Month: February 2017

Robert Floyd Mixon, 85, widower of Louise Brown Mixon, died Sunday, February 19, 2017. Born in Clemson, he was a son of the late George Floyd and Mildred Cochran Mixon. Bob was a graduate of Calhoun-Clemson High School. He was a 1954 graduate of Clemson University and earned a Master’s Degree from UNC-Chapel Hill. A U.S. Army Veteran, he served as a counterintelligence officer in Munich, Germany at the height of the Cold War. He was a Spanish professor at Clemson until his retirement in 1993.

He served his beloved church, Fort Hill Presbyterian, as deacon, elder, trustee, and Sunday school teacher. He will be remembered for his devotion to his late wife and for their loyalty to Clemson sports, especially baseball. Surviving are his son, Greg (Melanie) Mixon of Columbia and grandsons, Eric Mixon, Brian Mixon, and Kyle Mixon, as well as nieces and nephews. In addition to his wife and parents, he was predeceased by brothers, Joe Mixon and David Mixon, and a sister, Dorothy Ann Gage.

Clemson ranks 16th in the nation in the number of African American undergraduate students earning a foreign language degree in 2016, according to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. Clemson ranked 19th in 2015 and 35th in 2013. Since 2010, the magazine has published rankings of the top 100 institutions that confer the most degrees to minority students. The data are based on institutional reports collected by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Department of Languages offers undergraduate degrees in Modern Languages, Language and International Health (L&IH), and Language and International Trade (L&IT). According to the rankings, African American students account for 10% of all language degree recipients at Clemson, a higher percentage than in any other discipline at the university.

The Department of Languages mourns the death of Roger Simpson, a retired Senior Lecturer of Spanish. He passed away on February 4, 2017 at the age of 62.

Roger was a graduate of Clemson University, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Modern Languages and M.Ed. After having taught Spanish at the high school level for fourteen years, Roger began teaching at Clemson University in August of 1999. His teaching responsibilities included Elementary Spanish for which he was a course coordinator.

CAAH Dean Richard Goodstein said that Roger was actively engaged in the life of the Department of Languages and was loved by colleagues and students alike. “The College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities will long feel his loss,” he said. Roger was the Foreign Language Placement Test Coordinator, Hospitality Director for the Department of Languages, and co-editor of the Clemson Polyglot (the department’s newsletter). Additionally, he served on the Declamation Contest Committee; this contest is an annual poetry recitation contest for high school students. He retired in December 2016.

The 45th Annual Declamation Contest on October 22, 2017 will be dedicated in memory of Roger. His unwavering dedication and commitment to the contest, to his colleagues and to his students will always be appreciated and remembered.

Language and International Health (L&IH) students studying abroad in Seville, Spain through the Centro Internacional de Estudios Culturales (CINECU) have the opportunity to do internships at the Victoria Eugenia Hospital. The three-month, 135-hour internship allows students to directly observe the structural and functional organization of the healthcare system in Andalusia. These internships were facilitated by the Institute of Health Education, a hospital partner that organizes events and courses designed to combine practical experience with theoretical knowledge.

Read the announcement in Spanish on Victoria Eugenia Hospital’s website.