A new year with Clemson: looking back, looking forward

The value of a public education is highest in the places where learning impacts life beyond the classroom. That’s why it matters so much that Clemson’s scholars are working not only to teach students, but to impart knowledge, contribute research and lend insight to the greater global community.

Our educators showed up in 2023!

When Clemson faculty stepped out of the classroom and into our living rooms, they showed us how to make life a bit easier, people healthier, communities safer, families happier and our planet a better place to live. This year, our experts appeared in hundreds of familiar places, from “Good Morning America” to Reader’s Digest; the New York Post, the New York Times and Time magazine; U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, Fortune, Entrepreneur; the Weather Channel and many more outlets were among those that aired or published our professors this year.

Here are a few highlights of the things we learned from Clemson in 2023:

1. The importance of safety first

When it comes to being safe, Clemson experts went on air to address some of our most pressing concerns, ranging from the hazards that can live in our garages and our kitchens to the ones sitting in the smart phones of our teenagers. From understanding wildfires to growing awareness about the important forensic work of our public safety officers, keeping us out of harm’s way kept faculty busy this year.

2. Tips for healthy living

These ranged from the everyday things you eat and ways you travel to handling holiday stress. From coping to cancer research, our learning community helped make living well a little easier.  

3. Knowledge is power

These stories ran the gamut of topics, everything from understanding the appearance of a rare blue supermoon to the social media tactics of Ukraine during wartime. Our experts were on the forefront of beekeeping for beginners, invasive Joro spiders, and the appearance of ‘murder hornets’ along the East Coast. And they offered timeless advice on getting rid of one of the peskiest pests: ants.

4. How to live happier

But by far, Clemson’s faculty most often found themselves connecting their knowledge with ways to make people happier and life a little better, whether it was harnessing the painful impact of regret or making it easier for parents to send their kids to summer camp. From picking out the most-useful teacher gift, the perfect poinsettia, the ideal extracurricular activity for your kids, our experts had answers. And they even had advice for how to get what you want by complaining — politely.

5. Professors do pop culture

If it was trending, Clemson professors were quoted talking about it, through an academic lens, of course: Taylor Swift, artificial intelligence, tipping fatigue, Black Friday, budget-friendly meals, and more. Their insights on money-saving advice even extended to the stock market.

6. So many ways to save Earth

Making our planet a cleaner, more sustainable place to live encompassed conversations around cars, crops, culture, and climate change. Understanding the risks of extreme fires, saving coral reefs from warming waters and eco-friendly solutions to almost any product imaginable all had connections with the work of Clemson scholars.

In total, Clemson was mentioned in the news nearly 50,000 times* this year.

And our experts earned airtime and had their expertise printed in publications across the globe. Although 90 percent of Clemson’s coverage was in the United States, our faculty had 1,200 appearances in the United Kingdom and another 1,100 in Canada. Other countries that featured, interviewed or aired our scholars were as far away as India and Australia, along with Germany, China, France, Brazil and others. Outside of South Carolina, the states that published our experts the most were New York, California and Texas.

Clemson was growing knowledge for our students and sharing knowledge with the world in 2023. Our faculty scholars are set to continue on that course in 2024 and beyond.

---

Discover more 2023 Clemson headlines at The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit publisher of commentary and analysis, authored exclusively by academics and edited by professional journalists.

*Source: Cision Communications Cloud Media Monitoring