A look into the history of graduate education at Clemson University, 100 years after the first master’s degree was awarded to Patrick Henry Hobson in 1924, shows how graduate education has played a pivotal role in fulfilling the mission of Clemson College as a land-grant university. Today, the mission continues as graduate students and their research make significant contributions to the state of South Carolina, the nation and the world.
In a lab off Clemson University’s main campus in Pendleton, South Carolina, Aashish Sapkota M ’26, a master’s student and graduate research assistant who moved from Nepal to study at Clemson, is developing more efficient ways to inspect bridges throughout South Carolina. When Sapkota isn’t in a lab, he’s at bridge sites, learning from inspectors and observing their methods as they evaluate bridge conditions.
“I was on the site, and what I realized was some of those piles are really high,” Sapkota explains as he reflects on a recent site visit in Pickens County, South Carolina. “(The inspectors) have this equipment called a resistograph, and it’s heavy, and you need to climb the ladder and get that thing out there and do this test.
“It’s actually tough,” he says as he shares stories of navigating swampy terrain and climbing tall ladders with clunky equipment to inspect bridge pillars.
In response to his site observations, Sapkota, who works under Brandon Ross, Cottingham Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, dedicates hours in the lab to testing and developing a new instrument called a stress wave timer. The new instrument is lighter than the resistograph, and, when tapped against a bridge pile, it generates a stress wave that, based on time, signifies if the bridge pile has decay and requires repair.
Under a grant funded by the South Carolina Department of Transportation, the research conducted by Ross and Sapkota, among others, will help inspectors more efficiently and more economically evaluate and repair the state’s bridges consisting of 75,000 timber piles. The instrument he’s working on, says Sapkota, can be “more economic, less time-consuming and easier for inspectors.”
Whether it’s improving bridge inspection methods, finding new ways to treat cancer and disease, or assessing the long-term impact of development on soil and greenhouse gases, research conducted by Clemson’s graduate students has contributed to a mission that has been essential to Clemson since its founding as Clemson Agricultural College in 1889.
“Research has been a key part of our University’s mission since our founding in 1889 and continues to drive innovation, lead workforce development and elevate our communities,” says University President Jim Clements in response to Clemson’s recent reclassification as a Carnegie R1 research institution.
Without the Graduate School and its students, it’d be difficult for Clemson not only to fulfill this key mission but also to maintain the status it has today — and attain the status it seeks. In 1964, Clemson College became Clemson University thanks to the introduction of doctoral research. In 2016, Clemson achieved the R1 research designation — or Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity — from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, a status that was reauthorized this year.
Each of these rankings is indebted to the work of graduate students, who not only aid faculty research but also conduct original research and build relationships with industry partners and stakeholders. Looking ahead, graduate student research will play a pivotal role in Clemson’s goal to attain Association of American Universities (AAU) membership, a top priority of Clemson’s strategic plan, Clemson Elevate.
This year’s centennial of graduate education provides an opportunity to reflect on its transformation from a peripheral activity into a cornerstone of Clemson’s academic and research identity.
The First Official Graduate Student
When Patrick Henry Hobson 1924, M 1924 left his small family farm in Sandy Springs, South Carolina, to attend Clemson Agricultural College in 1921, he was unknowingly on his way to earning Clemson’s first master’s degree, a Master of Science in education with research focused on teachers, schools and high school dropouts. In the first half of the 20th century, such advanced degrees were not only rare but a pressing need of the state, which, according to History of the Program of Vocational Agriculture Education in South Carolina 1917–1958, advocated for vocational education programs in primary schools and more highly trained teachers to expand those programs.
At the time Hobson studied and earned degrees at Clemson, public education in South Carolina ranked poorly — a ranking that persisted for decades. In her forthcoming book, Graduate Education at Clemson and the Evolution to a University, Frankie O. Felder, former senior associate dean of the Graduate School, notes that public education in South Carolina was in a “deplorable state” at the time Hobson earned his degree. In 1938, when “discussions about improving teacher education were pervasive nationally,” Clemson’s emerging educational and vocational education programs provided an urgent answer to the need to improve the quality of South Carolina’s teachers and public schools (Felder 43).
Hobson, a 29-year-old student and World War I veteran, was ahead of the curve, responding to the state’s needs nearly 15 years prior to Clemson formally recognizing the need to advance education for teachers. A 1938 Summer academic catalog, cited in Felder’s book, states, “Clemson is inaugurating a program of graduate study and research to give teachers in Vocational Education an opportunity to better serve their communities and the State” (43). According to historian Jerome V. Reel HA ’00 in The High Seminary, Volume 1: A History of the Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, 1889–1964, graduate work largely focused on those educational improvements until the 1940s. “While some graduate work had been done in agriculture and textiles with success,” Reel writes, “most such work was at the master’s level in education” (378).
As time passed, graduate studies at Clemson grew beyond those education-specific programs in concert with the needs of industry and the state.
‘Special and Irregular’ Students
Although the first graduate degree was awarded to Hobson in 1924, what were called graduate “assistants” aided faculty research in labs as early as 1911. Along with helping faculty in labs, early graduate assistants worked at an essential historic research site: the South Carolina Experiment Station, which was transferred from the onus of the University of South Carolina to Clemson Agricultural College when it was established in 1889.
In 1889, the Hatch Act of 1887 partially funded Clemson Agricultural College’s establishment and directive to conduct research at the South Carolina Experiment Station to benefit the state and its agricultural economy. According to The South Carolina Experiment Station, research at the station included experiments on common insects and diseases, hog cholera, analyses of fertilizers, meteorological data and stock feed.
Records show that graduate assistants worked at these stations, helping to fulfill Clemson’s mission to improve agricultural methods in South Carolina. An annual report from the Experiment Station to then-President W.M. Riggs in 1917 states, “Mr. Faulwetter and the graduate assistants, Messrs. R.F. Poole and J.W. Sanders, have done exceptionally good work for the Experiment Station.” Poole, mentioned in this report, earned his bachelor’s from Clemson in 1916 and would go on to serve as University president from 1940–1958.
Despite the need for graduate student assistants and researchers, graduate education at Clemson began with uncertainty. For decades, reports and catalogs included postbachelor’s students in a category called “special and irregular” simply because there was no official classification for them at Clemson. This category persisted until at least 1941 when it appeared in then-University President Poole’s report to the trustees.
For years, both Poole, an early graduate student turned president, and his predecessor, President E. Walter Sikes, advocated for graduate education, asserting the role graduate programs could play in Clemson’s mission to serve the state. In 1946, for example, in the Columbia Report, Poole is reported to have said, “Cooperation between industry and graduate schools to produce ‘well-directed research’ may chart the future industrial scientific development of the South” (Felder 48).
That same year, Clemson established master’s programs in engineering and the sciences, and not long after, Clemson earned new status as a member of the Conference of Deans of Southern Graduate Schools. Five years later, in 1951, Clemson finally established the Graduate School, when H.J. Webb became its first dean.
By 1959, Clemson’s preparation to award the first doctoral degree paved the way for its transition from a college to a university. Donald Harry Petersen Ph.D. ’60, who is credited with saving the South Carolina peach industry, was awarded the first doctorate. With this major milestone, Clemson required a change in name to match its change in activity.
Reel, the historian and author of The High Seminary, explains, “The title ‘university’ belonged to institutions in which faculty carried on original research and directed ‘research doctoral students’ whose accomplishments were rewarded with the doctorate of philosophy” (516). In 1964, with Clemson belonging to the group of institutions with faculty and doctoral students performing original research, Clemson College adopted the name it has today: Clemson University.
Partners in Research and Discovery
In the past 50 years, the number of master’s degrees awarded annually has quadrupled to 1,867, while the number of doctoral degrees awarded is up more than 900 percent to 300-plus each year. Out of every five Clemson students today, one is a graduate student. And from nearly every state and 83 countries, more than 5,500 students are enrolled across the University’s 54 doctoral programs, three specialist’s degree programs and 91 master’s programs — in nearly 100 different disciplines.
While faculty members are rightly credited with leading scientific discoveries at the nation’s universities, graduate students commonly perform much of the hands-on work — the day-to-day experiments, data analysis and shaping of research directions. They design experiments, refine methodologies and sometimes introduce groundbreaking innovations. Thirty-four percent of named inventors on U.S. patents issued to Clemson in 2023–2024 are current graduate students or recent graduates.
Jessica M. Larsen, Carol and John Cromer ’63 Family Endowed Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, candidly acknowledges graduate student contributions to her now patent-pending research pursuits, sharing how her chemical engineering Ph.D. student, Chloe Forenzo Ph.D. ’26, took a general research idea and turned it into something extraordinary. “I didn’t have a strong technical idea of precisely how this crazy thing I built in my head could work,” she says. “That was all Chloe.”
Forenzo’s work spawned a patent application for a novel drug delivery method for which she was the first named inventor, followed by Larsen. Larsen explains why: “Are we co-inventors? Sure. I provided the financial support and the scientific mentorship, but it was her brainchild. She’s the one who made it work.”
In their lab, Larsen and Forenzo are enhancing the therapeutic delivery of messenger RNA. By improving mRNA’s path to targets such as tumors, the biotechnology research team can improve treatments for diseases and disorders, including cancer. Together, the researchers measure and mix, test and observe, and modify chemical reactions to see if they can make mRNA work better. They change mixture ratios, temperature and time to determine if it changes the mRNA’s efficacy at reaching its target. When a solution changes from opaque to clear due to oxidative stress, the mRNA has been released through a controlled response, showing the system works as intended.
Together, Clemson’s more than 1,000 graduate research assistants, like Forenzo, dedicate more than 20,000 hours to faculty research projects every week, fueling new discoveries and addressing some of the greatest challenges of our time.
Graduate Students as Teachers
Along with sharing a role with their predecessors as researchers and lab assistants, current graduate students play a large part in undergraduate education. At Clemson, nearly 1,000 graduate students serve as teaching assistants (GTAs) or teachers of record (GTRs) each semester. One of them is Davis Nelson M ’25, a Master of Science student in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation and a GTA for a 2000-level soils class, Soil Information Systems.
Nelson, who is from North Georgia by way of New Orleans, did his undergraduate work at Auburn University, secured his master’s degree in forest resources this May, and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in the program from Clemson. His research is focused on soil and land-use changes within Georgia, specifically analyzing the impact of development on different types of soil, including the emission of greenhouse gases.
Each Fall, during his graduate work, Nelson has taught four lab sections with 15 students per section, serving 60 students. In the class, students divide their time between working on computers in a lab — reviewing satellite imagery for soil mapping and learning about different soil characteristics — and spending time in the field, which is primarily Clemson’s campus. In earthy, open green spaces across campus, his students use penetrometers to test soil penetration resistance.
Nelson’s advisor, Elena Mikhailova, an internationally recognized scholar known for her highly collaborative, multidisciplinary research in soil and water conservation, soil organic and inorganic carbon dynamics, and soil science education, offers high praise for him.
“Davis is a gifted teacher who has helped students comprehend and integrate complex concepts into their education and research,” she says. “He is not only one of the most intelligent and directed students I have met during my academic career … but he can also independently develop teaching concepts and ensure that students from various backgrounds can understand and apply them.”
A High Standard
One reason it took decades for the trustees and leadership to establish the Graduate School is that the criteria had to be in place for graduate education at Clemson to be reputable and held to a high standard. Conversations about everything from approving thesis topics to credit hours and length of time to exam rules were had before formalizing graduate programs.
Today, graduate programs continue to be reviewed and scrutinized to ensure research and education are held to a high standard. Likewise, graduate teachers of record are carefully reviewed. “Graduate teachers of record are assessed and evaluated through the same mechanism as faculty and receive stellar reviews,” explains John Lopes, associate provost and dean of the Graduate School.
And as graduate students were essential to industry in the 1940s, they remain essential today. “Graduate students are one of the key bridges between Clemson and industry,” explains Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Robert H. Jones ’79, M ’81. “They join the workforce with very deep knowledge … at a level where they are ready to contribute to very sophisticated jobs.” These jobs are in the automotive industry, specialized nursing, data protection and more.
Modern graduate students respond not only to the evolving needs of the state but also to the nation and world. Yet the mission to respond to and serve the state remains strong, and graduate students remain essential to the identity, success and reputation of Clemson, including its aim to double research expenditure and receive an invitation to the Association of American Universities, whose members include the most prestigious universities in the nation.
Graduate education at Clemson has come a long way since its early days when its publications awkwardly labeled advanced students as “special and irregular” because no clearer designation existed. And while they are no longer “irregular” because they have a formal place within the University structure, graduate students are not only special but essential students who are critical to the mission of Clemson.
Jill E. Bunch is the director of communications for the Graduate School. Charlotte Lucke Ph.D. ’22 is the managing editor of Clemson World magazine.
Photography by Ashley Jones & Sydney Lykins ’19, M ’22. Archival photography from Series 100: Clemson University Photographs.
Special thanks to Frankie O. Felder, former senior associate dean of the Graduate School, whose forthcoming publication from the Clemson University Press, Graduate Education at Clemson and the Evolution to a University, laid the historical foundation of this article. Keep up with the book’s upcoming publication at libraries.clemson.edu/press.
