Summer 2007 -- Vol. 60, No. 3

For the Love of Learning
George and Helen Fant

The dream for Clemson’s new Phi Beta Kappa chapter began more than 50 years ago.

Sometimes, it takes a little while for a seed to come to fruition. But as George C. Fant Jr. ’49 knows, a lot of nurturing and support can help that seed realize its potential.

As a business graduate student at Harvard in the early 1950s, Fant was surrounded by like-minded high achievers, many who belonged to an elite honor fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa.

Placement in the fraternity, the nation’s oldest and largest academic honor society, is reserved for those top 10 percent of arts and sciences graduates of distinguished institutions — only 10 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities — who have earned a chapter.

It was then, at Harvard, that the seed was planted.

“I found that I could hold my own with the Harvards, the Stanfords, the Yales, even though I was from a small school in South Carolina,” says Fant. “I thought, ‘I make great grades. I am a high achiever. I could have been a Phi Beta Kappa member if only Clemson had offered it to its students.’”

An English and economics major, Fant was active in several fraternities at Clemson including Phi Kappa Phi, Blue Key, Tiger Brotherhood and Alpha Phi Omega. He valued his Clemson experience and thought that Clemson, its faculty and students deserved to have a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

It wasn’t until the late 1990s — after a successful career as president of Anchor Continental Inc. in Columbia — that Fant was encouraged by former University development officer Jean Shisler Mercer to consider involvement in and funding of the Phi Beta Kappa application process for Clemson.

During a 1997 meeting of then-dean Jim Barker, then-University president Constantine Curris, former University president Walter Cox and Fant, the seed finally took root, and it was decided that Clemson would work toward the goal of Phi Beta Kappa membership.

“After Barker became president and announced that Phi Beta Kappa was one of his 10-year goals, I was elated,” says Fant. “Not only did this show the administration’s support for student academic achievement, but it showed how serious the University was about the direction it was taking to become a top-20 school.”

To nourish the seed that took root in 1997, Fant and his wife, Helen, funded an endowment, the Helen M. and George C. Fant Jr. Endowed Scholar, which began the process by which Clemson would be accessed for Phi Beta Kappa membership. The purpose of the endowment was twofold: One, it financed the research and application process to get the chapter started; and two, it provided funds for the chapter’s annual activities and to promote its presence on campus.

“The Fants’ endowment allowed me to do many of the things necessary to secure a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa,” says Jens Holley, University Libraries department chairman, who joined Phi Beta Kappa Society as a student at Furman University. As the Fant Scholar, established by the Fants’ endowment, Holley coordinated the efforts of faculty colleagues to establish the new chapter at Clemson.

During the University’s application process, the national Phi Beta Kappa organization conducted an extensive review, in which faculty credentials and student achievements were analyzed, and visited campus. To be considered, Clemson had to have Phi Beta Kappa representation of 10 percent of its liberal arts and sciences faculty.

Finally, in 2006, Clemson University was awarded South Carolina’s Delta chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, fulfilling one of President Barker’s goals for the University and a lifelong dream for Fant. The chapter’s installation ceremony was held at the University on April 12, 2007, and 74 Clemson students were inducted.

It may have been 10 years in the making for the University, and 50 years for one high-achieving Clemson graduate, but with George and Helen Fant’s support and involvement, this academic honor has blossomed.

For more information on establishing an endowment or other planned giving, contact Brian O’Rourke at (864) 656-5658 or orourke@clemson.edu. For more on Phi Beta Kappa, go to www.clemson.edu/pbk.