Spring 2009 — Vol. 62, No. 2

Educating the next ‘Greatest Generation’

By James F. Barker

As I write this, we do not yet have a clear picture of Clemson’s budget for the fiscal year beginning in July.

Many questions remain, for our university and for your family. Will the recession deepen, or have we hit bottom? Will unemployment and state revenues continue to decline, or stabilize? What will be the impact of federal stimulus funds?

Since I can’t answer these questions, let me concentrate on what I do know.

First on that list, I know that Clemson is a very good (some would say great) university. It is, in fact, one of the top-ranked universities in the nation.

At the beginning of our top-20 quest in 2001, we were ahead of only Auburn and Mississippi State on a list of public universities we chose as benchmarks. Today, we have passed N.C. State, Virginia Tech, Michigan State, Texas A&M and several others. We have also been recognized for value and return-on-investment, as you can read in the feature story “High yield of a Clemson degree.”

Surveys show that our students are engaged in their studies and happy, the happiest students in the country according to The Princeton Review. The statistically rigorous National Survey of Student Engagement found that more than 91 percent of our seniors would choose Clemson again if they had it to do over, compared to an average of just 79 percent at peer institutions.

If surveys and rankings don’t impress you, pay attention to the marketplace. We have more than 16,000 applications, a new record, for 2,800 slots in our freshman class next fall. Clemson has a very strong reputation, and universities with strong reputations tend to be very resilient in recessions.

Our investments in IT infrastructure and research capacity are beginning to pay off in economic development benefits for South Carolina. An external study of the state’s endowed chairs program called it one of the nation’s best.

At Clemson, we have gone from zero spinoff companies in 2001 to seven in the past two years alone. A company like American Titanium Works would not be bringing its applications development and engineering technical center to Greenville if not for the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research.

In meetings with faculty and staff this semester, I asked them to remember that Clemson does not have a quality crisis. We do not have an enrollment crisis. We do not have a faculty productivity crisis. We do not have a reputation crisis.

What we have is a state funding crisis. It is serious, and we have to deal with it, but we will do so in ways that do not create another crisis.

Next year’s budget will be tight, but it will protect our core mission areas. That means protecting academic quality in the classroom, the laboratory and the field — everywhere we interact directly with our most important constituents, especially our students.

We have refocused our private fundraising priorities to emphasize student and faculty support — scholarships, fellowships, professorships and chairs.

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Here’s another thing I know for sure. Spring has returned to Clemson in all its glory. On May 8, we awarded about 2,300 degrees to an eager, well-prepared group of new graduates.

They understand the challenges they face, but they are prepared and determined to use their Clemson educations to meet them. There is genuine greatness in each of these graduates.

In talks to both high school and college students this semester, I’ve shared a quote from President Franklin Roosevelt, speaking in the depths of the Great Depression in 1936: “There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations, much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”

The young people President Roosevelt spoke of were the grandparents and great-grandparents of our students today. Tom Brokaw called them the “Greatest Generation.”

They came of age during the Depression and World War II. They fought fascism and tyranny around the globe.

Then they put aside the weapons of war and armed themselves for the challenges ahead with a college education that many of them received through the GI Bill. Brokaw called that legislation “the greatest investment in higher education that any society ever made” and “a brilliant and enduring commitment to the nation’s future.”

I believe, sincerely, that the students we educate today are the next “Greatest Generation.”

I am very encouraged by the determination I see in today’s Clemson students to use what they are learning to tackle the problems of their generation — the global struggle against terrorism, extremism and poverty, and the urgent need for energy independence and environmental and economic sustainability.

These students are very pragmatic. They are looking for solutions. And, as you will learn in this issue, they have prepared themselves well to be the next generation of global citizens, thinkers, leaders and entrepreneurs.

To that, I can just say: Go Tigers!

Learn more about Clemson’s investments in cyberinfrastructure to support teaching and research in the President’s Report.