This spring, alumni and their daughters came to campus for Bring Your Daughter to Clemson, an opportunity for parents to share their love of the University with their daughters. Girls ages 6-18 toured campus, learned about majors and student activities, met students and professors, and got a small taste of what it means to be a Clemson Tiger. More than 200 participated in the weekend event sponsored by the Women’s Alumni Council.
For Christine Tedesco art and life all bleed into one. Art is life. Life is art.
Nothing is an imitation. Each building she’s designed as an architect with a team is just as much a piece of her as a quilt she’s created alone for the couch at home.
Her creative pursuits led to a “Best in Show” at the Anderson Arts Center 41st Juried Arts Show this past spring for a quilt named “Beige #1.” It was one of more than 500 entries in the show. She’s also shown pieces at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., the Ogden Museum in New Orleans and Art Fields in Lake City.
“I think the first thing I made was an apron,” said Tedesco. She began sewing when she was age nine, and as she grew, the instructions from her mother grew from stitches to life lessons on careers.
“My mother was very adamant that I had to major in something I could do so I didn’t have to depend on a man,” said Tedesco. Her love of making things led to a career as an architect, where she now leads at RSCT architecture + design.
But she didn’t leave behind her personal creative time just because she was being artistic at her day job. Instead she wanted to challenge herself to be innovative. At age 29 she took sewing to the next level and began quilting. “I wanted to try something more difficult,” she said. She also took a tailoring class and tackled making a man’s suit.
Even graduate school was taken as a confrontation to defy daily life. “I just came to the conclusion, there’s got to be more to life than this. My mind was cut open and things were poured in. I had such a great time. It was probably one of the biggest challenges of my life, but my desire to learn was different.”
Like many artists or creative types, Tedesco is driven by desire. “I get an idea in my head and it doesn’t leave until I figure out what I’m going to do. I never use a pattern.” Even her use of color isn’t conventional as she doesn’t follow traditional color relationships, but instead gut reaction to the ways a red or an orange can paint a purple or a blue a different hue. “I don’t follow patterns because colors inform me in a way what to do with them.”
In “Beige #1,” the piece wasn’t about color at all, but instead about the relationships of the seams and how they intersect. “I just started mapping lines and free form — it’s a lot less color,” she said.
Tedesco said she tries to be disciplined about her work. Each piece takes about 40 to 80 hours. A bedroom in her Pendleton home serves as a studio.
Unlike her work office, which has clean lines and barely a trace of a paper trail from the day’s work, her studio showcases years of ideas. Quilting books stacked about 4-feet tall stand by the door. Scraps of a current orange, beige and black piece are pinned tall and high on the wall.
“When you make a piece of art, it’s a solitary activity. … That’s why I create art. It allows me to do something alone.”
Outstanding faculty members were honored, and the president cited achievements driving Clemson to new heights in the world of academics. Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Bob Jones presented awards of achievement to four outstanding faculty and staff members: Chris Heavner, Bruce Martin, Thomas Britt, and Michael Sehorn.
Over 100 alumni and 30 employers participated in the Alumni Association’s first Alumni Career Fair in May. The event, held at CU-ICAR’s TD Gallery in Greenville, offered alumni the opportunity to explore career options with area employers as well as network with other alumni.
This career fair was sponsored by Alumni Career Services, which was launched based on feedback from previous alumni surveys. There are plans to expand with events in areas where there are large numbers of alumni, and eventually to offer events through clubs across the county. If your company is interested in participating in an Alumni Career Fair, contact Deborah Cremer at dcremer@clemson.edu.
Give Day donations will support student, faculty and facility needs.
April 29, 2016 – Jimmy Mullinax Professor of Military Leadership Lieutenant Colonel – Retirement Ceremony in Honor of LTC Jimmy Mulling, US Army Held in Tillman Hall auditorium
Teamwork and adaptability learned at Clemson served Sarah Strickland well abroad and back home. Critical skills such as communication and resourcefulness have helped Strickland from every job as a nurse in the ICU step-down unit, to working on a ship in Madagascar, to now working in an emergency room.
But it was working abroad that brought all the lessons from Clemson to the forefront. Knowing she was wrapping up the first few years of her career in Clemson, Lexington native Sarah Strickland began looking for adventures in nursing. She found one in Mercy Ships, an international faith-based organization with a mission to increase health care throughout the world. Since 1978, Mercy Ships has delivered services to more than 2.54 million people.
From November 2015 to February 2016, Strickland lived on Africa Mercy which was docked in Madagascar, and worked alongside surgeons in facial tumor removal and cleft lip and palate reconstruction. The ship, which began service in 2007, offers an 82-bed ward.
Strickland learned about the mission opportunity from one of her co-workers who lived in Africa for a while. And after multiple short-term mission trips as a high school student, Strickland wasn’t afraid of tackling a challenge overseas. “I prayed about it for a few weeks and ended up applying at the end of the summer,” she said.
The timing meant she wouldn’t be on an early 2015 trip, but would be considered for an early 2016 team. But life in South Carolina didn’t prep Strickland for everything. “I’d never done much with pediatrics or facial patients,” said Strickland. “And most conditions would have been treated long before they got to the point we were seeing. I worked in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and a step-down unit, but for the most part, working in Madagascar was completely different from anything I had ever done, which was the situation for most of my co-workers, so it was a learning curve for everybody.”
What Clemson and her training had prepped her for was being adaptable. “Clemson definitely teaches you how to think critically. When we were over there we didn’t have access to as many resources as we have over here. … We had to rely on a lot more of our judgment. Clemson just also really encourages a teamwork approach to nursing. Over there I really experienced the need to rely on my co-workers as teammates even more so than working here.”
Clemson tiger paw temporary tattoos, stickers and flags also helped Strickland bring one of her loves to her patients. “There was 14-year-old kid who had a tumor. The day he had it removed was the day of the National Championship game. So I put [tiger paws] on a bunch of the kids, including him. The first time he got to look at the back of his head without the tumor, he had a tiger paw on his cheek.”
“Seeing the look on his face when he got to see that just reminded me [Clemson] is what brought me here, and it just all came together,” she said.”
President Clements with Sheila and Waenard Miller, M.D. The Millers received a platter crafted of wood from a tree that once stood on Clemson’s campus.
Cardiologist Waenard L. Miller ’69 has spent his career on the cutting edge of medicine, raising the level of care for patients higher and higher. Now the gift that he and his wife, Sheila, of Frisco, Texas, have given will ensure that future Clemson graduates can do the same. The two have donated $2 million to Clemson to establish the Dr. Waenard L. Miller, Jr. ’69 and Sheila M. Miller Endowed Chair in Medical Physics.
“My vision of the medical physics program is a multidisciplinary collaborative endeavor associated with excellence in research, exponential growth in innovation and outstanding educational opportunities for students,” Miller said.
Miller earned his physics degree from Clemson in 1969. He received his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and completed his internal medicine residency and a fellowship in cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He also holds master’s degrees in nuclear physics, biology and medical management.
The Millers met when they were in high school in Greenville. Sheila’s father, Bernyrd C. McLawhorn, was a Greenville physician with degrees in physics and medicine.
“We had a common language in physics, but I was equally inspired by his knowledge of medicine and his commitment to his patients,” Miller said. “My father-in-law was clearly the role model for my eventual choice of medicine as my vocation.”
Sheila fondly remembers the friendship between her father and her future husband. “When I was dating Waenard, I knew I had to get to the door immediately, because if I didn’t get there right away, the two of them would go off in a corner and start talking about black holes, and we’d be late for wherever we were going,” she said.
Miller, in Air Force ROTC at Clemson, was commissioned as a second lieutenant upon graduation and sent to graduate school in nuclear physics. He then served at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the foreign technology division as a physicist and later transferred to the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory. There he became intrigued with the combined concept of physics and biology.
Miller began practicing medicine near Dallas in 1983 and co-founded the Legacy Heart Center (LHC) in 1995. Under his leadership, LHC became renowned for leading-edge cardiovascular care. Texas Monthly magazine named him a “Texas Super Doctor” for eight consecutive years. President Clements described Miller as one of the University’s most accomplished alumni.
“Waenard and Sheila already have established a significant legacy. We are so honored that they have decided to partner with Clemson to enhance their legacy even further,” Clements said. “This wonderful gift will allow us to expand our internationally acclaimed biomedical research program and help meet the demand for medical physicists in the health care industry.”
The endowed position will be a joint appointment in Clemson’s departments of physics and astronomy and bioengineering. While collaborating with medical partners of Clemson University, the research conducted by the endowed chair holder will be at the interface of science and engineering with clinical translation as the outcome.
Mark Leising, former chair of the physics and astronomy department and interim dean of the College of Science, said, “Dr. and Mrs. Miller’s gift will invigorate our medical physics education and research programs. Bringing more physicists and physical science techniques to medicine will continue to improve patient care and fill an important need of our state.”
Martine LaBerge, chair of Clemson’s bioengineering department, noted that medical physics research is at the forefront of patient care. “With this generous gift,” she said, “Clemson University will continue to lead the field of medical diagnostics and will make a significant impact in basic and applied research to improve patient outcomes.”
The Millers’ gift is a part of the successful $1 billion Will to Lead for Clemson campaign.
Melissa Moore and Megan Milam in front of the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland in July 2016. The vintage tiger rag in the photo was borrowed prior to the trip from Megan’s dad, who is also a Clemson alumni.
More than 370 alumni and friends attended the Golder Tiger Reunion in June, where more than 60 members of the Class of ’66 celebrated their 50th anniversary weekend by being inducted as Golden Tigers. Two members of the Class of ’41 were inducted as Platinum Tigers.
During the induction ceremony, guests heard University historian Jerry Reel speak about Clemson history and life in 1966. Attendees heard an update on University construction projects and the college reorganization, as well as a presentation about the James C. Kennedy Waterfowl and Wetlands Conservation Center. They also toured the Watt Family Innovation Center, athletics facilities and the historic Fort Hill mansion and Hanover House.
