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The Best of the Best

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In November, Clemson faculty voted Rhondda Thomas the recipient of the Class of ’39 Award for Excellence — in essence, she has been named as one of the very best faculty members by her own colleagues.

The award, endowed by the Class of 1939 to commemorate its 50th anniversary in 1989, is presented annually to one distinguished faculty member whose contributions over five years are judged by peers to represent the highest achievement of service to the student body, University and community, state, or nation.

“The legacy of sacrifice, service and philanthropy of the Class of ’39 is inspiring and motivating, and I’m honored that my colleagues chose me to be a part of this distinguished group,” said Thomas, the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature. “I’m also grateful to work at a university that values and encourages service both on and off-campus.”

Her research and teaching interests are early African American literature and culture, politics of Black identity, autobiographical scholarship, African American literature and the Bible, race and culture studies, African American historiography, migration narratives, and African American women writers.

Perhaps most significantly, she has been a prominent member of the community pushing for a full accounting of Clemson’s history with African Americans in the region. “Through her public program creation and leadership, she has greatly contributed to increasing understanding of our cultural heritage and to recognize the previously unheard voices in Clemson’s institutional history,” said Will Stockton, chair and professor of English.

Erin Goss, associate professor and associate chair for the Department of English, commented on the impact of Thomas’ work to document the Black experience at Clemson in her nomination letter:

“Dr. Thomas has made enormous contributions to how students, colleagues and citizens understand the history and culture of Upstate South Carolina,” Goss wrote. “Most recently, by documenting the history and experience of Black people in the region through her celebrated and highly publicized ‘Call My Name’ project, she has also helped these populations better understand how to [comprehend] the challenges of the past to build a stronger future.”

Named Clemson’s 2020 Senior Researcher of the Year, Thomas also won a CAAH Creativity Professorships award for the 2020-2022 term and a Preserving Our Places in History Project Award for “Call My Name” from the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission. She has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support a touring exhibition of her research, “Call My Name: The Black Experience in the South Carolina Upstate from Enslavement to Desegregation,” an extension of an initiative that has digitized more than 2,000 primary documents related to Clemson’s history.

Thomas also is involved in an interdisciplinary partnership coordinated by English professor Lee Morrissey that has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, dedicated to “Exploring America’s Stories in the Clemson Landscape.”

 

 

Landmarks & Legends: Marking History

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Landmarks Legends-Sign InstallationThree new historical markers at Clemson are tangible reminders of the University’s full history — a history not as idyllic as the well-manicured lawn of Bowman field and the picture-perfect walk by the library.

In April, University officials, trustees and guests broke ground for three double-sided markers: One at the intersection of South Palmetto Boulevard and Fernow Street Extension to commemorate a site where slave quarters stood on the plantation owned by John C. Calhoun and later by University founder Thomas Green Clemson; the second near Calhoun Bottoms farmland to commemorate the role of Native Americans and African-Americans in the development of the Fort Hill Plantation lands; the third near Woodland Cemetery to mark the burial sites of the family of John C. Calhoun, enslaved people and state-leased prisoners who died during their confinement at Clemson.

“The story of Clemson University’s founding is one of great vision, commitment and perseverance,” said President James P. Clements at the event. “However, it is also a story with some uncomfortable history. And, although we cannot change our history, we can acknowledge it and learn from it, and that is what great universities do.”

Landmarks - Fort Hill property wp2The markers are one way Clemson is working to give a more accurate public accounting of its history to acknowledge connections to slavery, segregation or other practices and viewpoints inconsistent with current institutional values.
During the event, Clements praised the work of Rhondda Thomas, associate professor of English, whose research on African-Americans who lived and labored at Clemson prior to desegregation spurred interest in the markers.
One of those stories is about Sharper and Caroline Brown, whose daughter Matilda was born into slavery but lived most of her life as a free woman. Matilda Brown’s granddaughter, Eva Hester Martin, 90, of Greenville, was a guest at the groundbreaking ceremony for the historical markers.
It’s a story Thomas pieced together from personal recollections backed up by photos, newspaper clippings, church and census records, and other documentation. The youngest of 10 children, Martin earned a degree in chemistry from S.C. State University, enjoyed a successful career as a medical technician in Chicago and Los Angeles, and raised four children.
“Our archives are a wonderful resource, and census records are a great help,” Thomas said. “For the convict laborers, however, the pardon records provide the strongest evidence of the men and boys who labored at Clemson, as the documentation specifies when they were released from Clemson College. But in some cases the records are incomplete or missing.”

Thomas hopes the University’s efforts to tell these stories will encourage more family members to come forward with information, photos, family Bibles or other materials that can confirm an ancestor’s connection to the University’s early years.

If you have information for Thomas’ research, email her at rhonddt@clemson.edu.


Clements_019Read more about the history of these markers in The View From Sikes.

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New video series puts discussion ‘On the Table’ and in your pocket

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Clemson has launched a new video series that puts experts on your screen when and where you want them. “On the Table,” a public policy series from ClemsonTV, tackles such tough subjects as concussions in sports, the role of technology in our lives and health screening disparities, providing in-depth discussion from leading researchers and scholars who are members of the Clemson faculty.

“We wanted to put topics on the table, figuratively and literally, with something very visual to represent the topic,” says ClemsonTV director Jacob Barker. “The web is flooded with how-to videos, but there is very little to offer in the way of substantive discussion. We wanted to combine expert information with the flexibility of on-demand viewing.”
Each episode is hosted by Peter Kent, a career journalist and former science writer at Clemson. The first three episodes are available now, with several more in production.

In episode one, “Protecting Against Concussions,” Greg Batt, an assistant professor in food, nutrition and packaging, and John DesJardins, an associate professor in bioengineering, explain their work with the national Head Health Initiative on three challenges: finding better tools for doctors to detect brain injury; creating new ways to monitor head impacts as they happen; and developing improved, energy-absorbing and energy-reducing materials.

The second episode, “To Trust or Not To Trust,” features Richard Pak, an associate professor in psychology and his research on the relationship between humans and the technology that makes hundreds of hidden decisions in our lives every day. The outcomes can be beneficial, such as self-driving cars that improve highway safety and driving efficiency. Sometimes, however, they can be detrimental. Are we trusting technology enough or too much?

In episode three, “Witness Breast Cancer Awareness,” Rachel Mayo, a professor in public health sciences, talks about the power of a personal experience that led her to launch the South Carolina Witness Project, part of the National Witness Project. The effort, a network of survivors and community-based organizations, aims to eliminate the disparity of breast and cervical cancer diagnoses and deaths: Black women are more likely to have mammograms, but much more likely to die of breast cancer. Mayo’s research shows that how information is presented makes a difference.

Yet another episode looks at Wade Foster.
Wade Foster was 13 when he helped to build a university he could never attend. His children could never attend. His grandchildren could never attend. Foster was a criminal; a black boy caught stealing six dollars worth of clothes from a white family. Sentenced to six months in prison, South Carolina gave Foster to Clemson University to serve his sentence as convict labor. South Carolina called convict labor “slaves of the state.”
Rhondda Thomas, associate professor of African American Literature at Clemson, sheds light on the slaves who labored to build the institution and why it’s necessary to paint the full picture of a school’s history.
Thomas joined the university in 2007 and teaches African American literature in the English department. She is the author of “Exodus: A Cultural History of Afro-Atlantic Identity, 1774-1903 and the editor of Jane Edna Hunter’s autobiography, “A Nickel and a Prayer.” In 2013, she co-edited “The South Carolina Roots of African American Thought” with Clemson professor of English Susanna Ashton.
Last year she received a grant for her research about African Americans who lived and labored on Clemson land during the pre-1963 integration period. James E. Bostic Jr. and Edith H. Bostic of Atlanta awarded Thomas $50,000. That gift was matched by the university, bringing the total grant to $100,000.