:''This article is about Clemson University. For information about the city, see
Clemson, South Carolina.
'Clemson University' is a
public,
coeducational,
land-grant,
research university located in
Clemson,
South Carolina,
United States.
Founded in 1889, the University is academically divided into five colleges:
Agriculture,
Forestry and
Life Sciences;
Architecture,
Arts and
Humanities;
Business and
Behavioral Sciences;
Engineering and
Science; and
Health,
Education and
Human Development.
[1]
The university is ranked as the best public university in South Carolina in ''
U.S. News & World Report's'' "National Universities" category,
[2] as well as being ranked 27th in the "National Public University" category.
[3] The University currently enrolls more than 17,000 students from across all 50 states and from more than 80 countries.
[4]
Location
Clemson is well-known for the beauty of its Foothills campus.
Clemson University is located in upstate South Carolina in
Pickens County just north of
Interstate 85 and
Anderson, South Carolina, along the shores of
Lake Hartwell. The University is located just outside of the greater
Greenville area and is just two hours away from
Atlanta, Georgia,
Charlotte, North Carolina and
Columbia. Clemson is situated in South Carolina's foothills, where excellent vistas of the rising
Blue Ridge Mountains in
South Carolina,
North Carolina, and
Georgia abound.
Clemson University operates a research park off of Interstate 85 and is currently constructing its Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research center in Greenville, also off of Interstate 85. The university has extension offices in every county in South Carolina as a public service in its furtherance of its founding goals as an agricultural institution.
The city of Clemson is served by the
Clemson Area Transit bus system, as well as the
Amtrak's Crescent line running through
Clemson's train station right off of Highways 28, 76, and 123.
Oconee County Airport is located adjacent to the university's campus and is the closest public-use airport to the campus (as well as the home of the Clemson Flying Club), with
Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport offering commercial airline service only an hour away.
History
Fort Hill was the home of John C. Calhoun and later Thomas Green Clemson and is located at the center of Clemson's campus
, the University's founder, came to the Foothills of South Carolina in 1838, when he married Anna Maria Calhoun, daughter of South Carolina statesman, John C. Calhoun. When Thomas Clemson died on April 6, 1888, he left most of his estate in his will to be used to establish a college that would teach scientific agriculture and the mechanical arts to South Carolinians. Clemson's decision was largely influenced by
Benjamin Tillman. Clemson University founder Thomas Green Clemson directed in his will in 1888 that the University be modeled after Mississippi A&M (now known as Mississippi State University). Tillman strongly lobbied the
state legislature to create Clemson as an agricultural institution for the state and in the end, the resolution to accept Clemson's gift and create the institution passed by only one vote.
In November 1889,
Governor Richardson signed the bill accepting Thomas Clemson's gift to the state, thus establishing the Clemson A&M. The University's trustees availed the University of the available
Morrill Act and
Hatch Act funds made available for agricultural education and research purposes.
Clemson Military College formally opened in July 1893 with an initial enrollment of 446. From its beginning, the college was an all-male military school. Clemson remained this way until 1955 when it changed to "civilian" status for students and became a coeducational institution. In 1964, the college was renamed Clemson University as the state legislature formally recognized the school's expanded academic offerings and research pursuits.
[5]
Academics
'Enrollment (Fall 2006)'| College | Total Enrollment |
|---|
| College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences | 2,829 |
| College of Arts, Architecture, and Humanities | 2,552 |
| College of Business and Behavioral Sciences | 4,206 |
| College of Engineering and Science | 4,441 |
| College of Health, Education, and Human Development | 3,182 |
| Calhoun Honors College |
| #As found at [1].#Not a degree granting college. |
Admissions
Classified as ''more selective'' by the Carnegie Foundation,
[6] Clemson admitted less than 55% of those who applied to be
Freshmen in 2006.
[7] When admitting Freshmen, the university places emphases on the rigor of high school study and scores on standardized tests,
SAT or
ACT. Clemson also considers class rank, extracurricular activities, and an optional personal statement. The average incoming freshman had a combined SAT score of 1200 and a high school weighted
GPA of 3.99 in 2006.
[8]
Calhoun Honors College and National Scholars Program
Clemson is home to a nationally recognized honors program
The Calhoun Honors College, which is designed to offer academic diversity to gifted undergraduates and to provide for an atmosphere of a "higher seminary of learning" that Thomas Green Clemson outlined in his will within the large University.
Admission to the college is by application to freshman as well as to any student beyond his/her freshman year
[9]. Admission to the college is not based on just one or two requirements but on a combination of standardized test scores, high school GPA, and leadership and extracurricular activities. A GPA of at least 3.4 is required for applicants to the college after their freshman year. Members of the honors college are permitted to live in the honors-only dorm, Holmes Hall, and are granted a variety of other benefits including complementary copies of the
New York Times and free tickets to on-campus cultural events.
The
Clemson National Scholars Program is the institution's top academic recruiting scholarship, offering a full tuition and fees scholarship plus a laptop, 5-week study abroad in the UK, along with other learning and travel opportunities. The NSP selection process is highly competitive, with approximately 15 scholarships offered out of over 12,000 applicants to Clemson each year.
Top-20 Initiative and Research
The Cooper Library may be noted across the central Reflection Pool
The University has recently undertaken an endeavor to become a "Top 20" public institution, undergoing a process of enhancing its graduate programs while continuing to place the majority of its emphasis on the quality of the undergraduate experience. The initiative has led to increased faculty compensation, higher graduation rates, and higher incoming student SAT averages. The University recently moved up from 34th in 2005 to 27th in 2007 as seen in the ''U.S. News and World Report's'' most recent College Rankings.
[10]
As part of its push to enhance graduate-level education, several new
Ph.D. programs have been created including a novel
Ph.D. in Rhetorics and an interdisciplinary
Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning. Also noteworthy is a new master's degree in
historic preservation, jointly offered in collaboration with Clemson and the
College of Charleston.
The university's currently most ambitious academic and research endeavor is the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR).
[11] ICAR is a 250 acre (1 km²) automotive and motorsports research campus located in nearby
Greenville, South Carolina. ICAR will include a graduate school offering Master's and Doctoral degrees in automotive engineering, and offering programs focused on systems integration. The campus also includes an Information Technology Research Center being developed by
BMW. BMW,
Microsoft,
IBM,
Bosch,
Timken and
Michelin are all major corporate partners of the ICAR center. Private-sector companies that have committed so far to establishing offices and/or facilities on the campus include the
Society of Automotive Engineers and Timken. Plans for the campus also include a full-scale, four-vehicle capacity rolling-road model wind tunnel.
Clemson also recently established the
Restoration Institute whose mission is to "advance knowledge in integrative approaches to the restoration of historic, ecological, and urban infrastructure resources." The institute will be located in North Charleston and subsume the
Hunley Commission that is currently undertaking the stabilization of the
''Hunley'', the world's first submarine to sink a ship.
Student Life
Athletics
Main articles: Clemson Tigers
Clemson offers club, intramural, and varsity sports. The University's 19 varsity men and women's sports teams compete in the Atlantic Division of the
Atlantic Coast Conference of the
NCAA's Division I as the Clemson
Tigers. The most prominent athletics facilities on campus are
Memorial Stadium,
Littlejohn Coliseum,
Doug Kingsmore Stadium,
Historic Riggs Field, and
Fike Recreation Center.
Greek life
Clemson's Greek system is somewhat different from other large universities in the southern United States in that there are no Greek houses on campus. There are residence halls designated for fraternities and sororities, but there are no traditional Greek houses on Clemson's campus. The Fraternity Quad on campus (consisting of 6 fraternity halls) has recently undergone a major renovation and is certified by the U.S. Green Building Council's
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Clemson is about to undertake a major central campus reconstruction program that will include all-new sorority housing. Currently, just over 20% of students participate in Greek organizations.
[12]
The newly renovated Fraternity Quad.
Military heritage
Clemson's rich military history is very conspicuous on campus.
Even though Clemson became a coeducational civilian institution in 1955, the university still maintains an active military presence. The university is home to detachments for Army and Air Force
ROTC. In addition to students from Clemson, these detachments also serve students from
Anderson University,
Southern Wesleyan University, and
Tri-County Technical College. The following organizations are present among the two ROTC programs:
[13]
★ Company C-4
Pershing Rifles
★ K-7 Scabbard and Blade
★ Maj.
Rudolph Anderson Jr. Squadron
Arnold Air Society
★ Maj. Dennis H. Satler Chapter Silver Wings
★ Clemson Rangers
★ Tiger Platoon
Clemson's AAS squadron was selected to be home of Arnold Air Society's National Headquarters for the 2005-2006 year, and again for the 2006-2007 year. This is the first time is AAS's history that any university has served as National HQ two years in a row.
[14]
The C-4 Pershing Rifles have won the national drill meet five times: 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.
[15] Company C-4 also does color guard at home football games.
Clemson University was selected as the #1 medium-sized AFROTC detachment in the southeast and in the nation for 2006 (the "High Flight" and "Right of Line" awards).
Recreation
Students tend to socialize off campus in downtown
Clemson. Downtown Clemson is located adjacent to the University's campus, and students on campus are within walking distance restaurants, bars, cafes, and shopping.
Greenville is about 30 minutes away and is a popular destination for many students on the weekends.
Lake Hartwell and the near-by
Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina and North Carolina offer students many outdoor recreational activities like
boating,
rafting,
kayaking,
skiing,
rock climbing,
mountain biking, and
hiking and
backpacking.
People
Main articles: Alumni of Clemson University
★
James F. Byrnes, U.S. Congressman, Senator, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1941-1942), Secretary of State (1945-1947), Governor of South Carolina (1951-1955), and confidant of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. A dormitory on the eastern part of Clemson's campus is named after Byrnes.
★
David Beasley, South Carolina governor (1995-1999). Beasley ran for the
South Carolina State House while a student at Clemson and transferred to the
University of South Carolina upon taking office, from which he went on to graduate.
★
Strom Thurmond, The late
United States Senator from
South Carolina who was famous for being the longest serving Senator in U.S. history as well as an ardent
segregation supporter during the 1950s and 1960s. (He later became known for retracting from those views as time passed).
★
David H. Wilkins graduated Clemson in 1968. Wilkins was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1981 and was elected Speaker Pro Tempore in 1992. After the elections of 1994, Wilkins was elected Speaker of the House; the first
Republican Speaker in the South since
Reconstruction. Wilkins had many legislative accomplishments during his tenure as Speaker, including welfare reform, property tax reform, tort reform and finding a compromise to remove the
Confederate Flag from atop the statehouse dome. On
April 27,
2005,
President George W. Bush nominated him to be the U.S.
Ambassador to
Canada.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
''''
Official Websites
★
Official Website of Clemson University
★
Clemson University College of Health, Education, and Human Development - The School of Nursing, The Department of Public Health Sciences, The Eugene T. Moore School of Education, The Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management (PRTM)
★
Clemson Tigers Athletics Website Clemson University's Official Athletics Website
★
Clemson University Student Government - Clemson University Student Government
Official Student media
★
The Tiger - Official Student Body Newspaper
★
WSBF - Clemson University Student Radio Station
References
1. The University Today — Clemson University
2. U.S. News Rankings Top National Schools
3. Clemson reaches highest U.S.News ranking to date at No. 27
4. Undergraduate Admissions -- Clemson University
5. The History of Clemson University
6. Carnegie Classifications of Clemson University
7. Clemson Freshman Admissions Data
8. University Common Data Set for 2006
9. Calhoun Honors College: Incoming Freshmen
10. U.S. News Rankings for Clemson University
11. Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR)
12. Clemson Greek Life
13. List of Student Organizations
14. Student Achievements
15. Student Achievements
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