A Partnership for Life-Changing Opportunities

Emerging Scholars and Call Me MISTER^® are two of the leading diversity initiatives at Clemson to provide students with the knowledge, desire and resources to pursue higher education.

Emerging Scholars works with students from South Carolina’s I-95 Corridor (a chain of predominantly rural, underserved communities running from the North Carolina border to South Carolina’s southern tip at the Georgia border), concentrating on academic preparation, leadership skills and the college application process. The mission of Call Me MISTER (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) is to increase the pool of available teachers from a broader, more diverse background particularly among the state’s lowest performing elementary schools. Established at Clemson, the program has expanded to other colleges in the state and serves as a model for nine other states.

A strong partnership between Wells Fargo and Clemson, including a shared commitment to the life-changing and transformative power of education, has allowed these programs to continue to grow and significantly impact education throughout South Carolina. In 2015, there were six Emerging Scholars enrolled at Clemson. Four years later, 50 Emerging Scholars are enrolled. Over the past 19 years, 272 male South Carolinians have become Call Me MISTER graduates — 52 of those graduated from Clemson.

With a recent gift of $300,000, Wells Fargo continues to support these initiatives. “Wells Fargo’s longstanding financial support for Call Me MISTER and the Emerging Scholars Program has provided a sustainability track for two of Clemson’s most venerated programs. This allows them to continue advancing toward achieving our inclusion and equity goals as a land-grant university,” said Lee Gill, chief inclusion and equity officer and special assistant to the president for inclusion and equity.