Summer 2008 — Vol. 61, No. 3

South Carolina teachers will soon have their very own Teacher Renewal Center thanks to a major gift of Upstate forestland and cash from The Cliffs Communities and its foundations. Clemson will join forces with the S.C. Department of Education to oversee development and management of the center.

The gift includes $10 million in cash and more than 355 acres of prime real estate in the Jocassee Gorges area of Pickens County to support development of a Teacher Renewal Center — a first-of-its-kind facility in South Carolina. The goal of the center is to enhance the quality of education by helping the state retain its best teachers.



“The center will offer a venue and programming designed to renew teachers’ spirits and celebrate their contributions to our children, to our state and to our nation,” says Jim Anthony, founder and chief executive officer of The Cliffs Communities.

Teachers — reconnect and renew

Anyone who has been a kindergarten through high school teacher can tell you, teaching “is not for sissies.” As a result, many teachers leave the profession within the first few years.

In South Carolina, more than 6,800 teachers will not be returning to the schools where they taught last year, at a cost of nearly $75 million to S.C. taxpayers, according to education department statistics. Other states are facing similar issues.

The Teacher Renewal Center will offer S.C. teachers programs similar to those of nationally recognized centers in North Carolina and Washington.

Teams of 20 to 25 practicing K-12 teachers from across the state will visit the waterfront complex for weeklong, residential seminars. The seminars will be organized around an interdisciplinary study of ideas, questions or themes.
Initial plans for the center include a hotel, restaurant and conference complex on the banks of the Keowee River between lakes Keowee and Hartwell.

Anthony believes the center will have additional benefits.
“For teachers, the more they care and pour themselves into their students, the more stressful it is,” he says. “We want to inspire them and lift their spirits. We want to reconnect them to what led them to the classroom in the first place. Our children will surely reap the benefits.”

Kids — camp and learn

One facet of the Teacher Renewal Center that will distinguish it from programs in other states is a youth development component that offers experience-based learning for students while their teachers participate in seminars.

Clemson’s Youth Learning Institute — which already has strong programs connecting children and teachers with nature such as Teaching Kids About the Environment (KATE), residential field studies, camping and other activities — will coordinate programs at the center.

In addition, The Cliffs Communities gift has added a wilderness adventure camp to the Youth Learning Institute’s lineup of summer programs.

Adventure Camp provides campers, ages 12 to 15, with 10 days of outdoor wilderness excursions. Located at Pinnacle Falls in the Eastatoe Valley, the 100-acre camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Pickens County features a trout stream, 60-foot waterfall, fish pond, teepees, game field and hiking trails, with nearby access to the 76-mile Foothills Trail and Lake Jocassee.

“The relationship between Clemson and The Cliffs Communities is a model for the way a public university can partner with a private company to achieve far-reaching, multidimensional benefits,” says President Jim Barker. “The impact that this latest gift will have on South Carolina teachers, students and eventually the state’s overall education is a perfect example.”

The Cliffs Center for Environmental Golf Research

The Cliffs Communities, along with Clemson and top industry support, has launched a first-of-its-kind turfgrass research center.

The Cliffs Center for Environmental Golf Research, in cooperation with the University, will be a laboratory for industry-leading turfgrass research to produce environmentally enhancing, ecologically complementary golf course and green space management and maintenance practices. It will serve as a model for others in the golf course development business.

The center is located on a 5.6-acre site in The Cliffs at Mountain Park in Travelers Rest. It includes research laboratories, two experimental Par 3 organic golf holes grown with both warm- and cool-season grasses, 40,000 square feet of turfgrass plots, and office, meeting and living space for administrators and students.

For more on the center, go to www.cliffscommunities.com/golf.