparing for a Spring 2017 accreditation visit by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).

Clemson researchers and students building a better operating room

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Clemson University, the Medical University of South Carolina and Health Sciences South Carolina are working together to create a safer, more ergonomic hospital operating room. The Realizing Improved Patient Care through Human-Centered Design in the OR (RIPCHD.OR) project is using an integrated systems approach to explore the operating room physical environment, workflows, equipment, various systems and design.

Part of the project involves the construction of an operating room mock-up that will be built at the new Clemson Design Center in Charleston. The mock-up and associated learning lab will provide the RIPCHD.OR researchers with an opportunity to develop, test, refine and implement innovative design ideas and strategies that improve operating room safety and outcomes.

Department of Landscape Architecture

All hands on deck this fall as all landscape architecture faculty, staff and students prepare for the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB) team, who will be evaluating Clemson’s professionally accredited Master of Landscape Architecture program during their Nov. 13^th-16^th visit.

Next May 26-28, faculty will be presenting their peer-reviewed research at the annual Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) conference hosted by Beijing Forestry University, Peking University and Tsinghua University in Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

Dear Friends,

Warm greetings from campus. As we swelter in the August heat and humidity, there is anticipation in the air for the start of the 2016-2017 school year.  A record number of matriculating freshmen are expected on campus this week and faculty who have been away for the summer are returning to their offices to prepare for the start of the semester.

We did it! In July Clemson announced the successful completion of the $1B “Will to Lead” capital campaign with a grand total of $1,062,528,346. Clemson has the smallest alumni base of any public university in the U.S. to reach a $1B capital campaign goal – an amazing accomplishment that we should celebrate. I thank each and every one of you who helped us exceed this impressive goal. Every gift, from $1 to $100,000, makes a difference in the lives of our students and that is one reason why private giving is so important. I also congratulate our AAH development officers – Donna Dant, Donna Carver, Renee Dooley and Rachelle Beckner – on their dedicated efforts on behalf of the college and Clemson.

On July 1, Clemson reorganized into seven colleges, including a new College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences and a new College of Sciences. The College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities is remaining intact with the exception of the Department of Communication, which is moving to the new College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences. It is bittersweet, saying goodbye to the Department of Communication, but we wish them great success in their new college. We know that communication faculty are excited to be more closely aligned with their colleagues in the social sciences.

There are other changes outside of the College of AAH. With the University’s consolidation of the social sciences under one administrative umbrella, the former College of Business and Behavioral Sciences is now the stand-alone College of Business. Additionally, there is a restructured College of Engineering Computing and Applied Sciences.

Kudos to Provost Jones and the reorganization committee for bringing greater clarity and focus to the University’s academic mission through this administrative restructuring.

The college’s leadership team has concluded a significant strategic planning process conducted over the past year with two overarching academic goals:

1. To prepare talent for the evolving economy and help drive innovation, the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities will emphasize creativity and cultural literacy through teaching, research and service.
2. To serve the public good and prepare citizens for informed participation, the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities will study, understand and create sustainable healthy places, and civic cultures and communities.

As we look to the new school year, these goals will help us continue our quest to empower students through excellence in creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and cultural awareness through engaged learning, research and teaching. What an exciting time to be in the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities!

Best wishes to all and Go Tigers!

Rick