Department Growth and Changes (1983-1993)
According to Dr. Gordon Howard, from the start (Fall 1966), the Recreation and Park Administration (RPA) program was popular among students, attracting over 100 majors in its first year. There were two types of students in the RPA program: Students being admitted directly into the RPA program and students transferring from other programs. In the early years, due to the fact that many people were not familiar with a recreation degree, most of RPA's students were transfers from other programs. Some of the students transferring from other programs had come to Clemson seeking the same degree as their fathers (note: their father’s generation went to an all-male Clemson). These students were either uninterested or not cut out for their father's majors, and were looking for something more interesting to transfer into: "The Department of Recreation and Park Administration offered them a rewarding career path that suited their interests" (Howard, personal communication, October 26, 2021).
By 1974, tourism was the second largest industry in South Carolina, providing jobs for 70,000 people. That year, 29 million travelers visited South Carolina and accounted for expenditures totaling $740,000,000, including $70,000,000 in tax collections that went towards the state treasury (The Landcaster News, "Tourism Creating New Jobs"). In 1983, the tourism industry had grown even more, and the U.S. Travel Data Center reported that the U.S. travel industry (including transportation, accommodations, food service and recreation firms) produced 246,000 additional jobs, or 43% of all new jobs for the year (Howell et al., PRTM News 1983). Due to this growing need, in 1983 Clemson’s then RPA department saw the addition of the travel and tourism concentration, changing their name to Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management (PRTM) (1983 Course catalog, pg. 130).
The Fall of 1986 saw undergraduate freshmen and transfer student entry into PRTM up by nearly 75% over the 1985 figures, with about 100 newcomers joining the department (Howell et al., PRTM News 1986). In 1987, PRTM’s first department head, Dr. Herbert Brantley, retired from Clemson in the summer and moved on to Indiana University. August of 1987 saw 24 new graduate students in PRTM and 105 new freshmen in the Fall (Howell et al., PRTM News 1987). The concentration areas offered at this time were travel and tourism, therapeutic recreation, community leisure services, recreation resource management (1983 Undergraduate catalog, pg. 144).
