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Clemson Provost to Speak at the GSSM 21st Commencement Ceremony
May 27, 2010
The S.C. Governor's School for Science and Mathematics (GSSM) is pleased to announce that Dr. Doris Helms, Clemson University vice president for academic affairs and provost, will serve as commencement speaker at the School's 21st Graduation Ceremony Saturday, May 29, at the Center Theatre in Hartsville."We are so pleased that Dr. Helms is able to address our graduates this year,“ said
Dr. Murray Brockman, GSSM president. “Her positive, creative and unceasing insistence that our state and its universities can be among the best fits perfectly with our vision of GSSM.“
GSSM serves a high-achieving segment of the state's high school juniors and seniors who are passionate about science, mathematics and technology and who are motivated to increase their knowledge in these subjects. One of only 16 public, residential high schools in the country that specialize in science and mathematics, GSSM offers an early college experience to its students and allows them to earn college credits for many of their math and science courses.
Seventy-two percent of the school's 60 graduating seniors will attend South Carolina colleges and universities in the fall. Notable out-of-state schools they will attend include Yale, Emory, Georgetown, Drexel, Brown and Wellesley.
Commencement speaker Helms serves as Clemson's chief academic officer and chair of the university faculty. She's a member of the GSSM Board of Trustees and was awarded the school's prestigious Charles H. Townes Award in 1994 for her work to raise the quality of science education in South Carolina.
Helms earned her bachelor's degree from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and her doctorate from the University of Georgia. In 1973, she joined the Clemson faculty as an assistant professor of zoology. Since then she has progressed through the university's faculty to serve as the department's head of biology and associate dean of the Colleges of Sciences before becoming the vice president of academic affairs and provost in 2002.
