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Kendrick A. Clements has written six biographies on political figures, a process he describes as trying to get inside the subject's skin and then explaining that person to others so they'll understand and eventually have a sense of the individual.
The process draws on the same skills as academic advisement for students, wherein "you're trying to get beneath the surface as much as you can" in getting to know students and "finding out what they want," said Clements, a professor of history who won this year's Ada B. Thomas Faculty Advising Award.
To effectively advise students, said Clements, "I think you have to do a little work to understand what the rules are and then help the students get through them, but mostly it's just being interested in what the students want and then getting to know them.
"I don't think it's very difficult," said Clements, adding "there are lots of people in the history department who advise students equally as well and also deserve recognition. It just takes some effort and time and a willingness to do it," he said.
Clements' approach to academic advisement is one he has honed during 40 years of service to the University, during which he turned out biographies on Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and William Jennings Bryan. His receipt of the Ada Thomas Award is a noteworthy event for him personally, he said, because when he first came to the University in 1967 Thomas was one of the first people he met when she helped him prepare the final draft of his dissertation.
"Since I'm retiring in May, you could say that my career at South Carolina began and ended with Ada Thomas," added Clements, who said he was "thrilled to win the award. It's a great honor and I'm delighted to be recognized this way."
Clements thinks of advisement as a process of getting the student to where he or she wants to be, whether the student realizes it or not at the beginning of the process.
"It's often true with undergraduates that they don't know where they want to go and part of advisement is exploring that and finding out what they want," Clements said. "The advisor becomes a facilitator who helps students unlock the possibilities that are of interest to them.
"You get into questions of what students are interested in, what they're looking for in their education, and what they want to do in the future," Clements said. "Those things don't have the obvious formula answers and the only way to get at them is to gradually work them out of students over time.
"That is part of the process of getting to know them," Clements added. "The better you get to know them, the more you know about those things and the more help you can be."
Clements sees two additional elements of advisement as being essential: guiding the student to the satisfactory completion of degree requirements in a reasonable period of time, and less often, directing students with personal difficulties to the various campus departments that can help them.
As for guiding students, Clements stresses the importance of helping them "understand and know that the University is a kind of intellectual smorgasbord where there are wonderful things to be found and courses to be taken. It's really is terrific if you can turn them on to some of those other things and point out those opportunities," he said.
One of the psychological dividends of advisement, Clements said, is that it's a chance to get to know students better than you would in class. "You see them over several years and watch their progress and you understand where they're going and what they're trying to do," he said. "That's fun."
5/06
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Kendrick Clements, history
