Summer/Fall 2009 — Vol. 62, No. 3
‘Stimulus plan’ for students
The University is creating its own version of an economic stimulus plan for students, targeting those most impacted by the current economic recession and state budget cuts.
The plan will fund approximately 175 jobs to replace student positions that were eliminated in departmental budget cuts and will provide scholarships for students near the end of their academic careers to ensure that they graduate on time.
The jobs will include both University-funded positions and work-study jobs, allowing Clemson to leverage available federal funds, which cover 75 percent of wages for eligible work-study students. Both will give priority to low-income students.
The Clemson stimulus program is privately funded through donations to the Leadership Circle, a new annual giving society that encourages unrestricted gifts, allowing the University to determine how gifts can best be used.
Wilkins to lead Clemson Board of Trustees
Longtime S.C. legislator and former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David H. Wilkins ’68 (right) is the new chairman of the University’s board of trustees. Fellow trustee Smyth McKissick congratulates Wilkins, the unanimous choice, at the announcement. Former chairman Leon “Bill” Hendrix ’63, M ’68 stepped down as head of the board in July and will continue to serve as a life trustee.
You did it again!
You kept Clemson among the top universities in the country in alumni giving. More than 28 percent of Clemson’s alumni gave back to the University during the 2008-09 fiscal year (ending June 30).
In fact, private gifts to the University totaled $78.7 million for the fiscal year. The total includes $43.1 million given by donors to the Clemson University Foundation to support academics and athletic capital projects, $16 million added to the inventory of planned gifts and $19.6 million to IPTAY, which supports athletic scholarships. Your generosity and trust in Clemson made this the third best fundraising year in the University’s history.
Web Extra: U.S. News ranking video narrated by Pres. Barker
Private gifts are essential to expand scholarship opportunities for students, support excellent faculty, improve learning environments and enrich the overall Clemson experience.
Students win Yellow Pages challenge
Marketing majors Molly Morrow and Matthew Herrold and graphic communications major Brittney Washington, advised by marketing professor James Gaubert, won the Yellow Pages Association Advertising Challenge for U.S. and Canadian undergraduate students. They designed print and Internet ads for U-Store-It, a self-storage company selected as this year’s client in the competition. Their entry beat out nearly 1,000 other entries from 150 schools. For more information, go to www.ypa-academics.org/cc/081.html.
Pennell Center for real estate development
Metromont Corp. has made a $2.5 million gift to Clemson for the Richard H. Pennell Center for Real Estate Development to help focus research within the real estate industry on sustainability and other aspects. The center is a joint venture between Clemson’s College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities and College of Business and Behavioral Science, a relationship that mirrors the complex nature of real estate development.
Metromont was founded in 1925 by J. Roy Pennell. Richard H. “Dick” Pennell Sr. ’50 now serves as chairman of the board for Metromont Corp., and Richard H. “Rick” Pennell Jr., president and CEO, is the third generation to run the company.
The center will complement Clemson’s academic programming with research and outreach opportunities that will enhance the real estate profession. For more information, go to www.clemson.edu/cred.
Metromont Corp. president and CEO Rick Pennell (right) honors his father, Dick, and his family’s commitment to Clemson — with a gift that names the Richard H. Pennell Center for Real Estate Development.
Creative Inquiry delivers!
In her new book, The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right School at the Right Price, financial writer Lynn O’Shaughnessy profiled Clemson’s Creative Inquiry program as a best practice in undergraduate research.
Now in its fourth year, this unique initiative brings together undergraduates, graduate students and faculty to learn from each other and to research important issues that affect our world. About 50 percent of sophomores, juniors and seniors are pursuing degrees that require some form of Creative Inquiry.
Web Extra: Egypt CI project
Clemson research, tech earn $4M in federal support
Clemson research and technology projects will receive nearly $4 million from federal appropriations this year.
The projects range from construction of a biofuels research plant to connecting South Carolina’s research universities to the national high-speed network called the National LambdaRail.
- Clemson University Cyberinstitute will link South Carolina to university researchers, industry partners and technology entrepreneurs throughout the nation.
- Advanced photonics research at Clemson’s Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies focuses on developing novel optical materials for everyday products such as DVDs and communications.
- Scientists at the biofuels research plant to be located at the Clemson University Restoration Institute in North Charleston will develop ways to convert plant materials into fuel and help reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
- Peach tree short life and fruit tree genetics research at Clemson seeks to identify genes and control resistance to diseases that threaten the economy of the peach industry.
- Advanced materials innovation center to be located at the Clemson University Advanced Materials Center in Anderson County will provide space for related startup companies and relocating businesses.
Tissue research gets major boost
The S.C. Endowed Chairs Review Board approved the establishment of a tissue research center at Clemson using $3 million in state funds and another $3 million in non-state funds.
The Center for Economic Excellence in Tissue Systems Characterization, to be housed at the University’s Institute for Biological Interfaces of Engineering (IBIOE), is expected to connect expertise in cellular engineering and biomaterials.
“The potential remains great for new medical advances in the juncture between engineering and biology,” says Karen Burg, IBIOE director. For more information, go to www.clemson.edu/centers-institutes/ibioe.
Web Extra: The Institute for Biological Interfaces of Engineering (IBIOE)
Rowing’s Varsity 4+ is No. 1!
Clemson’s Tiger Varsity 4+ captured the 2009 national championship at the NCAA rowing championships at Cherry Hill, N.J. The winning crew consists of Kelly Murphy, Lydia Hassell, Callen Erdeky, Allison Colberg and coxswain Meredith Razzolini. In addition, Tigers Varsity 8+ was named the ACC Crew of the Year, and the Clemson Rowing team, coached by Richard Ruggieri, won the 2009 ACC championship.
Web Extra: Rowing Championship
Groundbreaking organ replacement research
Clemson joins nine other S.C. universities and colleges in a research program that offers new hope for the thousands of individuals whose lives are threatened by organ failure and who wait in vain for too few available transplant organs.
A $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) creates a statewide alliance in the field of tissue biofabrication, which could lead to the ability to produce human organs. The award is one of the largest in the state’s history.
The resulting intellectual property could be the basis for new startup companies that would be part of the emerging biomedical-device cluster in the state, creating a wide range of jobs at every level, from technicians to researchers.
The research alliance is managed by the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and Institutional Development Awards, two federal-state-university partnerships.
Pediatricians for anti-bully program at Clemson
A bullying-prevention program based in the University’s Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics as an effective way to address youth violence in schools.
The academy identified the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program as the model for successful programs. Clemson’s Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life oversees all product development, research and training for the program in North and South America. For more information, go to www.clemson.edu/ifnl and www.olweus.org.
Web Extra: Sue Limber: Bullying Prevention
Glover brings home U.S. Open
2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover ’02 gets a superstar welcome home from Clemson President Jim Barker, Alumni Association Board President Leslie Callison and many other fans. The Alumni Association with the Greenville Clemson Club hosted the celebration to honor Glover in July at Fluor Field in Greenville.
Glover, an All-American at Clemson, became the first former Tiger golfer and the first native of South Carolina to win a major professional golf championship. He already made Clemson history when he became the first alumnus named to the U.S. Presidents Cup team (selected by captain Jack Nicklaus in 2007).
Web Extra: Lucas Glover, US Open Champion
For The Children
Four Clemson architecture students are finalists in an international competition to design new pediatric clinics for East Africa. Their work was showcased in May at a fundraiser in Seattle hosted by Humanity for Children, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing health care for children in developing countries.
Design For The Children was an open, international design competition inviting architects and designers to create a pediatric clinic model that is both sustainable as well as culturally responsive in its use of local materials and methods of construction — with possible sites for the new clinics in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
Stronger roads and bridges
Clemson and collaborators from Purdue and PSI Inc. have received $1.1 million to improve durability of concrete infrastructure materials.
The four-year grant from the Federal Highway Administration will help researchers better understand the challenges facing the durability of concrete infrastructure and develop new test methods to address them.
“The research could have a widespread effect on how various agencies build or rebuild concrete infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, with a potential to save millions or even billions of dollars down the line,” says Clemson civil engineer Prasad Rangaraju.
Walker Course, a LINKS choice
LINKS Magazine rated the John E. Walker Sr. Golf Course at Clemson University as one of the top-25 collegiate courses in the country in its recent “Best Of” issue. In South Carolina, the course was voted the best public golf course in the Upstate by the S.C. Golf Course Ratings Panel.
New frontier for cleaner energy
Clemson researcher David Bruce will participate in a multi-university Energy Frontier Research Center — funded with $12.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy — focusing on the development of new catalysts for the production of clean fuels and chemicals from renewable sources.
The ultimate goal is to develop new environmentally friendly, cost-effective reaction processes that will help to decrease the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. Clemson’s Palmetto high performance computer system and Internet 2 connectivity will greatly enhance abilities to model these reaction systems and interact with the other center investigators.
Bruce, coordinator for all simulation efforts for the project, will use advanced computational methods to provide the molecular insights for collaborators to prepare catalyst materials best suited to convert cellulose and other waste organic materials into renewable liquid fuels and bio-derived chemicals.
One Clemson, One World
Students plant flags representing hate crime statistics from the FBI, with each color representing a different type of hate crime. The Field of Flags is a traditional highlight of Clemson’s annual One World Project, a campus and community forum for discussion on tolerance and diversity.
It’s organized each year through the Harvey and Lucinda Gantt Center for Student Life, which is committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive campus community that values and celebrates the diversity of its members.
For more on Clemson’s diversity programs, go towww.clemson.edu/gic/diversityeducation/programs.
Info systems shine
The management information systems program at Clemson is one of the most productive in the world, according to Communications of the Association for Information Systems. Varun Grover, the William S. Lee Professor of Information Systems at Clemson, is ranked fourth among more than 3,400 published information systems researchers in the world based on the number of publications in the top six information systems journals.
The program’s Ph.D. students are ranked first in productivity (along with the University of British Columbia and the University of Arizona) in the top six journals between 2003 and 2007.
Cryovac Lab for food-packaging research
Cryovac and the University have combined efforts to build a multiuse food-packaging laboratory in Clemson’s Center for Flexible Packaging.
The 2,000-square-foot laboratory — The Cryovac® Flavour Mark™ Retort Laboratory — is a teaching, research and service facility in the University’s renowned packaging science department.
The Flavour Mark food packaging system, donated by Cryovac and its parent company Sealed Air Corp., is an integral part of the laboratory’s research and instruction effort.
Cryovac has a long history of supporting Clemson including an endowed chair in packaging science and providing adjunct faculty for both packaging science and food science. Cryovac employs many Clemson graduates and hires undergraduates as interns and co-op students. It’s also the first large business to be recognized as a Champion for Children through Clemson’s Strong Communities program. For more information, contact Scott Whiteside at wwhtsd@clemson.edu or (864) 656-6246.
Grad engineering among U.S. best
Eight graduate programs in the University’s College of Engineering and Science are among the nation’s 40 best (in public universities) with three of them in the top 25 of their respective categories, according to the 2010 edition of U.S.News & World Report’s guidebook of graduate programs.
Each program was ranked against similar programs at all national doctoral-granting public universities. Clemson’s environmental engineering and science program is ranked 19th; biomedical/bioengineering program, 22nd; and industrial/manufacturing engineering, 24th.
Pandemic communication
Industrial engineers Sandra Garrett of Clemson and Barrett Caldwell of Purdue are monitoring signals in human behavior during a pandemic.
They’re working to identify what specific event phase of a pandemic the public is in and the action triggers that are appropriate for response strategies — for example, when to begin social distancing measures such as school closures.
The research will help in determining the need for additional community education in influenza and the best ways to communicate new information as the pandemic progresses.
Garrett and Caldwell collaborated with health officials and hospitals in the test state of Indiana to determine the feasibility of an alternative-care system that may require activation once a pandemic illness reaches a local area. The study looks at how authorities react, what facilities are available and how to communicate timely information. To learn more, go to www.clemson.edu/newsroom/articles/2009/may/pandemic.php5.
Web Extra: Clemson Professor Working to Create Health Alert System
CU-ICAR scores LEED-Gold
Clemson has received the U.S. Green Building Council’s award of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for two buildings on the campus of the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville.
Innovation Place, which houses the CU-ICAR partnership offices, and its adjacent AutoPark, with parking for 1,200 vehicles, received LEED-NC Gold certification for new construction. The Innovation Place building and AutoPark project, designed by Greenville architects Neal Prince and Partners with the Smith Group, are the first state-funded LEED-NC Gold building and project in the city of Greenville.
Innovation Place has also been recognized by the S.C. Chapter of the American Institute of Architects with a 2009 Special Citation for Design Excellence. For more information, go to www.clemson.edu/newsroom/articles/2009/june/LEED.php5.
Life-saving class work
Nonprofit marketing students, led by professor Patricia Knowles, are working with Donate Life South Carolina and LifePoint Inc., the state’s nonprofit organ and tissue procurement organization, to bring Donate Life’s “Every 11 Minutes” campaign to campus.
Although many South Carolinians believe that they are already identified as organ donors because they have a red heart on their driver’s license, they now must either register at every11minutes.org or sign forms when they renew their driver’s license. The new symbol is a red heart enclosed in a red circle.
Last semester, students identified reasons that other students may or may not want to register for organ donation. Then, they developed messages to reach potential donors about the need to register online or when they renew their license. A group of USC students prepared some materials to reach students there, too.
Now, marketing students in promotional strategy classes are joining nonprofit marketing students to promote a virtual Clemson vs. USC Organ Donor Registration Bowl coinciding with the annual Blood Donor Bowl.
For more information, go to every11minutes.org or contact Patricia Knowles at kpatric@clemson.edu.
Traffic Bowl Champs, again! 
For the fourth year in a row, members of the University’s chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers are Traffic Bowl winners. They represented South Carolina at the Southern District ITE’s “Jeopardy” style competition — the William H. Temple Scholarship Challenge — that tests students’ road engineering mettle.
Graduate students Vijay Bendigeri, Johnatan Dillon and Gabe Dobbs represented the Clemson team, advised by civil engineering faculty Wayne Sarasua and Jennifer Ogle.
For the sixth year in a row, Clemson also took home the Southern District ITE Outstanding Student Chapter Award.
Clemson biography — bestseller
Thomas Green Clemson — the new biography of the University’s founder — is a hit with alumni. The biography, published by the Clemson University Digital Press, is written for general readers as well as scholars, history buffs and students.
The 400-page book includes a 16-page color signature of historical portraits and selections from Mr. Clemson’s art collection. In addition to each chapter’s illustrations, the biography features genealogy charts of the Clemson and Calhoun families from the 1600s to the 1970s.
You can purchase Thomas Green Clemson through the Alumni Center at cualumni.clemson.edu/bookoffer or call (864) 656-2345.
Clemson Blue, a big cheese
Clemson Blue Cheese was rated among the best in the nation at the 15th biennial U.S. Championship Cheese Contest in Green Bay, Wis.
Clemson Blue Cheese’s history dates back to 1941 when it was cured in the damp air of the Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel near Walhalla by a Clemson dairy professor. Now the cheese is made by ARAMARK food service in Clemson’s Newman Hall, where air-conditioned rooms replicate the temperatures and humidity of the tunnel.
The famous cheese is available in the East Side Food Court in the Hendrix Student Center or online at www.clemsonbluecheese.com.
Clemson favorites on Facebook
Make Clemson Alumni Association and Clemson World your new favorites on Facebook.
See Clemson Alumni Association at www.facebook.com/clemsonalumni for up-to-the-minute news on alumni events, services and opportunities in your area.
Join Clemson World at www.facebook.com/clemsonworld to stay connected with us between issues. You’ll see new campus shots, videos, a sports blog and other features. And, best of all, you can post your own photos and news.
Global Clemson classroom
Tough economic times are not keeping an unusual group of graduate students out of the classroom. In fact, these full-time professionals are benefiting from the convenience and camaraderie of a global Clemson classroom experience.
The program — a master’s degree in industrial engineering with a concentration in capital projects supply chain and logistics — is a first-of-its-kind online graduate program that has working professionals from around the world and across the spectrum of disciplines sitting in a virtual classroom any time of the day or night that fits their schedule.
This program is offered by industrial engineering in collaboration with the civil engineering and management departments at Clemson as well as with owners, contractors and suppliers in this industry segment including Fluor Corp., CH2MHill, Chevron, Duke Power, Emerson and Anixter. For more information, go to www.clemson.edu/ces/departments/ie.
S.C. Market Maker
The Palmetto State’s freshest seafood and agricultural produce are just a mouse click away.
S.C. Market Maker is an online resource that puts the state’s agricultural products and from-the-boat seafood in the hands of consumers. At www.scmarketmaker.com, users can search the database for products or register their own business.
S.C. Market Maker is a cooperative effort of Clemson’s Public Service Activities, the S.C. Department of Agriculture, the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Inflation station at CU-ICAR
Michelin NA and Clemson’s Automotive Safety Research Institute open a tire-inflation station for safety and fuel efficiency at the entrance level of the AutoPark at CU-ICAR in Greenville. The Michelin Tire Inflation Station features a six-foot replica of the iconic Michelin Man, a visible reminder for drivers to check and adjust tire-inflation pressure as they leave the parking area. To learn more about the Automotive Safety Research Institute, go to www.clemson.edu/centers-institutes/cu-icar/ASRI.
Web Extra: Tire Inflation Station
S.C. switchgrass could power Europe 
Researchers at Clemson’s Pee Dee Research and Education Center, in an initiative with Charleston-based Carolina-Pacific LLC, are supplying switchgrass to European power plants as a substitute for coal to generate electricity.
Carolina-Pacific will need more than 350,000 tons of switchgrass per year for its European markets beginning in 2012. The initiative could be worth more than $20 million a year to S.C. farmers during the next decade, according to company officials. The company will pay farmers for their crops, and Clemson researchers will assist in how to plant crops and make the most from their fields.
For more information, go to www.clemson.edu/newsroom/articles/2009/april/Rural_Heritage_2009.php5 or contact Jim Frederick at jfrdrck@clemson.edu or (843) 622-3526.
Good news for hunters
American Hunter ranks Clemson No. 2 on its list of Top Ten Colleges for Hunters, behind Penn State and ahead of Cornell, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State. Clemson is also home to a collegiate powerhouse air rifle team, former national champions. The team is currently fourth in the U.S. and has never ranked lower than seventh in the national competition.