Dean’s Corner: March 2025

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

The month of March was a full one in the College of Arts of Humanities. Our corner of campus sprang to life with warm weather, midterms and the arrival of three notable speakers who embody the intellectual rigor and passion for lifelong learning that we hope to instill in our students.

Solving Global Hunger

The first speaker was Former South Carolina Governor David Beasley, who headlined the Humanities Hub’s Fourth Annual Lectures in Law and the Humanities, sponsored by Loebsack and Brownlee, LLC. Beasley’s talk was the highlight of several days of events focused on “Food Insecurity: Global and Local.”

Beasley’s path from Clemson student to governor of our state to accepting the Novel Peace Prize on behalf of the World Food Program embodies our tagline: meet the world. What I hope inspired our students was the way he has used his legal career — a path that many of our humanities majors plan to pursue — to partner with experts in other fields and together transform the lives of others. It is an example I hope our students, surrounded as they are by peers seeking degrees in agriculture, engineering, biology, and more, take to heart.

Launching our new Minor in Classics and the Ancient World

The second lecture to dazzle this month was delivered by Jody Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Magness was invited by Ben White, Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, as part of the public launch of our new minor in Classics and the Ancient World (CLAW) that will be offering classes starting Fall 2025. More on that in an upcoming edition.

Magness displayed an infectious energy for archaeology to a packed Daniel Hall Auditorium. Students were riveted as she shared findings from her excavation of a fifth-century synagogue at the ancient village of Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Magness is the kind of scholar that we strive to put in contact with our students, and I am grateful to the Provost for recognizing the value of her scholarship by hosting Dr. Magness as a Provost Distinguished Lecturer.

Telling our History

Our third speaker was Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ilyon Woo, author of Master Slave Husband Wife. Her book follows the journey of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery in Georgia in 1848 with a bold strategy: the light-skinned Ellen disguised herself as William’s male slaveowner. Woo’s work of piecing together the lives of her historical subjects through a variety of texts and sources recalls the approach of our own Rhondda Thomas’ ongoing Call My Name project.

As we round the curve into the final few weeks of this academic year, I’m profoundly grateful for the efforts of our faculty who have worked hard to bring these outstanding speakers to campus, offering students opportunities to learn outside the classroom and thereby enhancing their No. 1 Student Experience. It is not only a gift to our students but also a way to introduce prominent guests to the excellence that is Clemson, as we strive to join that small elite club called the AAU (Association of American Universities).

Go Tigers!

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean

College of Arts and Humanities

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