Dean’s Corner: November 2024

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

October has been quite the month. Still reeling from the impact of Hurricane Helene, our College carried on nevertheless, though many still had no power, and most everyone had no internet. Not to mention faculty and staff who lost houses and cars, or had no water for days on end.

Beyond the normal daily activities, our College saw a dazzling array of additional events that demonstrated the vibrancy of our faculty and programs. Here is just a quick recap of selected offerings:

Kicking things off for October, the Ph.D. program in Digital History together with the Humanities Hub held a one-day colloquium titled "Humanities in the Machine" which focused specifically on the current and future interrelationship between the Humanities and AI. Scholars from several states were in attendance, and I was more than proud to hear them publicly proclaiming our new Digital History program to be a national leader in the field.

That same day, October 3, and running through the weekend, we hosted the international Society of Ethics Across the Curriculum for their annual conference. Faculty from around the country journey to Clemson to talk about "Nurturing Democratic Responsibility in the Age of AI." Organized by our philosophy faculty Senior Lecturer Edyta Kuzian and Dan Wueste, the Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Professor of Philosophy, the impeccably run conference showed Clemson in its best light, and offered participants an ideal platform to exchange thoughts about the most pressing issue of today, and tomorrow.

On October 4, student editors of the Aurantiaco journal brought famed political scientist Francis Fukuyama, author of the 1992 best-seller The End of History, to campus for a lecture held at the Brooks Center on the current global political situation. His talk, co-sponsored by Clemson's Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, capped a full day on campus including a lunch with students.

The week of October 21, we were the "College of the Week" at the Brook T. Smith Launchpad - Clemson's Entrepreneurship Hub. Racquel Collier, a two-time Clemson grad with a B.A. in English and a Masters in Real Estate Development came to talk about her path from Humanities major to successful real estate developer in Greenville, and about how the skills, insights and curiosity she developed as a student of literature had been essential components of her success as an entrepreneur. I wish I could bottle her talk and rebroadcast it at regular intervals for our students. It was inspiring!

On October 28, Clemson faculty from mostly from History and Political Science sent a team down to the University of South Carolina campus to participate in a statewide symposium on "Teaching the REACH Act." The symposium, sponsored by Clemson Humanities Hub, directed by James Burns, in collaboration with our College, joined the University of South Carolina together with faculty and administrators from USC Aiken, USC Beaufort, USC Upstate, the Citadel, the College of Charleston, South Carolina State and Winthrop to discuss how best to teach this nation's founding documents. I hope there will be more opportunities like this to join with colleagues around the state who are engaged with bringing the liberal arts to our students.

Those are just highlights of a month packed with more activity than space will permit me to share. All in all, it is an embarrassment of riches, and evidence over and over again that Clemson Humanities is playing a leading role in the region and nationally.

Go Tigers!

Nicholas Vazsonyi, Dean

College of Arts and Humanities

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