I am honored to be asked to address this outstanding group of Extension professionals, and I'm delighted to welcome you once again to South Carolina.

I know you heard yesterday from Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, who is one of my heroes. You've now had a chance to explore this beautiful and historic city. As an architect, I believe it is truly one of America's finest cities.

So you now understand why Charleston is the perfect location for a conference that focuses our attention on "Bridging the Strength of People and Nations," one which focuses on globalization and its effects.

I find it interesting that so many people think this is somehow a new phenomenon. The truth is, Charleston's history is built on global trade in agriculture. On the eve of the American Revolution, Charleston was the 4th largest city in the 13 colonies, but it had the highest per capita income. This wealth was based on the export of rice and other agricultural and forest products from the New World to the Old World.

Fast forward 70 years, and a young man named Thomas Green Clemson - my university's founder - was appointed the chief U.S. diplomat to Belgium. He negotiated the first trade and navigation treaty between our two nations. Ratified in 1846, that treaty eliminated tariffs and opened up direct trade routes between Antwerp and New York for the export of cotton and other raw materials, and the import of finished goods.

Today, South Carolina once again has one of the most globalized economies of any U.S. state. More than 350 European-owned companies call our state home. One out of every 12 private sector jobs can be attributed to international companies, the highest percentage in the nation. Not surprisingly, Germany is first and France is second on the list of the Top-10 foreign employers in South Carolina. Both BMW and Michelin have their North American headquarters near Clemson in Greenville, SC. Both are partners with us in the Clemson University-International Center for Automotive Research.

Since we are in a city with so much history - and since my institution is celebrating Thomas Green Clemson's 200th birthday this year - I will begin my remarks with some background on the man who was not only Clemson University's founder, but was also one of the founding fathers of the Land Grant College movement in America.

Next, I will discuss how Clemson University is expanding and enlarging that Land Grant ideal, and bringing this 19th century movement into the 21st century at our institution.

And finally, I will close with some observations on why it is so important for us to understand, and embrace, a global perspective in the work we do.

Thomas Green Clemson is not well known today outside of South Carolina. However, he was among the nation's most prominent agricultural scientists in the 19th Century. He graduated from college in Vermont, but had to travel to Europe to study chemistry. He attended the University of Paris and the Royal School of Mines, traveled widely throughout the Continent, spoke fluent French and read several other languages.

He was a mining engineer and a diplomat, but Mr. Clemson was first and foremost a scientist and a farmer. During most of the 1850s, he and his wife Anna lived on a small farm in Prince Georges County, Maryland, about four miles from the capitol. There he was part of an influential circle of men who promoted scientific agriculture and scientific education. He conducted experiments, and ran what amounted to a demonstration farm for his neighbors.

He gave a series of lectures on soil chemistry and fertility at The Smithsonian Institution, and he contributed articles for publication in The American Farmer.

He supported the creation of the Morrill Land Grant Act and worked diligently for its passage in Congress. He helped raise money to establish Maryland Agricultural College - now the University of Maryland. He wrote: "The only hope we have for the advancement of agriculture is through the sciences, and yet there is not one single institution on this continent where a proper scientific education can be obtained."

In 1860, he was appointed the first U.S. Superintendent of Agricultural Affairs, then under the Patent Office. At the request of President Buchanan, he drafted a paper suggesting the organization of a cabinet-level Department of Agriculture.

Though born in Philadelphia and opposed to secession, Thomas Clemson cast his lot with his wife's home state of South Carolina in 1861. In the years following the Civil War, they dreamed together of building a scientific and agricultural college on land surrounding their home, Fort Hill, which she had inherited from her father, John C. Calhoun. Their home still stands at the heart of the Clemson University campus.

If you have not yet visited us, we hope you will do so one day. There you will find many, parallels and connections between your institutions and ours. We all believe in the power of education to change lives. If we did not, we would not be working in education, especially Extension education.

It's impossible to overstate Clemson's historic role in the economic development of South Carolina by providing expert manpower to agriculture, business and industry. Through research and Extension education, our Land Grant universities have helped all our states evolve and prosper.

Economic development is not "mission creep" for the Land Grant university. Economic development is our mission, and it always has been. However, our economy has changed, at the state, national and global level.

The problems we face today are not the same ones Thomas Green Clemson grappled with. He did experiments and wrote papers on whether bat guano from Peru was superior to local horse manure. That was leading-edge science in his day.

Today, we understand soil chemistry and fertility. We understand best practices in crop cultivation, livestock management and food preservation. The most pressing problems we face today involve our nation's need to develop bio-fuels and other alternative energy sources to conserve and manage scarce water and land resources.

Our problems include:

• food safety, particularly the safety of imported foods in a global economy.
• diet and nutrition in an age of plenty for some nations, and hunger in others.
• raising healthy children and encouraging healthy communities.

The current issue of Clemson World alumni magazine features a cover story on "6 Things You Must Know about Clemson."

First item on the list reads: Clemson's "heart" is in educating students. Students are our Number 1 priority. This section details our 14-to-1 student/faculty ratio, our small class size, our new chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and our 2008 ranking of 27th out of 164 national public universities by U.S. News and World Report.

But Number 2 on the list is this statement: Public service is still the "soul" of Clemson. It reads: "One of Clemson's strongest character traits that has changed with society's needs, but never wavered in commitment, is service to people." This is really what we mean by - "Bridging Strengths of People and Nations - What Higher Education Can Do."

The Land Grant university has always been the people's university. The focus has always been on using the tools of research and education, including public or extension education, to solve the problems that stand between ordinary people and a better way of life.

I wonder if, even today, we understand how truly revolutionary that idea is.

In the Journal of Extension a few years ago, a specialist from Oregon State wrote about a lesson he learned from a sabbatical year in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. He had what he called an "A-Ha!" moment when he realized that Extension remains a very powerful and valuable concept. The people he met were amazed at the very idea that a faculty member from a university would be assigned to make sure that scientific information was available to average citizens for their practical use in improving their lives.

This idea of public service is a uniquely American approach to higher education. It is one of our most important contributions to the world.

At Clemson, our public service programs are located throughout the state in counties and in five Research and Education Centers, formerly known as Ag Experiment stations. To this statewide map of REC centers, we have added newer centers focused on other economic sectors.

Here in Charleston, for example, the goal of the Coastal Research and Education Center is to be a nationally recognized center of excellence in vegetable production, with an emphasis on environmental conservation.

The newer Clemson University Restoration Institute was established in North Charleston in 2004, to develop and foster entrepreneurship in restoration industries and environmentally sustainable technologies. It is located on an 86-acre industrial site on a former Navy base. Faculty are working on advanced materials, historic preservation, materials conservation, restoration ecology, including brownfields reclamation, healthy communities and buildings, and renewable energy, including biofuels and coastal wind power.

The Restoration Institute is just one of several centers that we have launched in the last five years. They are all patterned after the public service / land grant model to support a specific, knowledge-based industry cluster.

The Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville is another one. It reflects the reality that the U.S. automobile and motorsports industries are increasingly centered in the Southeast. With industry partners like BMW, Michelin and Timken, CU-ICAR is building research and graduate education programs to directly serve the needs of these industries.

We are also bringing outreach to the heart of the university through programs of undergraduate research, creative inquiry and project teams. A program like the South Carolina Design Arts Partnership, a collaboration between Public Service programs and the College of Architecture Arts and Humanities, is doing great things to develop healthy communities through better planning and design thanks to Fran, Vice President John Kelly and their team.

The point I want to make clear is this: Clemson has, in essence, extended the land-grant, Extension Service ideal campuswide.

The concept of extended public service and engagement is now being embraced by all parts of the university, and by almost all public universities. Your institutions are doing similar things. As a result, I believe the land grant idea has never been stronger or more relevant.

This is a tribute to -- and an acknowledgement of -- the power of Extension education.

I know the full promise of the Land Grant education ideal was not delivered equally or fairly to all Americans for many, many years. Clemson was founded as an all-white, all-male military academy. It was not until the 1960s that we became a new kind of university, a civilian institution that welcomed women and minorities to join the Clemson family.

We still have a long way to go ensure true diversity. But these changes and these efforts show the underlying strength and resiliency of the system that our founders created to respond to change. In fact, Extension is all about change. If people and institutions are not learning and growing and changing, then Extension is not doing its job as an agent of change.

As Extension professionals, you can be proud that others have seen the great value in the work that you do, and they want to repeat this successful model with other economic sectors.

In conclusion, and to return to the theme of your conference:
There is a debate currently under way about the essential nature and impact of globalization. This debate has important implications for higher education in general, and for Land Grant universities in particular.

Yesterday, you heard David Sammons from the University of Florida speak about the ideas of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Friedman argues that technology has made the world flat. Geography is no longer destiny. Human resources are as important as natural resources.

Talented people no longer need to be in the same room, the same city or even the same nation to communicate and work together. Innovation can occur anywhere in the world. "In a flat world," Friedman says, "you can innovate without having to emigrate."

Another viewpoint is advanced by author Richard Florida, who says: "Globalization has changed the economic playing field, but it has not leveled it." He sees a "spiky" landscape, with a small number of cities and regions that rise like mountain peaks above the hills and valleys - peaks of innovation, creativity, energy and economic power.

Both authors agree that education is the key component of this new creative economy based on innovation.

Friedman has written: "Money, jobs and opportunity in the flat world will go to countries with the best infrastructure, the best education system that produces the most educated work force, the most investor-friendly laws, and the best environment."

Florida writes: "With the rise of the creative economy, the university becomes increasingly essential to both innovation and economic growth."

If Florida is right, that means quality - excellence - in higher education becomes of paramount importance. The U.S. economy, and U.S. higher education, led the world in the 20th Century. We could count on dominating world markets, and the world's best and brightest graduate students flocked to our institutions to study. Today, there is no doubt that we face tremendous economic competition, as well as competition for research and graduate students.

To truly understand this, we all need to get out of our comfort zones and travel to see these changes up close and personal. My own travels in recent years have taken me to China, Chile and to Belgium, for the opening of our new European portal in Brussels.

In my professional field - architecture - the most exciting design and construction projects in the world right now are going up in Dubai and China. To see cutting-edge architecture, you've got to "do China and do Dubai."

That's why I encourage every student at Clemson to have a study abroad experience at some point in their college careers. It's just as necessary for faculty and Extension professionals. I'm not sure you can even be a truly educated person in the 21st century without traveling abroad, experiencing foreign cultures, and seeing with your own eyes how interdependent we are today in a global economy.

The irony is: this is something that Thomas Green Clemson and the other founders of the land grant movement understood very well more than 150 years ago. There's a saying in places like Charleston that "The past is not history … it's not even past." And so we have come full circle.

I leave you with this thought: The need for the public Land Grant-style education and public service is as present today as it ever was. In fact, it has never been more important. And I am as confident as ever that we will rise to the challenge.

Thank you very much.