Darris Means ’14 PHD has always believed in the power of education. As a dean’s fellow for rural education and a professor of educational leadership at Clemson University, Means wants to ensure that students can choose the right pathway for themselves. 

Means, who attended college on a Pell Grant as a first-generation student, thinks that “everyone needs to continue in education at some level” after high school. That may be a four-year university, community college, trade school, apprenticeship or job training. But making informed decisions can be hard when access to resources and opportunities is limited, like it can be in rural areas. Means cites difficulties in teacher recruitment and retention, slow internet service, and few after-school and summer programs as particular challenges.

But he knows solving these problems is a communal effort. “I don’t have all the expertise,” he says. “I can facilitate people meeting each other in the same room, and if they go off together and do some amazing scholarship or [create an] amazing grant program, fantastic.”

Now that effort is national for Means, who is the president-elect of the National Rural Education Association. Installed as president-elect designate in January 2025, Means will serve a five-year term that leads to president and ends with past president, while allowing for collaboration with education colleagues as well as those in the nonprofit and state and federal government spheres.

“You do it over and over again because you absolutely believe in the mission and the vision and your guiding principles.”

Means, 42, says his drive to give back to the community is in part because he has always seen his work as a commitment to being a good neighbor and a good citizen, using his research to inform practice. There are challenges, he says. Times can be frustrating. But he likes to think of having “audacious hope,” which he says is about “knowing that the work is not easy … but you get up every day, and you do it over and over again because you absolutely believe in the mission and the vision and your guiding principles.”

“Maybe we don’t achieve our goals, our ultimate goals,” he says, “but we did this together in community with each other, and that’s what’s really important to me.”

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