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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Dear students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of CAAH:

The great strength of a land-grant university is that it adds to the quality of the lives of the people that we serve in our state, nation and world. That may sound like an exaggeration, but Clemson has a presence on every continent, including Antarctica. The value that we add to people’s lives is frequently the result of talented and dedicated individuals working together to make great things happen.

The team approach is always powerful, yet sometimes the efforts of individual students can touch people’s lives in a variety of personal ways. Hundreds of stories could be told, but I wanted to share the following one, brought to my attention during recent weeks.

While walking through Grand Central Station in New York City, a Clemson student majoring in American Sign Language stopped to help a blind gentleman holding a sign asking for directions to customer service. As Teresa Clancy approached the gentleman, she realized he was also Deaf. Thanks to her training at Clemson, she was able to hold his hands and have a conversation about what had happened. Clancy helped him get on the next train to his destination and helped him find a seat on the train. She asked the conductor to tap him on the shoulder when he got to his stop and she repeated the plan to the traveler. When she prepared to get off the train, other passengers asked if it was safe for her to leave her friend on the train. To their amazement, Clancy responded that they had just met. What a great example of how acts of kindness can add value to people’s lives, no matter how large or small!

What impresses me the most is that there is almost no end to these kinds of stories.

Two students studying construction science and management have dedicated considerable time and energy to the advancement of the Clemson University Habitat for Humanity Campus Chapter. Construction Coordinator Brittany Lacy and Assistant Homecoming Build Coordinator Marissa Bischoff are other examples of students using what they’ve learned at Clemson to add value to other people’s lives. As I’m sure you know, through their efforts and the efforts of others in our community, Clemson is helping provide affordable housing, and our students are gaining valuable hands-on experience. What a wonderful example of the meaning of the Clemson Family!

There are numerous examples of Clemson students helping rural communities in South Carolina, including those enrolled in our Master of City and Regional Planning (MCRP) and Master of Resilient Urban Design (MRUD) programs. Through these projects and partnerships, they are adding value that can only be accurately measured in the years to come.

Our students carry a devotion to service into their lives beyond Clemson – even to other continents. Charity Shaw, a Gates Scholar and member of the Class of ’17, traveled to Africa to work on an individual basis with women’s groups and support their efforts to improve reproductive health. A graduate of the Women’s Leadership program, Shaw is now pursuing a master’s in public health at Emory University. This kind of service gives students an opportunity to learn more about the power of nonprofit organizations, and to gain an appreciation for the complexity of these kinds of problems in other areas of the world. Once again, our students are using what they have learned at Clemson to add value to other communities, no matter how far away.

Other notes from our College

• 

  President Jim Clements invited Todd Anderson, center, to attend the Florida State game on Oct. 12 as Professor of the Game. The printmaker and Clemson professor is observing and visually documenting researchers and the environment in Antarctica.

• The College recently hosted the fall open house for prospective students and their parents. This event on Nov. 1 allowed a large number of high school students to spend the day learning more about the exciting programs offered by the College. Our Student Services team did a wonderful job of orienting the students to Clemson University, while helping them begin to develop an educational pathway that will allow them to achieve their goals and dreams.

• The Humanities Advancement Board (HAB) met in October, in support of humanities programs in our College. The board’s work and involvement created the Humanities Hub, which is advancing the outreach, scholarship and teaching of the humanities at Clemson. The generous gift of board member Chris Loebsack also was recognized. He has established the “Lectures in Law and Humanities Series, endowed by Loebsack & Brownlee, PLLC,” which will launch March 26, 2020, with a visit from Pulitzer Prize-winner Matthew Desmond, the author of “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.” The HAB board members also attended a luncheon honoring the fifth anniversary of the Women’s Leadership program, which included an address by Georgia Callahan, a retired senior vice president of Chevron and an alumna of Clemson English and also the Master of City and Regional Planning program.

• Students from the Department of Art were featured at the Homecoming football game on Oct. 26. Professor Todd Anderson, a printmaker who teaches in the department, was recognized as Professor of the Game on Oct. 12, just before he headed off to Antarctica on a research trip funded by an NSF grant. As I said, we really do have faculty in Antarctica!

• And finally, the College has initiated an inclusive strategic planning process that will highlight our enduring commitment to diversity. Faculty, staff and students in all of our departments will be invited to participate in this important planning process. This plan will expand upon our current commitment to diversity.

Thank you for all you do to advance the mission of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities,

Tim Boosinger