This fall, Clemson broke into celebration mode when the U.S.News & World Report rankings hit the street. Sitting beside Clemson University’s name on the listing of national public universities was a #20. The audacious idea that Clemson could rank among the top national universities in the nation was first articulated by President Emeritus Jim Barker in a 10-year plan he set forth in 2000. At that time, Clemson was tied for 38th. It was a bold goal, and it took a bit longer than 10 years. So what does it mean to be top 20? For alumni, it means that your degree keeps gaining value each year, as public recognition of a Clemson education grows. There are both quantitative and qualitative factors that go into the rankings. Here are just a few of the pieces of that puzzle.
#8
Up & Coming Universities
One of 11
Recognized for Writing Across Disciplines program
#4
Alumni Giving
#31
Best Undergraduate Engineering Program
#50
Best Undergraduate Business Program
#10
Average ACT Score (28)
#21
Average Math SAT Score (637)
#18
Average Critical Reading SAT Score (609)
#20
Percentage of Incoming Freshmen who Ranked in top 10% of High School Class (56%)
Take a biology major, mix in a portion of art training and a large serving of creativity, and what do you get? A pop-up engineer!
That’s the combination that resulted in a successful career for author, illustrator and paper engineer, Matthew Reinhart.
Reinhart began his Clemson experience with intentions of becoming a physician, but he had always enjoyed art and took art classes to build up his portfolio. After graduation, he realized that medicine was not his true calling and took off to New York City.
Reinhart attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, majoring in industrial design, with a concentration in toy design. His focus soon shifted to becoming a paper engineer. More precisely, a pop-up engineer.
Cutting, folding and taping small pieces of paper to make model after model to create dancing princesses, open-jawed dinosaurs and flying super heroes became his passion.
Reinhart apprenticed with renowned pop-up bookmaker Robert Sabuda, and soon they were collaborating. Reinhart made his first big breaks into the pop-up world with The Pop-Up Book Of Phobias, Animal Popposites and The Ark. Many book collaborations with Sabuda followed, including a trilogy of New York Times best-selling Encyclopedia Prehistorica and the series Encyclopedia Mythologica. He co-authored Mommy? with the ever-popular Maurice Sendak, and Brava Strega Nona with famous writer and illustrator, Tomie DePaola.
Reinhart’s solo pop-up books include The Jungle Book, Cinderella: A Pop-Up Fairy Tale, The Pop-Up Book of Nursery Rhymes, and STAR WARS: Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy, DC Super Heroes Transformers: The Ultimate Pop-Up Universe and Game of Thrones: A Pop-Up Guide to Westeros.
He continues to work and live in New York City, cutting, taping and folding paper into pop-up masterpieces.
If you’ve attended football games, you may have seen student equipment manager David Saville on the sidelines. Saville, who has Down Syndrome, hit the national spotlight this past year when he was featured in ESPN commentator Holly Rowe’s “Front Rowe” series as well as being a keynote speaker at the National Down Syndrome Congress Convention.
At the convention, Saville was introduced by former Clemson All-America football player Dwayne Allen, who now plays for the Indiana Colts. “I went into the relationship,” Allen said, “thinking I would learn something about Down Syndrome. I came out learning about a kid who loved video games, loved to eat hamburgers, knew every college team mascot. The only out-of-the ordinary thing I learned about him is his extraordinary ability to love. David loves everyone; it doesn’t matter where you come from or what you’re about.”
Saville is enrolled in ClemsonLIFE (Learning is for Everyone), a four-year post-secondary program focused on vocational and independent- living success for young adults with disabilities. For the first two years, students live in apartments on campus with an on-site independent living assistant while taking classes on independent living, employment, personal finances, health and nutrition. During the last two years of the program, students live in off-campus apartments and are employed in the local community.
In Saville’s keynote, he quoted one of Coach Dabo Swinney’s life lessons: “The only real disability in life is a bad attitude.” Rion Holcombe, another ClemsonLIFE student, hit national news last year when a video of him receiving his acceptance letter went viral. “CBS Evening News” covered Holcombe’s journey from acceptance to move-in.
Watch David Saville’s speech at the NDSC on 9/12/14:
Watch Holly Rowe’s feature on the ClemsonLIFE program:
Additional videos and articles about Saville can be accessed below:
Kendall Cochran has a lot to be thankful for. In July, when he was on his way to work, an oncoming SUV crossed over into his lane and hit him head-on. Trapped in his truck with smoke filling the cab and the engine on fire, he managed to climb out the window.
Standing on the side of the road, watching his truck burn, the horticulture major called his dad to let him know he had been in an accident. After he confirmed he was okay, his next words were, “My truck is burning up, and my Clemson ring is in there.”
After the local fire department had put out the fire and EMS had cleared Kendall, he went to his charred truck to search for his ring, which he had placed in the driver-side door panel. It took the fire department’s jaws of life to rescue the ring, encased in the melted door panel. The firefighters cut out a chunk of the door panel with the ring embedded and handed it to Kendall. Not much else survived the fire, including a treasured Clemson horticulture jacket.
But he has his ring. He chipped it out of the plastic, buffed it a bit, and put it back on his finger.
Sean Brittain has used some of the world’s most powerful telescopes to study the chaos swirling around a young star about 335 light years from Earth. Huge chunks of rock are slamming together to form what could be the first planets of a budding solar system.
Back home in Clemson, [pullquote]Brittain deals with a different kind of chaos each Tuesday and Thursday night during soccer season. He coaches a team of youths, ages 7-9.[/pullquote]
“We’re working on passing the ball,” the father of three said with an easygoing smile.
Brittain’s feet are on Earth, but his eyes are often on the night sky. He led an international team of scientists that discovered evidence strongly suggesting a planet is orbiting a star known as HD100546. The team reported its findings in The Astrophysical Journal. News outlets around the globe covered the discovery in at least four different languages.
The planet would be at least three times the size of Jupiter, so there would be plenty of real estate. But if you’re looking to relocate, don’t book your ticket on the USS Enterprise just yet. The planet would be an uninhabitable gas giant. And even if you traveled at the speed of light, it would take more than four lifetimes to get there.
Astronomers are interested in the solar system for a different reason.
This graphic is an artist’s conception of the young massive star HD100546 and its surrounding disk. Brittain’s team believes that this is a new planet that is at least three times the size of Jupiter. Credit: P. Marenfeld & NOAO/AURA/NSF
The work that Brittain’s team did built on previous research by a team that found a collapsing blob of gas and dust could condense into a planet in about one million years. That means astronomers believe they have found not one but two “candidate planets” orbiting HD100546.
Taken together, the findings could mark the first time astronomers have been able to directly observe multiple planets forming in sequence. It’s something astronomers have long believed happens but have never been able to see.
Other solar systems that astronomers have observed are either fully developed or too far away to see in the kind of detail that HD100546 offers.
“This system is very close to Earth, relative to other disk systems,” Brittain said. “We’re able to study it at a level of detail that you can’t do with more distant stars. This is the first system where we’ve been able to do this.
“Once we really understand what’s going on, the tools that we are developing can then be applied to a larger number of systems that are more distant and harder to see.”
AROUND THE CLOCK, AROUND THE WORLD
As an astrophysicist, Brittain could be working just about any time of the day or night. It sometimes means staying up all night to observe the stars and then pushing through to teach class.
In one recent all-nighter, Brittain logged on to a video conferencing website to work with two collaborators, one in Tucson and one in Berkeley. The telescope they used was at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
The patchwork of faces on his screen looked like something out of “Star Trek,” Brittain said.
The team worked from 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. Clemson time, and then Brittain headed for the classroom.
“You finish observing, and you still have to teach class,” he said. “Your day job doesn’t get pushed aside.”
Brittain has the opportunity to observe the stars about four times a year. He collaborates with researchers all over the world, so conferences calls can be early in the morning.
“There’s no time of day when it’s 9-to-5 for everybody,” he said.
Brittain made three trips to Chile as far back as 2006 to gather data for the research he did on HD100546. He used telescopes at the Gemini Observatory and the European Southern Observatory.
Northern Chile is one of a few places in the world just right for high-powered telescopes, Brittain said. The weather is predictable, the skies are usually clear and the political climate is stable.
Each time Brittain went to Chile, he flew from Atlanta to Santiago, where he would spend the night. Then he would take another flight to Antofagasta, where he would catch a two-hour ride to the observatory. The city quickly gave way to a desert landscape, he said.
“It’s like being on Tatooine,” Brittain said, referring to the desert planet from “Star Wars.” “There’s no vegetation. It’s sand and rock, a really bleak landscape.”
AN ASTROPHYSICIST BY CHANCE
Brittain grew up watching “Star Wars,” but he isn’t a serious sci-fi fan. And he wasn’t the kind of kid who grew up gazing at the stars through a telescope in his backyard every night.
Brittain fell into astronomy after receiving his bachelor of science in chemical physics from LeTourneau University in Texas. He headed to Notre Dame to study the foundations of quantum mechanics but found that the adviser he wanted was retiring and not accepting new graduate students.
Brittain soon found another professor who was doing research into the organic chemistry of comets.
It seemed to be a fit considering Brittain’s chemistry background. Even better, the professor did some of his research at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
“Here I am in South Bend, Indiana, where it’s cold and gray, and here was an opportunity to go to Hawaii,” Brittain said.
Brittain has spun the opportunity into a successful career. He received his Ph.D. in 2004 and became a NASA-funded Michelson postdoctoral fellow at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.
Brittain came to Clemson two years later with his wife, Beth, and their children, Olivia and Sam. They have since added a third child, Charlotte.
MEASURING SMALL CHANGES TO DETECT GALACTIC EVENTS
[pullquote]Brittain’s chemistry background helped get him an early start on using high-resolution spectroscopy to study the formation of stars and planets.[/pullquote] It was a relatively new technique early in his career, he said, and has played a major role in his research on HD100546.
The technique enabled the team to measure small changes in the position of the carbon monoxide emission. A source of excess carbon monoxide emission was detected that appears to vary in position and velocity. The varying position and velocity are consistent with orbital motion around the star.
The favored hypothesis is that emission comes from a circumplanetary disk of gas orbiting a giant planet, Brittain said.
“Another possibility is that we’re seeing the wake from tidal interactions between the object and the circumstellar disk of gas and dust orbiting the star,” he said.
Brittain served as lead author on The Astrophysical Journal article. Co-authors were John S. Carr of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.; Joan R. Najita of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona; and Sascha P. Quanz and Michael R. Meyer, both of ETH Zurich Institute for Astronomy. Mark Leising, the chair of Clemson’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Department, said Brittain’s work will raise the department’s international profile. “I congratulate Dr. Brittain and his team on their excellent work,” Leising said. “Astronomers are now very good at finding already formed planets around many nearby stars, but it has been difficult to watch the planets in the process of forming. “Using very clever techniques and the most advanced telescopes on Earth, they have accomplished that. It’s great to see our faculty working with leading institutions around the world to make discoveries at the forefront of astronomy.” Brittain said he is looking forward to observing the solar system using more advanced telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope scheduled for launch in 2018 and the 30-meter telescopes that could be ready as early as 2022. If there’s any similarity between Brittain’s research in space and his coaching on Earth, it’s that both take teamwork to be successful, he said. “No one is the boss, but every-one is working toward a common goal,” Brittain said.
You can read more about Brittain’s research at the following links:
Alumni return to Brooks Center with “super” production
If you saw a bolt from the blue last October, it wasn’t Superman. It was Clemson alumni of the Wishbone Theatre Collective, swooping in to perform their super hero-themed play, SPANDEX, at the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts.
The Chicago-based theatre company spent a week in technical rehearsals and student-focused activities before giving two performances of their original work in the Bellamy Theatre. The poignant comedy/drama questions ideas of perfection, bravery and the American superhero through the eyes of children and adults.
Wishbone Theatre Collective was founded in 2009 by former members of the Clemson Players, the University’s student theatre troupe. Since then, the organization has staged mostly original works written by members of the company, including Returning from Madness (by Laurie Jones ’08) and En El Corazon (by Jones and Mandy Stertz ’08), as well as the classic ghost story, The Woman in Black. In addition to several non-Clemson company members, Wishbone’s current roster includes Elizabeth Finley ’08, Katie Jones ’08, Laurie Jones ’08, Erin Lovelace ’10, Mandy Stertz ’08 and Kimberly Van Ness ’08. SPANDEX premiered in 2011 at the Chicago Fringe Festival and later traveled to the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. “We created the play as an ensemble through the inspiration of our childhood superheroes,” says Laurie Jones, who co-directs the production with her sister, Katie. “Wishbone did a children’s camp one summer, and we kept hearing the kids talking about good guys and bad guys. We thought we would take this childlike version of right and wrong and apply it to a real-life situation.”
While in Clemson, Wishbone conducted an improvisation workshop as well as a Q-and-A session for students. They shared stories of performing in less than ideal venues (their production of The Woman in Black was staged at a creepy funeral home) and of the joys and challenges of creating a theatre company from scratch.
Katie Jones, who was in the first graduating class of Clemson performing arts majors, told students that state-of-the-art equipment is not a requirement to produce a show: “You don’t need much. All you really need is six chairs and an imagination.”
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker has selected Clemson University President James P. Clements to serve as a co-chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE). NACIE is a federal advisory committee charged with identifying and recommending solutions to issues critical to driving the innovation economy, including enabling entrepreneurs and firms to successfully access and develop a skilled, globally competitive workforce.
“I’m honored to be asked to serve in this capacity, and I believe my participation will create opportunities for Clemson University and for the state of South Carolina,” said Clements. “The council’s mission aligns perfectly with Clemson’s commitment to workforce development for new and emerging industries, research-driven innovations that spur economic growth, and resources that support the launch and growth of new businesses. My appointment is a reflection of the outstanding work being done by our faculty, staff and students.”
Clements will advise Pritzker on issues related to accelerating innovation and entrepreneurship — with an emphasis on proven programs that create jobs and boost innovation.
In October, trustee Ellison Smyth McKissick III of Greenville and retired professor Jerome V. Reel Jr. of Clemson were awarded the Thomas Green Clemson Medallion, the University’s highest public honor. The medallion is awarded to those members of the Clemson Family whose dedication and service embody the spirit of the University’s founder. “These two gentlemen each have devoted decades of their lives to Clemson and its faculty, staff and students,” said President James P. Clements. “Clemson would not be the university it is today without their hard work and leadership. It is a great honor to recognize them for their dedication, exceptional example and continuing impact.”
SMYTH McKISSICK ’79
Smyth McKissick’s father was a great believer in an honest day’s work and admired hard-working people. The younger McKissick learned this lesson well and began work at age 16 in the spinning room of his family’s textile company, Alice Manufacturing.
McKissick entered Clemson in 1975 to study business, then went on to the University of South Carolina for an MBA in 1981. He characterizes his time at Clemson as a life-changing experience, and says he “grew up” in Sirrine Hall. He then returned home and to Alice Manufacturing, where he had the pleasure of learning and working alongside his father.
Soon after his father’s death in 1998, he took the reins as president and CEO, knowing the company needed to transform its business model to survive the many changes in the U.S. textile industry. He credits the success of his family’s business and its re-creation to the dedicated people within the company.
The McKissick philosophy of hard work is evident in his involvement and investment in Clemson. A successor member of the Board of Trustees since 1998, he has chaired or served on almost every board committee, including the search committees for Clemson’s 14th president, James F. Barker, and 15th president, James P. Clements.
An IPTAY member, McKissick supported the WestZone initiative; served as Clemson University Foundation director; is a member of the Thomas Green Clemson Cumulative Giving Society; and is a charter member of the President’s Leadership Circle. McKissick chairs the University’s $1 billion Will to Lead for Clemson campaign, the largest fundraising initiative in Clemson’s history. In 2012, he received the Alumni Association’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award.
McKissick has served as a leader in numerous textile industry organizations and is an active member of Christ Church Episcopal. He and his wife, Martha, live in Greenville and have three children, Smyth, Holly ’13 and Caroline.
JEROME V. REEL JR. H ’00
Clemson University historian since 2002, Jerry Reel has quite a history with the University. His career at Clemson went from potentially short-lived to honored professor and academic leader for 50 years.
The New Orleans native began putting down his roots in Clemson in 1963, when he joined the faculty while still finishing up his Ph.D. in British medieval history at Emory University. His plan was to stay long enough to finish his research, but he never left.
Reel began as an instructor, advanced to assistant and associate professor, and was named professor of history in 1971. He worked with student groups including Tiger Brotherhood, Blue Key, Golden Key, Omicron Delta Kappa and Order of Omega. He served as adviser to Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for more than 25 years.
Reel served as dean of undergraduate studies, vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies, and senior vice provost. He was named professor emeritus in 2003 and was honored with the Governor’s Award in the Humanities in 2011.
For decades, students filled his “History 101 — History of Clemson” course in which he indoctrinated generations with stories of the families who founded the University and the leaders who presided over it. Reel is the author and co-author of several books on Clemson history.
Reel is a member of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, and past president of the National Opera Association and the national Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He is active in Fort Hill Presbyterian Church, serving as an elder.
Students nominated Reel as an Alumni Master Teacher in 1975. Friends and former students honored him in 2009 with the establishment of the Jerome V. Reel Jr. Endowed Scholarship. Reel has direct Tiger “orange bloodlines” throughout his family. His wife, Edmeé, holds a master’s degree, and all three of his children and their spouses are alumni. One grandson is a current student.
Providing positive role models in classrooms and communities
TEACHING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL was not the future that Daniel Spencer ’09 envisioned as a high school senior in Swansea, South Carolina. With two brothers having dropped out of high school (one of whom served prison time) and parents who didn’t go to college, postsecondary education wasn’t even on his radar — even though he was in the top 10 percent of his graduating class.
Fortunately, he decided at the last minute to apply to Coastal Carolina University and chose elementary education as his major.
“I didn’t have a clue,” Spencer said. “I thought, ‘Well, I passed elementary school. I should be able to teach it!’”
When Spencer’s English professor learned about his major, he told him about Call Me MISTER®, a program started at Clemson to encourage and place African-American male teachers in South Carolina’s public elementary school classrooms. He advised Spencer to transfer to Clemson to be a part of the program. The rest, he says, is history.
“From the first day, Call Me MISTER changed what I thought would be easy into a lifetime challenge of working with people and shaping the lives of youth,” Spencer said.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
This was a challenge observed 15 years ago by Clemson University as well as Benedict College, Claflin University and Morris College, three historically black institutions in the state.
“We found that there were more black men in jail than were sleeping in the dormitories of the colleges in our state,” said Roy Jones, Call Me MISTER director and a faculty member at Clemson’s Eugene T. Moore School of Education. [pullquote]“There were more black men in prisons than were teaching in our state, especially in elementary education. That we saw as a problem.”[/pullquote]
And, Jones added, in a state that is one-third African-American and where young black males were being expelled, referred to discipline and dropping out of school at higher rates than any gender or ethnic group, fewer than one percent of the state’s teaching workforce were African-American males.
Leaders at the four institutions saw a connection between those figures. They determined that if you could increase the number of African-American males in the classroom, perhaps there would be more avenues for understanding and tackling the challenges that confront young black boys during their formative years.
“We got together and said, ‘We can do something about this,’” Jones said.
And Call Me MISTER was born.
Clemson — along with Benedict, Claflin and Morris — started Call Me MISTER (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) in 2000. Clemson provided fundraising and program support, while the remaining three colleges carried out the program on their campuses.
Housed in the Eugene T. Moore School of Education at Clemson, Call Me MISTER combines teacher education with co-curricular programs such as retreats, seminars, academic support, mentoring, a summer institute, internships and volunteer opportunities. Participants, known as MISTERs, also live and study together as cohorts and receive tuition assistance through loan forgiveness programs as well as help with job placement.
Since its inception, the program has grown to 19 colleges/universities in South Carolina, including Clemson and Coastal Carolina. That number also includes several two-year community and technical colleges, a move made to provide greater opportunity and access to the program.
[pullquote]As a result of these efforts, there has been a 75 percent increase in the number of African-American males teaching in South Carolina’s public elementary schools.[/pullquote] Of the 150 students who have completed the Call Me MISTER program in the Palmetto State, 100 percent of them remain in the education field.
Understanding that the issue is not South Carolina’s alone — that nationally, the number of male teachers is at a 40-year low, and that African-American males comprise less than 2 percent of the teaching workforce — Call Me MISTER has expanded to include 13 colleges in Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Mississippi, Georgia and the District of Columbia. Including graduates and current students, approximately 425 participants are in the program nationwide.
IT’S ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS
Since the program’s inception, Call Me MISTER leaders have found that its purpose is being fulfilled: more African-American males are entering elementary classrooms and more African-American children — especially boys — are seeing them as positive role models.
“There’s no doubt about what it means for so many kids to see an African-American male in a position of authority where he is also nurturing, where he is also loving and where he is also mentoring,” said Winston Holton, who leads Clemson’s Call Me MISTER cohort. “Our MISTERs are filling an important void.”
But the program is doing something more — it is exacting a powerful personal influence that transcends race, gender and socioeconomics.
“I believe that Call Me MISTER is making up the difference between what’s not happening in our homes, schools and communities and what needs to happen — and that is the fostering of healthy relationships,” Holton said. “We don’t have healthy relationships across too many lines,” Holton continued. “You see this playing out every day in schools and playgrounds across South Carolina — and in teacher’s lounges, in businesses, in families, in neighborhoods, everywhere.” From day one, Call Me MISTER encourages — even requires — its students to pursue healthy relationships, Holton said. Through an intentional yet organic process, MISTERs learn to understand and articulate their life stories and hear each other’s stories with empathy and understanding — and this skill makes all the difference when they enter the classroom and community as teachers. “The result is that MISTERs have the capacity to empathize with their students, parents, fellow teachers and community members just as they, themselves, have experienced empathy,” Holton said. “They are able to see through the differences, even the maladies, and really see another’s humanity. That’s how learning happens and how students, schools and communities are elevated.” “It’s all about relationships,” Holton summarized.
I CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Countless young people have been influenced by their relationships with Daniel Spencer, including his niece and nephew, the children of his formerly incarcerated brother.
“I was trying to help raise them, and I realized through Call Me MISTER that I wasn’t teaching them; I was just telling them what to do,” Spencer said. “Listening to the MISTERs and learning from them taught me that I can do things differently — and that I can make a difference.”
Spencer’s niece and nephew, now ages 15 and 16, live with him in Seneca — happily adjusted and involved in school and community activities. Spencer is also making a difference in his classroom at Blue Ridge Elementary, a Title 1 school with a high percentage of children from low-income families. He meets with each child individually and sets goals for the year, based not only on test scores but also the child’s own aspirations. And he holds them accountable to those goals, meeting with them throughout the year. “I get to know all the kids and strive to meet everyone where they are,” Spencer said. “But I’ve gotten past the ‘I’m here for them to like me’ thing because at the end of the day, I know that they are going to love me — because they respect me, and they know I believe in them.” What results from this exchange of respect, caring and expectation is academic progress. “The kids are exceeding their own expectations, which translates into authentic learning,” Spencer said.
SPIRIT OF HOPE FOR CHANGE
It is clear that authentic learning is needed for South Carolina’s children. The Palmetto State ranks 43rd in education, according to the 2014 Kids Count Profile, with 72 percent of South Carolina’s fourth graders lacking proficiency in reading, and 69 percent of eighth graders identified as below proficiency in math. Twenty-eight percent of high school students aren’t graduating on time, if at all. The same report ranks South Carolina 44th in economic well-being and child health — both factors that affect children’s performance in school. The statistics grow more dire in underserved schools and communities, where employment and other opportunities have increasingly diminished, says Roy Jones.
With these factors in mind, Jones and his colleagues focus on recruiting MISTERs from underserved areas and encouraging them to return to their communities or others with similar challenges.
[pullquote]“Call Me MISTER teachers are at the cutting edge of a new crusade — to ensure quality education in underserved areas by creating a pool of talented teachers who are fiercely loyal to their schools and communities,” Jones said.[/pullquote] “Such teachers embody the spirit of hope for change.”
I WANT TO SEE THESE KIDS GROW UP
“Fiercely loyal” could be used to describe Daniel Spencer. Since he started his career at Blue Ridge, he has been offered many opportunities to teach in other school districts, but he is dedicated to remaining at the school and in the community where he has served as a volunteer since his days as a Clemson student.
“The first kids I mentored when they were in the fourth grade are now in the 11th grade,” he said. “I want to see these kids grow up.”
In addition to teaching, Spencer coaches high school basketball and middle school football in Seneca, attends his students’ extracurricular activities, holds free basketball clinics and workouts at Blue Ridge during the summer, and takes students to events such as Clemson’s spring football scrimmage, which many of them have never attended even though they live less than 10 miles away. When he greets former students or players in the grocery store or at school events, they avoid him if their grades aren’t up to par, because they know he’ll ask. “I love being there and talking to the kids because the more they see positive people and consistently have positive people talking to them, the better they are going to do,” he said.
THE INTANGIBLE ‘MORE’
What is it about Call Me MISTER that inspires such dedication and selflessness? If you talk to anyone associated with the program, you’ll find that it’s because it’s more than a program — it’s a lifestyle, a way of being.
The intangible “more” begins with the name of the program. The brainchild of Call Me MISTER founding director Tom Parks, the name is not only an acronym but also a tribute to a famous line by Virgil Tibbs (played by Sidney Poitier) in the 1967 movie “In the Heat of the Night.”
While investigating a murder investigation in a small Mississippi town, Tibbs, an African-American detective from Philadelphia, is asked by the racist sheriff what people in his hometown police force call him. With dignity and assertiveness, Tibbs responds, “They call me ‘Mister Tibbs!’”
It is a line that inspires, even demands, respect.
Respect is a cornerstone of Call Me MISTER, one that is seen as MISTERs receive the program’s signature black blazer upon graduation — and in the way MISTERs refer to each other as “Mister” in formal Call Me MISTER settings.
“Ultimately, our hope is for each MISTER to be self-assured and know himself, and to appreciate and understand the value of building relationships across traditional lines,” Holton said.
Other Call Me MISTER foundational concepts include ambassadorship, stewardship, personal growth and teacher efficacy. “And all of these things together pour into the most important tenet, servant-leadership,” which Holton describes as “living for more than yourself.”
Perhaps no one embodies servant-leadership more than Jeff Davis, former field director for Call Me MISTER, current assistant athletic director of football player relations, and 2001 recipient of Oprah Winfrey’s Use Your Life award.
All MISTERs continue to be challenged each time they recite the vision statement Davis penned, which includes the line, “A title is only important if one’s character and integrity dictate its use.”
The single MISTER who rises to that challenge most valiantly receives the Jeff Davis Spirit Award, one of the most coveted honors bestowed annually upon a MISTER.
According to Clemson junior Michael Miller, a MISTER from Orangeburg and 2014 recipient of the Jeff Davis Spirit Award, servant-leadership has been the key to his Call Me MISTER education.
“My viewpoint about education has changed from ‘What can I tell you or dictate to you?’ to ‘What can I do for you?’” he said.
“I want to be an educator rather than a teacher,” he continued. “A teacher delivers content, and that is important. The word ‘educator’ comes from the Latin word educe, which means to draw from within. That’s what I try to do with my students — to pull out what is already within them. Call Me MISTER has taught me how to do that.” Melanie Kieve is the public information director for the College of Health, Education, and Human Development and the Eugene T. Moore School of Education.
To learn more about Call Me MISTER director Roy Jones, click here.
President Clements visited the University’s Belle W. Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science on Hobcaw Barony near Georgetown in October for the dedication of the John Bunyan Harris III Student Center.
The student center provides affordable short-term housing for graduate students studying or conducting research at the institute. The cottage is a gift from John Harris Jr. in memory of his son, a 1974 Clemson graduate in economics who died in 2006. Students spoke to the gathering inside the cottage that sleeps eight and has a kitchen adjoining a spacious great room opening on to a screened porch. Wildlife biology graduate student Nikki Roach recalled the cramped conditions that existed when she came to Baruch before to research marsh birds. Forestry undergraduate Trey Bailey III spoke of the opportunities to study with Baruch coastal forest scientists because the cottage provided a place to stay.
[pullquote]Clemson research at Baruch focuses on the environmental impacts of population growth, climate change and rising sea levels on South Carolina’s coast. [/pullquote]The goal is to provide commercial developers and municipal officials with science-based information to protect the area’s fragile ecosystems from saltwater intrusion and pollution from stormwater runoff as forested wetlands are converted to neighborhoods and shopping centers.
In 1964, a foundation was created to honor Belle Baruch, the daughter of financier Bernard Baruch. She consolidated 14 individual plantations into Hobcaw Barony, a 16,000-acre wildlife refuge. The foundation invited South Carolina colleges and universities to establish research and teaching programs focused on forestry, marine biology, wildlife and natural resources protection. Clemson’s Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science began in 1968 as the Baruch Institute of Forest Science with Clemson’s first professor on site.
Fortunately, he decided at the last minute to apply to Coastal Carolina University and chose elementary education as his major.
Since the program’s inception, Call Me MISTER leaders have found that its purpose is being fulfilled: more African-American males are entering elementary classrooms and more African-American children — especially boys — are seeing them as positive role models.
“Fiercely loyal” could be used to describe Daniel Spencer. Since he started his career at Blue Ridge, he has been offered many opportunities to teach in other school districts, but he is dedicated to remaining at the school and in the community where he has served as a volunteer since his days as a Clemson student.
