James F. Barker, Clemson University's 14th president.

Photo by Ken Ruinard

Tillman Hall at Clemson University.

CLEMSON UNIVERSITY — Clemson University has a special relationship with the Anderson community.

It begins, as everything at Clemson begins, with our students. Anderson County is second only to Greenville County in sending its top high school graduates to study at Clemson. We enrolled almost 1,000 of them, 980 to be exact, in fall 2007.

The university, in turn, sends students back into the Anderson community to schools, agencies and businesses as practice teachers, student nurses, professional interns and community service volunteers. Our Anderson-area partners for field experiences and service-learning opportunities include AnMed Health, all five Anderson school districts, the United Way of Anderson, Pendleton Historic Foundation, Foothills Alliance and many others.

We have almost 5,000 alumni and more than 1,250 university employees living in Anderson County, including those in the County Extension office. Three major Clemson facilities lie within Anderson County: the Clemson University Advanced Materials Center, the T. Ed Garrison Livestock Arena and the Clemson Outdoor Laboratory on Hartwell Lake. Each is an economic engine that draws visitors and helps drive the Anderson economy in a number of ways.

The most recent development, and the one with the most 21st century “sizzle,” is the Advanced Materials Center, formerly known as the Clemson Research Park. This 265-acre innovation campus and technology park sits on S.C. 187 near Interstate 85.

It is home to the nation’s most advanced university electron microscopy lab within the 111,000-square-foot Advanced Materials Research Laboratory. The scientists and engineers who work there are internationally known for their work in advanced-engineering fibers, films, ceramics, composites, optics and nanomaterials.

It is also home to the Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies. Clemson is the only university in the Americas — and one of only four in the world — with the capability to make optical fiber. COMSET researchers collectively hold 15 patents for materials that can be used in fields ranging from communications and medicine to automobiles and defense-related industries.

Advanced materials, along with automotive engineering, is one of eight emphasis areas in our university’s long-range Road Map to academic and research excellence in support of a new, knowledge-based economy for South Carolina. Just as we have developed the Clemson University Center for Automotive Research in Greenville County, we have targeted Anderson County as the home of this new focus on advanced materials.

We are indebted to our partners in the Anderson County economic development office and the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce for supporting and assisting in this effort. It represents a long-term strategy to educate scientists and engineers who will make discoveries and develop new technologies and, ultimately, grow new industries right here in Upstate South Carolina.

Clemson also is a magnet that attracts 1 million visitors a year to our campus for athletic contests, concerts, lectures, conferences and other events. Many of these are free and open to the public. I hope everyone in Anderson County considers Clemson to be “their” public university and will visit the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts, the South Carolina Botanical Garden and other attractions available to all South Carolinians.

James F. Barker is the president of Clemson University.