Higher Education’s Roots

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

October 1, we will be welcoming James Burns as the new Director of the Humanities Hub, so I wanted to use my column this month to reflect on the Humanities at Clemson, and more broadly.

We all know about the pressures and priorities in our society today; the cost of a college education and the pressure to get that first job and make sure the salary makes that investment in education justifiable. Even though the cost of education has skyrocketed in recent decades, the pressures are not all that new. If you read a lot of 19^th-century novels, you will see that young men (back then it was only young men) were under intense pressure from their fathers to do something “practical” with their lives. The usefulness of the arts and humanities was questioned then, just as it is today.

But something convinced the early leaders of this university to chisel the names of some core disciplines into the façade of Sikes Hall. Six of them in all: Religion, History, Art, Industry, Science and Languages. Four of those six disciplines are embedded in our College. The Humanities don’t just prepare you for one job or one career path, but for life and for leadership in any number of fields. They give you the tools and the perspective you will need to excel in anything you choose to do. It is never a mistake to major in History, or English, or Philosophy, or Languages. These fields give you an understanding of people, how they think, what they feel and why, how to read, how to read between the lines, and how to communicate successfully.

The failure to communicate what the Humanities are is not just a Clemson problem, but a national one. What makes it difficult is that it is hard to show an image that adequately portrays a Humanities education. It’s because, as opposed to many other areas of inquiry, what the Humanities deliver is hard to quantify. But just because something doesn’t translate easily to a spreadsheet does not mean it isn’t there.

So, how about this image of a tree on our beautiful campus? The tree is a central symbol in our culture: there in the very earliest texts we study, representing knowledge as well as refuge, safety and something lasting.

Perhaps a tree is a good metaphor. Its roots are deep, like much of what we teach that connects us with our deepest past. The tree cannot thrive without its roots, and yet you can’t see them. Like roots, the Humanities provide nourishment for a life worth living.

Its branches spread wide in all directions, like our disciplines which span time, place, and yet are all connected to the trunk, the student.

We live in an extremely hectic and noisy world that demands our constant and shifting attention. Social media have certainly not helped to calm and slow things down. How precious then is the possibility of simply sitting under a tree and quietly taking time to digest what has been learned and think about things. Some of the most important advances in human history have happened in moments of quiet contemplation. Let’s strive to preserve places, like our College, where those moments are treasured.

“Go Tigers!”

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities

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Change

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

“Change! Architectural Experiments in a Changing Society” is the theme of this year’s lecture series in the School of Architecture.

“Change!” could just as easily serve as the theme for our entire College this year. You may have noticed the redesign of our newsletter, and we are pleased to report that we have started launching our new College websites. It’s a long and involved process and has been going on behind the scenes for a while. But now at last, some of that work is becoming visible. Please take a look and let us know what you think.

I am also delighted to welcome Dr. L. Kaifa Roland, our new and first ever full-time director of Pan African Studies after what became an international search, including top candidates from Africa. Kaifa comes to us brimming with ideas about energizing the academic program and creating campus events and opportunities for students outside the classroom. Welcome to Clemson, Kaifa!

We have other changes on the horizon that I am looking forward to sharing with you as soon as it is appropriate. Change is almost always unsettling and produces anxiety. As exciting as change can be, and as much as we are dissatisfied with the present conditions, we are often still resistant to the mere idea. Hence the expression “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

Resistance to change has dominated societies at points across history. A case in point in European history are the so-called Middle Ages which saw the creation and maintenance of systems which were predicated on ideas of immutability and Divine Right. Everyone knew their place, and there was not much to be done about it.

But then, for a variety of reasons, change came to Europe. The culture of determinism gave way to ideas of self-determination. A spirit of inquiry and critical thinking, exploration and innovation, resulted in the most dynamic, revolutionary, and transformative age ever known. The age in which we continue to live today.

The university as an idea was born during the medieval period. The first ones were in Bologna (founded 1088), Paris (1150), and Oxford (1167). These institutions were the bastions of received wisdom and were dedicated to the cultivation and preservation of knowledge. Even today, we see the remnants of the medieval institution: the gowns, the feudal hierarchy, the anachronistic vocabulary and traditions.

But then came the “modern” university, the first one founded in Berlin (1810), modeled on the idea of research, constantly pushing the frontiers of knowledge, the thrill of perpetual change.

Today’s universities have inherited both traditions. Caught between tradition and progress, between preserving the tried and the true, and sweeping everything away in the face of the shiny and the new. Caught between the drive to innovate and the almost instinctive anxiety that is triggered in the face of change.

I love the fact that we have managed to retain one institution in our fast-paced world that still has both drives, even if it does make for some very long meetings!

“Go Tigers!”

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities

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A major gift for Architecture, and new leadership in English

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

First and foremost, I am so pleased, proud and grateful to announce the $3 million Cornerstone gift from Bill and Laura Pelham. Thank you so much, Bill and Laura! A full article in this month’s newsletter tells the details of how their gift will serve our students, but I don’t know if it can convey what a gratifying end it made to such a tumultuous year!

The University held a memorable event to celebrate the gift at the Poinsett Club in Greenville. Our President was in attendance and shared a few thoughts, as did I. One of the comments I made was that it is remarkable to what extent this gift aligns perfectly with the strategic priorities we have been articulating for the College during the planning exercise we have been undertaking this past semester. The Pelhams’ generosity truly could not have come at a better time or in a better form.

A couple of additional announcements. Susanna Ashton will be stepping down as Chair of the English Department at the end of June. She has done an amazing job over the last four years, especially navigating her large and complex department through the pandemic. We will miss her energy, her panache, and her vibrant sense of humor. But we also wish her well as she goes off for a richly-earned sabbatical in the fall, followed by a spring to be spent as a Research Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. While at Harvard, Susanna will be continuing her work on John Andrew Jackson, an escaped slave from South Carolina who became an international speaker and author in the 19th century. Hats off to you, Susanna!

Succeeding Susanna as the incoming Chair of English is Will Stockton, Professor of English and a scholar of the early modern period including his namesake William Shakespeare, a lesser-known playwright who produced some pieces for performance at the Globe Theatre in London.

I was also hoping to be able to make two additional leadership announcements, one for the conclusion of our national search for a new full-time director of Pan African Studies, and one for our internal search for a new Director of the Humanities Hub to replace Lee Morrissey who will be stepping down at the end of the summer. An announcement for both is imminent, and we hope to be at liberty to give you the news in our August newsletter, if not sooner.

Last but not least, the Dean’s team has been hard at work these last weeks, preparing the College report to the Board of Trustees, my first since becoming Dean, which will be presented later this fall. The talent and hard work of our students, faculty, staff and alumni have given us a deep well of accomplishments from which to draw for our presentation.

With best wishes to all for the summer as we pull out of COVID at last…

“Go Tigers!”

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities

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Commencement is only the beginning

After a long and grueling year, we just celebrated commencement in person. It was shorter than the usual ceremony, and safety made the look and feel a bit different, but the occasion was marked, and that is important. Ritual is integral to the human experience; it is a means for us to orient ourselves and share an experience with those close and distant.

As I watched our students completing their Clemson journey, there was so much I wished to say. Although I didn’t have the chance to share my thoughts in a speech, I have a column! If I could speak to our each of our new graduates, this is what I would say:

Dear Graduates and new Clemson Alumni,

Congratulations on your achievement! You have just celebrated a milestone among many your lives, but this one is special for most of you because it marks the end of your formal education. Life is filled with milestones, but few signify as definitive an ending and beginning as this one. I can imagine that you are feeling various things right now: joy, sadness, nostalgia, anxiety, numbness, and all the mixed emotions that come with freedom.

While your formal education may be over, your process of learning is not. In many ways it is also just beginning. To a certain extent, learning is unavoidable. Our senses and our brains are perpetually receiving input and processing. But I encourage you to think about learning actively. Sign on to a life of learning, and learning for life.

If you were educated in our College, you were trained to make conscious learning a way of living and interacting with the world. Learning how to see and to think historically, conceptually, artistically. Learning how to read and observe, not just accepting at face value, but examining critically, scrutinizing between the lines, peering behind the scenes. The College has introduced you to the human condition in all its dynamic extremes and complexity.

Take all this with you and apply it to the world as you encounter it. Seek to learn and understand just a little bit more every day. And when you interact with people, try never to forget the individual human being behind the façade. That’s why we read literature and go to the movies—to be reminded about our common humanity in powerful and memorable ways.

And when you get the chance, travel. See the world, the people in it, what they have built over time, and the ways they live and interact.

And always take the time to go some place quiet to reflect and to think about what you have learned.

Congratulations again. Now spread your wings, and fly…

“Go Tigers!”

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities

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College initiates Conversations on Race and Reconciliation

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

This month, our College has launched an exciting and, I hope, thought-provoking and restorative initiative called Clemson Conversations on Race and Reconciliation. The concept began taking shape for me about a year ago, even before my official start as Dean on July 1, 2020. But COVID put a stop to the most important part, which is for the participants to talk to each other face to face. Something we all took for granted not so long ago.

The impulse that led me to the basic idea of the conversations series is that I have been increasingly dismayed not only at the growing divide and the accompanying tensions we see in this country, everywhere we look, but at the absence of any dialogue that might resolve anything. We seem to have lost the art of constructive talking and listening, where people with differing points of view actually sit together and communicate with each other. Being respectful and not judgmental. Admittedly, Clemson is only one very small corner of this country, but my hope for the Clemson Conversations initiative is that we can find our way to listening, hearing, understanding, and, yes, work toward reconciliation. How can we possibly move forward together and solve the many problems we face without it?

In the Fall, I met with several student groups in the College, all addressing issues in their own way. There is cNOMAS in Architecture, the WeCU initiative coming out of Performing Arts, and the Call My Name Student Advisory Board, just to name three. In December and January, I met with leaders from all of these separate initiatives to form a College Inclusion Council. At first there were six undergraduates, joined later this semester by four graduate students, including Kaitlyn Samons, President of the Clemson Graduate Student Government. We are working together to help consolidate and amplify what is already underway in the College. I hope very much that this can continue and be formalized next year.

The roll-out of vaccines and the arrival of warmer weather, permitting outside gathering, finally allowed us to make a start on the Conversations initiative. First was a joint event on April 7 at the Owen Pavilion that capped a year-long Architecture series, organized by Assistant Professor of Architecture Andreea Mihalache, called “Design, Race, and Social (In)Justice.” At the event, a panel of eight speakers gathered to talk about issues moderated by Professors Mihalache and Ray Huff from our Charleston campus.

This will be followed on April 15 with a panel of seven students, faculty and staff, again at the Owen Pavilion, talking about “Clemson Family?” and moderated by yours truly. The topic was prompted by several comments I heard last summer in response to the events happening around our nation in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the resulting tensions. Many students and faculty remarked that, while the concept of the Clemson family is referenced frequently, they had never felt as though they were part of that family. It struck me immediately that this would be something to talk about in greater detail, possibly with a view to improving that situation.

For now, we are still just trying out the concept and seeing if it seems helpful and constructive. My idea is that there should be an ongoing platform facilitating open dialogue between all constituencies at Clemson, not just in our College, and possibly reaching out to the community as well. I invite you to join us as we explore the possibilities of this venture.

“Go Tigers!”

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities

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A visit to our Charleston programs, where bridges are built

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

As we end the first half of the Spring 2021 semester and hopefully enjoy a little bit of a break, I thought an update of College activities might be overdue.

The big project in the Dean’s office this semester is the refresh of our College strategic plan. The previous 5-year plan is set to expire this year, so we are due to engage in the process anyway. But with a new team in place at the Dean’s office and several new department chairs, it seems like good time to assess where we are currently and think about where we want to be in 5 years. Stay tuned for updates.

Earlier this month, at long last, I finally made it to Charleston to visit our facilities and programs there, and to meet the faculty and staff who are making it work. I was in town for a little over a day, which was not a lot, but nevertheless got a sense of the exciting things happening there.

Prof. Ray Huff showed me buildings in the Historic District downtown that Clemson owns, and I got a taste of the truly amazing facility that is the Cigar Factory on Bay Street.  Prof. Jon Marcoux gave me an intense introduction to the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation.

I also got to see the operations in North Charleston, meaning the Dominion Energy Innovation Center (with the world’s largest wind energy testing system), the Warren Lasch Conservation Center (which currently houses the H.L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship in wartime) and the Zucker Family Graduate Education Center. While most of this complex, known as CURI (The Clemson University Restoration Institute) is the site of projects coming out of the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences (CECAS), it is also the site of the Digital Production Arts program, which is a collaboration between CECAS and our Art Department.

My visit to Charleston ended with a tour of the Architecture + CommunityBUILD project, the brainchild of Prof. David Pastre, who is working with his students to beautify neighborhood parks and gardens by designing and building architecturally interesting and innovative structures to provide seating, shelter and storage. I so loved this project and its results. Architecture students get to plan projects and see them through to their completion. Neighborhoods in need get some love and attention. And we all learn that beauty doesn’t have to cost more. Sometimes it is just about imagination and effort. Once we are truly through with COVID-19, I hope our College can think of more ways to do something similar, also here in the Upstate.

Universities generally, not just Clemson, need to think of as many ways as possible to build bridges with the community: local, regional, national and global. This is especially true of comprehensive “Research 1” institutions, like Clemson: the elite of the elite in terms of higher education in the United States.

“Go Tigers!”

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities

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Are our kids falling behind?

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

Recently, I saw a conversation on social media about whether our kids are “falling behind” as a result of this past year. The conversation left me unsatisfied and a bit frustrated. But it did get me thinking about the issue. Now that there does seem to be a glimmer of light at the end of this seemingly interminable tunnel, maybe it is a good time to start reflecting on what this year+ has meant, for all of us, but especially for our children. While the original discussion on social media was limited to K-12, I think we can stretch it to include college as well. Even if college students are no longer children, they are still “our” children, if you catch my drift.

For sure, school learning these past 12 months has been affected, and affected negatively. Everyone, with no exceptions, has felt the impact. However, that impact has been spread unevenly, as usual.

But what do we mean when we say “falling behind”? Behind what? Which raises the question, what do we mean by education? It’s surely not just what we learn in the classroom. Our education begins the day we are born and continues for the remainder of our lives. We learn from our family, from our schools (formal institutions of learning), and from what we can broadly call life. At different times, each of these three takes on a greater or lesser significance. Whatever we might not have learned at school this year has been more than made up for by “life.”

One of the blessings of the modern world is that it has devised ways to shield us from the hardships imposed by nature and by our physical limitations. Distance has melted away; where there is darkness, we have light; we have heat when it is cold; cooling where there is heat. Food in constant supply, no longer affected by the seasons, an abundance unimaginable in my youth. Even the sheer nastiness of death, though still with us, has been muted by largely removing it from private homes and ceasing to make it a regular event which we all must witness.

And then came COVID-19. To remind us that we are not all-powerful. An important lesson, especially for our children, who have grown up holding in the palm of their hands a device with more power than anyone my age could ever have dreamed possible.

But with all the misery, suffering, hardship, tragedy and death of this year, it has once again been a story of human triumph and resilience. Figuring out how to use the tools at our disposal to reconfigure our lives so that we could carry on. The miracle of our species is its enduring flexibility, inventiveness and creativity. This year was a lesson in precisely that. It’s also what lies at the core of our College and its mission.

The word “education” comes from the Latin verb ducere meaning to lead. E is a prefix meaning out of, so education suggests a leading out of… what? … ignorance, I suppose. The Germans use a different word: Bildung. It suggests both “building” as in formation, but Bild also means image or picture. So Bildung is building towards an idea or image of what it might mean to be a wholly formed person.

To continue the building metaphor, weathering crisis and coming out the other end strengthens our foundations and helps us stand firm against the inevitable challenges that lie ahead. Far from “falling,” I submit that we all have grown.

“Go Tigers!”

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities

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