Welcome to the new academic year! As we get started in this second year of our College of Arts and Humanities, I look backward on a hugely successful first year and ahead to what looks like a dazzling future.
The August issue of our newsletter is bursting with reports on some of our most significant activities and accomplishments, and we look forward to celebrating even more as the semester unfolds.
New leadership
There have been significant changes to our leadership, including a new Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Ben White. I am also delighted to be welcoming our new Chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Lisa Melonçon. She comes to us from the University of South Florida by way of the University of South Carolina, where she got her Ph.D. — don’t hold that against her, please! This was the first national search for a department chair to be conducted since I started in 2020. Whether they rose through the ranks at Clemson or were hired from elsewhere, we have an absolutely stellar group of chairs leading our departments. It is a joy to work with them as we steer this college forward.
A summer of excellence
We also welcome a new Professor of Practice to the World Cinema program: Sam Sokolow. Sam, an award-winning producer who comes to us via Hollywood, already began teaching part-time last year and we are absolutely thrilled that he is now with us full-time. Please read the article in this newsletter on his most recent national recognition! I am excited at the potential for growth in our film studies program that his presence will ignite.
Speaking of recognition, please check out the article on Cheney Everett, a senior in the Liberty, Law, Justice track of our Philosophy Department who this past summer had the opportunity to intern at the SC Supreme Court. This is the icing on the cake of our pre-law emphasis in the College that I wrote about last year.
Humanities “transforming lives”
Our College continues to lead the way in uncovering the stories of all who came before us and contributed to our thriving state. Building on the Call My Name and Woodland Cemetary initiatives, Susanna Ashton, a professor of English and one of our most acclaimed researchers, has been delving into our local history from deep in the 19th century with the Deeds Unbound project.
In a similar vein, the NEH-funded statewide United We Stand initiative also came to a close this summer. This was an undertaking by South Carolina Humanities to stage community events around the entire State to showcase how we can go about talking to each other about the traumas of our shared past. I was particularly happy that humanities faculty from Clemson and USC worked together at each of these events to model how we go about this. Restoring civil discourse needs to be at the top of our collective agenda. A future without civil discourse is a bleak prospect.
This is why I cherish Clemson’s core values, the first two of which are Integrity and Respect. By adhering to those values, we can assure the future of civil discourse, and we have the great privilege of modeling them in our classrooms as we begin another exhilarating year at Clemson.
Go Tigers!
Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean
College of Arts and Humanities
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