Joe Harrison

I came to the College with my heart  firmly devoted elsewhere. I’d completed my undergraduate degree at Clemson only two years before, and I assumed that earning my master’s degree in English from the College would be like a great job: I’d work hard, hopefully make some good friends and come out the other end the better for it all. But I was certain my loyalty would remain solely with my undergrad alma mater. After all, I’d been one in a long line of Clemson grads and had loved the university since childhood. I never expected to fall in love with the College.

But in the spring 2003, I met Professor Joseph Harrison, and that meeting changed everything for me. Dr. Joe (as I fondly call him) was an English professor leading an undergraduate trip to Italy – a summer course in Italian Renaissance art and literature – and I talked my way onto the trip with the promise of producing graduate-level work. Dr. Joe soon became my independent study adviser, and we began to meet weekly in his office on George Street.

His office had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books, photos and treasures given to Dr. Joe by former students; there were several chairs, a couple of desks, even a cot where Dr. Joe apparently slept some nights when he ended up working too late. The room had a welcoming warmth and soon became my very favorite place on campus – all because of the professor who inhabited it. He not only opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about classic works, but through his example, he showed me how to one day be a better professor myself.

By the end of my College tenure – and because of Dr. Joe – I’d completed two separate theses, had the overseas experience of a lifetime and had been taught more than I’d ever thought possible. I never expected to fall in love with the College, but I did – thanks to my wonderful graduate professors, the incredible city of Charleston and, most of all, those afternoons in Dr. Joe’s office, under the tutelage of the best pure teacher I’ve ever had the privilege to know.

– Katie Crawford Dodson ’04 (M.A.)