Travelers Rest

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By Keith Lee Morris
A chilling fable about a family marooned in a snowbound town whose grievous history intrudes on the dreamlike present.
The Addisons-Julia and Tonio, ten-year-old Dewey, and derelict Uncle Robbie-are driving home, cross-country, after collecting Robbie from yet another trip to rehab. When a terrifying blizzard strikes outside the town of Good Night, Idaho, they seek refuge in the town at the Travelers Rest, a formerly opulent but now crumbling and eerie hotel where the physical laws of the universe are bent.

Cadence Count: Clemson University Graduate School

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Here’s just a snapshot of what graduate students contribute to the Clemson Experience:
One in five active Creative Inquiry teams is led or co-led by a Clemson graduate student.The vast majority of our alumni are undergraduates, and for many of us, when we talk about the “Clemson Experience,” we’re thinking about those four (or more) years we experienced on campus working on our bachelor’s degrees.
What you may not know is that 20 percent of current Clemson students are graduate students, working on master’s or doctoral degrees in fields as diverse as Clemson graduate theses and dissertations have 500,000+ downloads around the world.human-centered computing, automotive engineering, and travel and tourism. While those students go to class and perform research, they also teach and run labs, work in departments across campus, and add to Clemson’s reputation in the world with their transformative research.
Clemson Degrees conferred

 

Esko gift-in-kind enhances student experience

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Clemson University student Mengmeng Zhao, a third-year doctoral student in packaging science from Tianjin, China, uses a computerized sample cutting table in the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics that was funded by Esko Inc., Oct. 24, 2016.

Clemson University student Mengmeng Zhao, a third-year doctoral student in packaging science from Tianjin, China, uses a computerized sample cutting table in the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics that was funded by Esko Inc., Oct. 24, 2016. (Photo by Ken Scar)


Clemson students will work with cutting-edge design equipment, software and tools for years to come, thanks to Esko, a global supplier of integrated solutions for the packaging, labels, sign and display industries.
The company has given Clemson’s Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics equipment, maintenance and software valued at $26,703,750 over a five-year period.
“Esko has been a great partner with the Sonoco Institute for nearly a decade, and this latest gift will be instrumental in Clemson’s ongoing efforts to remain at the leading edge of research into packaging technologies,” said President Clements. “Esko’s equipment and software allow our packaging design students to leave Clemson proficient in industry-standard tools and technologies.” The Sonoco Institute is the only university program in the country with a multidisciplinary approach to packaging as a core competency.
Esko has been a partner of the institute since 2008, and the curriculum is built around the company’s equipment and software. “Esko values the Clemson relationship largely because of the amount of value the printing and packaging industry places on Clemson as a resource for talent and innovation,” said Larry Moore, Esko’s vice president of partner programs in North America.
The partnership has greatly benefited Clemson students and consequently the manufacturing industry, said Chip Tonkin, director of the Sonoco Institute and Clemson’s graphic communications department chair. “Our Esko relationship is a world-class example of an industry-academic partnership that leverages real-world tools and relevant challenges to engage and inspire our students in ways that feed the talent pipeline that our entire manufacturing industry desperately needs,” said Tonkin.

Branding life’s moments: Melissa “Lisa” Holladay ’89

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Clemson Alumna Lisa Holladay
As global brand leader and vice president for The Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, Lisa Holladay says her job isn’t to sell you a room, but to provide guests an experience. “The ‘Why?’ we exist as a company isn’t to sell hotel rooms or to sell beds, but it’s to create memories,” she said.
Landing at the Ritz-Carlton from Clemson wasn’t a straight line for Holladay. As an education major, Holladay had plans of entering the classroom. Even though she loved teaching high school seniors, student teaching revealed she didn’t want to move into the classroom. Next was graduate school at Georgetown University to pursue an English degree, but a study abroad program in England revealed to Holladay that she loved travel. Her path eventually led to a public relations firm in Washington, D.C., then to a non-profit. A half dozen jobs later she was in San Francisco and found her niche with Mercedes-Benz.
“I grew up there,” she said about staying with the company for over a decade. “I loved it. I knew I wanted to be passionate about something, but I didn’t know what it was. That’s when I went to work for Mercedes-Benz and did everything from PR to marketing to advertising.”
Her last move with Mercedes took her to New Jersey and New York where she was national manager for experiential marketing for Mercedes-Benz USA, and where she finally found her “Why?” — her love of brand management.
[pullquote]“My job is to make people fall so in love with our brands that they are loyal beyond reason,” she said.[/pullquote]
When the opportunity came open from Marriott to interview for the Ritz-Carlton, Holladay said she studied like there was no tomorrow.
“It’s travel, food, wine, spa, luxury … I really, really wanted that job and thought, ‘They’re never going to hire me because I have no hospitality background,’” she said.
Being an outsider was her “in.” “They wanted to extend the brand as more than just a hotel company,” she said.
Now as a global brand leader for luxury brands, Holladay wants to have guests explore the city and the hotels, while providing relevant, contemporary luxury that aligns with core brand values.
“There’s a reason my two longest career stints have been with brands that have heritage,” she said. “I should have known when I was at Clemson that I was a brand person because even then I was enamored with the Tiger paw on everything, the football team running down the hill and the story of Clemson.”
— Julia Sellers

Accelerated path: James ’16 and Anna Bernhardt ’15 Hodan

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Clemson alumni James and Anna Hodan
Over the past five years, James and Anna Hodan moved five times, purchased a home, became landlords and adopted two dogs. Clearly familiar with change, the couple didn’t hesitate to shift their careers when opportunities opened up, and they enrolled in Clemson’s accelerated nursing program.
As the health care industry continues to fluctuate, many professionals are pivoting their career paths to better suit new demands. James and Anna are two of these professionals. While they found success in their respective careers in prosthetics and health care marketing, they wanted to play more direct roles in patient care and remove themselves from the administrative duties that have increased in recent years. Anna enrolled in the accelerated nursing program in August 2014; James followed suit in August 2015.
“The prosthetics field is transitioning away from patient care to require practitioners to spend a majority of their time on insurance paperwork,” James said. “This is not where I feel my strengths lie. Nursing allows me to get back to what I know best, which is focusing on providing excellent patient care.”
Anna is similarly familiar with the administrative side of health care, yet finds it an asset in her nursing career. “I feel that because of my background [in administration], I have an appreciation for what the administrative staff has to go through in order to ensure the department runs smoothly and efficiently,” she said.
With close ties to local hospitals and a rigorous curriculum that combines classroom experience with hands-on clinical work, James and Anna felt that Clemson’s nursing program was the perfect spot for them. Clemson’s program allows professionals like James and Anna to divert their career path to nursing, a facet of health care that is grounded in hands-on patient interaction. Clemson’s reputation as one of 35 programs recognized by the National League for Nursing as a Center of Excellence in Nursing Education helped solidify the decision.
When Anna graduated in 2015, she began work as an emergency room nurse at Spartanburg Regional Hospital. After graduation in December 2016, James took a job at Pardee Hospital in Hendersonville, N.C., in the ICU.
For Anna, a new mindset was the best takeaway. “The professors and the program challenge you to think beyond the classroom. Now that I am working in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment, I value the ability to think critically to help my patients.” After two years of intensely scheduled lives and graduation, the Hodans are excited to settle into their new normal.
— Courtney Meola ’17

Clemson Center for Human Genetics opens in Greenwood

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Self Regional Hall, a new 17,000-square-foot, state-of-the art facility that will house the Clemson University Center for Human Genetics, has opened on the campus of the Greenwood Genetic Center.
The facility will enable Clemson’s growing genetics program to collaborate closely with the long tradition of clinical and research excellence at the Greenwood Genetic Center, combining basic science and clinical care. The center will initially focus on discovering and developing early diagnostic tools and therapies for autism, cognitive developmental disorders, oncology and lysosomal disorders. The building will house eight laboratories and several classrooms, conference rooms and offices for graduate students and faculty.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in six children between the ages of 3 and 17, roughly 15 percent, suffers from some type of developmental disorder.
“Opening Self Regional Hall means that we will be able to do even more to help children with genetic disorders, and their families, and to educate graduate students who will go out into the world and make their own impact,” said President James P. Clements.
“As the parent of a child with special needs, the kind of research that you are doing here is especially meaningful and important to me and my family,” Clements said during the event. “As you all know, an early diagnosis can make a huge difference for a child and their family because the earlier you can figure out what a child needs, the earlier you can intervene and begin treatment.”
“Self Regional Hall is a state-of-the-art facility that provides the resources our scientists need to understand the genetic underpinnings of disorders,” said Mark Leising, interim dean of the College of Science at Clemson. “This facility, and its proximity to the Greenwood Genetic Center, elevates our ability to attract the brightest scientific talent to South Carolina and enhances our efforts to tackle genetic disorders.”
The facility’s name recognizes the ongoing support from Self Regional Healthcare, a health care system in Upstate South Carolina that has grown from the philanthropy of the late James P. Self, a textile magnate who founded Self Memorial Hospital in 1951.
“Self Regional Healthcare’s vision is to provide superior care, experience and value. This vision includes affording our patients with access to cutting-edge technology and the latest in health care innovation — and genomic medicine, without a doubt, is the future of health care,” said Jim Pfeiffer, president and CEO of Self Regional Healthcare. “The research and discoveries that will originate from this center will provide new options for those individuals facing intellectual and developmental disabilities, and will provide our organization with innovative capabilities and treatment options for our patients.”
“We are pleased to welcome Clemson University to Greenwood as the first academic partner on our Partnership Campus,” added Dr. Steve Skinner, director of the Greenwood Genetic Center. “This is the next great step in a collaboration that has been developing over the past 20-plus years. We look forward to our joint efforts with both Clemson and Self Regional Healthcare to advance the research and discoveries that will increase our understanding and treatment of human genetic disorders.”