{"id":20245,"date":"2019-01-03T14:13:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T19:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=20245"},"modified":"2019-01-03T14:13:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T19:13:05","slug":"rook-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/rook-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"Rooks Honor Mentor and Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
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\nBen Rook \u201968, M \u201974, the owner of Design Strategies in Greenville, has spent his career working on many different solutions to one question: \u201cHow can we make that happen?\u201d
\nHe and his wife, Becca, make things happen in many arenas: education, architecture, business and community-centered philanthropy. At Clemson, their latest gift of $100,000 will provide opportunities for architecture students by funding an endowment created in the name of mentor and friend George C. Means Jr.
\nMeans established a health-focused studio in the School of Architecture at Clemson that has grown into today\u2019s Architecture + Health graduate program. As the program celebrates its 50th anniversary, the Architecture + Health studio will officially carry the name of George C. Means Jr.
\nBen said that when he first came to Clemson from Newberry, South Carolina, he had no idea what architecture really was. \u201cI knew I liked making art, and I liked building treehouses,\u201d he said, adding that Means had a gift for molding young people into \u201cwhat they would be, even when they didn\u2019t know what they could be.\u201d
\nBen graduated in 1968 and earned his master\u2019s degree in 1974. In between degrees, he met his wife while working in Charlotte. After a long courtship, they married, with George Means as best man.
\nFor a few years, Ben taught full time at Clemson and was an assistant campus planner. Becca educated younger students in Anderson and earned a master\u2019s degree in education at Clemson. Ben\u2019s career led them to Greenville, then to Charlotte and back to Greenville.
\nBen wants people to remember that Means was a man with big ideas and an unparalleled devotion to students. Through the many lives he shaped over the years, Means\u2019 influence traveled far beyond the studio that now bears his name.
\nThe Rooks said they want their gift to the Means endowment to help keep Clemson a place where extraordinary teachers can deliver extra care and individual attention to each student. \u201cThat is what makes Clemson great,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Ben Rook \u201968, M \u201974, the owner of Design Strategies in Greenville, has spent his career working on many different solutions to one question: \u201cHow can we make that happen?\u201d He and his wife, Becca, make things happen in many arenas: education, architecture, business and community-centered philanthropy. At Clemson, their latest gift of $100,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,8],"tags":[3333],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-20245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clemson-forever","category-my-clemson","tag-winter-2019-clemson-forever"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/01\/Rook_Gift.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20245"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}