PLANS FOR WESTSIDE COMMUNITY UNVEILED
GREENVILLEJOURNAL
PAGE 12
School prayer injunction denied
GREENVILLEJOURNAL.COM • Friday, December 6, 2013 • Vol.15, No.49
PG 11
‘I owe Clemson so much’
$3M gift for new NGU arena PG 14
Vinyl fans get in the groove PG 53
GREG BECKNER / STAFF
As he prepares to leave the president’s office, Jim Barker reflects on 14 game-changing years at the university CINDY LANDRUM | STAFF
clandrum@communityjournals.com It could be argued that Jim Barker’s biggest regret as president of Clemson University was also his greatest accomplishment. His presidency began in 1999 with a lofty goal: for Clemson to be recognized as a Top 20 public university in the magazine U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings. In the 74th slot, Clemson had
been in the rankings’ third tier the year before Barker took office. “I wish I had said Top 25,” he said. “That would have been just as lofty, just as farfetched.” Although Clemson failed to make it into the Top 20 – it missed by one-hundredth of a point this year – the university has made the top 25 in each of the past six years and, more importantly in Barker’s eyes, raised its selfconcept and forced administration, faculty
and staff to focus on what’s best for students. “We now expect greatness and if it’s not there, we ask why,” Barker said. As Barker enters his last month at the helm of his alma mater, he said it is time to return to the past – he to the classroom and South Carolina to the time when higher education was considered part of the solution to improving the state’s economy rather than part of the problem. BARKER continued on PAGE 8
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