Clark University

Clark University is an American private university and liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887, it is the oldest educational institution founded as an all-graduate university in the United States. Clark now also educates undergraduates. The U.S. News & World Report ranked Clark 75th nationally in 2014, 83rd in 2013, and 95th in 2012. In 2013, Forbes ranked Clark University #51 in research.

Clark is one of 40 schools profiled in the book Colleges That Change Lives by Loren Pope. Those who attend Clark University are colloquially called "Clarkies."

History

American businessman Jonas Gilman Clark founded Clark University in 1887 with an endowment of one million dollars, and later added another million dollars to the fund because he feared the university might someday face a lack of funds. It opened on October 2, 1889, as the first all-graduate university in the United States.

G. Stanley Hall, first president of the university, was the founder of the American Psychological Association and earned the first Ph.D. in psychology in the United States at Harvard. Clark has played a prominent role in the development of psychology as a distinguished discipline in the United States ever since. It was the location for Sigmund Freud's famous "Clark Lectures" in 1909, introducing psychoanalysis to the U.S. This was Freud's only set of lectures in the United States. Clark celebrated the centennial of the visit in October 2009. A seated sculpture of Freud by Robert Shure is just outside the University Center; students pose with it and dress it up for various holidays and university occasions such as graduation.

It is one of only three New England universities, along with Harvard and Yale, to be a founding member of the Association of American Universities, an organization of universities with the most prestigious profiles in research and graduate education. Clark withdrew its membership in 1999, citing a conflict with its mission; it is one of only four schools to do so.

Franz Boas, founder of American cultural anthropology and adviser for the first Ph.D. in anthropology, taught at Clark from 1888 until 1892 when he resigned in a dispute with President Hall over academic freedom and joined the faculty of Columbia University. Albert Abraham Michelson, the first American to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics, best known for his involvement in the Michelson-Morley experiment, which measured the speed of light, was a professor from 1889 to 1892. In the 1920s Robert Goddard, a pioneer of rocketry, considered one of the founders of space and missile technology, served as chairman of the Physics Department. The Robert H. Goddard Library, a distinctive modern building in the brutalist style by architect John M. Johansen, was completed in 1969.

In April 2010, Clark University received the largest gift in its 123-year history, a $14.2 million offering from the late head of Hanover Insurance, one of the nation's biggest property and casualty insurers. The gift from John Adam is intended to strengthen Clark's graduate programs in education, promote college-readiness among minority students and bolster its research profile related to urban education. This donation created the Adams Education Fund, which will enhance Clark's nationally recognized model for urban secondary education and reform, teacher-training, and community education partnerships.

On July 1, 2010, former provost David Angel became the ninth president of Clark succeeding John Bassett, who went on to be president of Heritage University located on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Toppenish, Washington.

Campus

The campus is located on Main Street in the Main South neighborhood about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of downtown Worcester and 40 miles (64 km) west of Boston. The campus is compact, with most of the major buildings located within the space of a single city block.

Jonas Clark Hall, built in 1887, occupies the center of campus and houses the economics, psychology and education departments. Located in the basement of Jonas Clark Hall is the university's cogeneration plant which allows the university to recycle waste heat from electrical generation into hot water, heat, and steam. It was updated in 2013 to a more efficient 2.0 kWh natural gas engine.

The Lasry Center (named for investor Marc Lasry and his wife Cathy) for Bioscience houses the biology department. It received a LEED Gold certification for its energy efficiency.

The Jefferson Academic Center houses various social science departments including Women's Studies, Geography, History, and Geographical Information Sciences.

Atwood Hall, attached to the Jefferson Academic Center, is the primary theater on campus and seats 658. Atwood Hall originally served as the chapel for the university.

The Little Center is the alternate performing arts venue, with its largest room, the Michelson Theater seating 120.

The Academic Commons, also known as the AC, acts as a study area and lounge for the students, and incorporates a Sodexo coffeehouse named Jazzmans, a quiet study area, a computer room, and the Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprises.

The Goddard Library houses more than 375,000 volumes, and is upstairs from the Academic Commons.

The Kneller Athletic Center houses the basketball courts, swimming pool, raquet ball courts, handball courts, and the Bickman Fitness Center which was completely renovated in 2013 . Major campus events, such as International Gala, the fall concert, and first year orientation are usually held in the Kneller as the basketball courts are the largest rooms on campus and can accommodate the entire student body.

Estabrook Hall, located on Woodland Street, is the second oldest building on Clark's campus. It was constructed as dormitories, it now functions as the language center and the music center. The top three floors are dedicated to languages including Spanish, French, Latin, and Hebrew, while the bottom floor and basement are practice rooms and music halls.

The center of campus is known as The Green. The Green is a hub for student activity, and is where most Clarkies spend their time during the warm months. It is the location of Spree Day, the welcome back BBQ, several clubs' events and graduation. The buildings surrounding The Green include Atwood Hall, Jefferson Academic Center, Higgins University Center, Jonas Clark Hall, and the Goddard Library.

Administrative offices are housed in small buildings along Woodland Street, as is the president's house.

Students entering Clark must live on campus for the first two years unless their primary address is within 25 miles (40 km) of campus. The residence halls at Clark are organized by those who live there. The halls include the following breakdowns:

• First Year Experience halls (Johnson-Sanford Center, Bullock and Wright)
• Mixed Class halls (Dana and Hughes)
• Single Sex hall (Doddâ€"female only)
• Suite-style and Apartment-style halls (Maywood and Blackstone)

Clark owns apartments that, while outside of the main campus area, exclusively house Clark students.

The first Clark "residence halls" (Wright and Bullock) opened in 1959. Before that time, Estabrook Hall was the men's dormitory and small women's dorms stood in the current location of Little Center and Bullock Hall. Blackstone, the newest of the halls, opened in 2007.

As of fall 2007, gender blind/neutral housing is an option at Clark, meaning that students of different genders can room together.

Clark University released its Climate Action Plan December 15, 2009, detailing strategies for the University to reduce its carbon footprint while strengthening many of its existing sustainability practices. The plan sets two goals with respect to climate neutrality: First is an interim goal of reducing emissions to 20 percent below 2005-levels by 2015. The second goal is to achieve climate neutrality (net zero greenhouse gas emissions) by the year 2030.

Academics

Clark offers 31 undergraduate majors. It offers 33 study abroad programs in 21 different countries. Clark has 187 full-time faculty, representing a 10:1 student-faculty ratio. Ninety-six percent of Clark's faculty have terminal degrees.

In recent years, Clark has been noted especially for its geography and psychology departments, with the latter having a distinctive, if increasingly unfashionable "humanistic" orientation (humanistic psychology). The School of Geography was founded by then President Wallace Atwood in 1921, and is the first institution in the United States established for graduate study in this science. It has granted more doctoral degrees than any other geography program in the country. The geography department is best known for its strength in human-environment geography and for the development of the IDRISI geographic information systems software, named for the famous 12th century explorer and cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi by Prof. Ron Eastman. It was ranked #1 for undergraduate geography by Rugg's Recommendations on Colleges and has consistently been ranked in the top 10 in the nation by other publications. The geography department also offers a graduate-level degree in GIS as part of the Fifth-Year Free program. The department's mission is ambitious: "to educate undergraduate and graduate students to be imaginative and contributing citizens of the world, and to advance the frontiers of knowledge and understanding through rigorous scholarship and creative effort."

In recent years, Clark has received widespread media coverage for its "Fifth-Year Free" program. Under Clark's BA/MA program with the fifth year free, undergraduates who maintain a B+ average are eligible for tuition-free enrollment in its one-year graduate programs, meaning that they can get a Master of Arts degree for the price of a bachelor's degree. Students apply to master's degree programs in their junior year, begin meeting requirements in their senior year and typically complete those requirements in the fifth year. Bachelor's degrees are granted en route to the master's degree. This program received scrutiny from the entering class of 2013 for not being fully "free" by instilling fees of up to $2,000 on students.

According to Clark University, "Of those responding, 88% of the class of 2011 had a job or were in graduate school within six months of graduation."

Student body

The undergraduate student body has a 42:58 male to female gender ratio, with 68% percent from out-of-state. This includes international students, which comprise 12% of the student body.

As of 2013, Clark's freshman class consisted of 621 students with an average high school GPA of 3.58, average Verbal SAT of 614 and average Math SAT of 603. Seventy-nine percent of the freshmen were from top 30% of their high school class. Ninety-eight percent of freshmen live in campus housing. Of the freshmen, 64% are from outside Massachusetts and 85% receive need- or merit-based financial aid. There were also 27 transfer students.

The student body produces a weekly newspaper called The Scarlet which covers campus news, living arts, student opinions, and sports.

Spree Day

Spree Day is one of the most beloved Clark events, and the worst kept secret on campus. Spree Day originated in 1903 to coincide with St. Patrick's Day. The university previously used Spree Day as a day without classes with university sponsored drinking and general debauchery. Now, Spree Day occurs on a "secret" day, usually the second Tuesday in April. The university cancels classes, ropes-off The Green and, hires inflatables, bands, and holds a fair food that allows the student body to relax in the warming New England weather. It is traditional to not tell first-year students about Spree Day, instead, the Senior class awakens the first-years by running through their dorms banging pots and pans.

Many Clarkies, uninterested in the events the University puts on, usually throw large, rowdy house parties and use the day to drink excessively. This led Mike McKenna, Director of Leadership and Programming, to lead an effort to scrap Spree Day in early 2013 for the more tame and wildly unpopular FreudFest. FreudFest would have consolidated International Gala, Spree Day, and the Spring comedy act into one Thursday-Sunday span in April, with no days of canceled classes. Within hours of the announcement that Spree Day would be no more, students mounted a massive campaign to "Free Spree" and save Spree Day activities. With a massive social media and email campaign, sit-ins at the Student Leadership and Programming office, and a funding veto by Student Council President Andrew Schuschu, the decision was reversed within a week, and festivities occurred as usual in April. This did lead to a Spree Day committee being formed to reform the event to a tamer, and less embarrassing activity for the university.

While Spree Day is a day of fun and relaxation, Clark University also holds the Academic Spree Day in the Spring semester. This event has an academic nature and is the day when Clark undergraduates present their research and creative work annually

Clark and the community

In 1985, the university engaged in a partnership with community groups and business organizations to revitalize Clark neighborhoods. Its efforts in the University Park Partnership program include refurbishing dilapidated or abandoned homes, reselling them to area residents, and subsidizing mortgages for new home buyers.

In 1997, Clark opened a secondary public school, the University Park Campus School (UPCS), that is also a professional development school for Clark’s teacher education program. Because of its long hours and demanding curricula, UPCS has been lauded as a model for collaboration between a university and an urban district. Students are able to attend Clark University free of charge upon graduation, provided they meet certain residency and admissions requirements. In the May 16, 2005, issue of Newsweek, UPCS was named the 68th best high school in the nation. UPCS was featured in a page-one story entitled Town-grown triumph In poorest part of Worcester, Clark helps put children on path to college of the November 22, 2007, edition of The Boston Globe.

The UPCS collaborative is one of several sponsored by Clark's Jacob Hiatt Center for Urban Education focused on urban teacher education and school reform.

Athletics

Clark teams participate as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III. The Cougars are a member of the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, swimming & diving and tennis; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, field hockey, rowing, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis and volleyball.

Research

Clark has eight research institutes and centers.

The William and Jane Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise seeks to improve through the successful mobilization of use-inspired research the effectiveness of government and other institutions in addressing social concerns. The institute focuses on important social issues, including focal areas such as education reform, environmental sustainability, access to healthcare, human development, well-being and global change.

The George Perkins Marsh Institute conducts collaborative, interdisciplinary research on human-environment relationships and the human dimensions of global environmental change.

The Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies an interdiscplinary center which focuses on the causes and effects of Holocausts and Genocides around the world. It is housed in Lasry House, donated by investor Marc Lasry and his wife Cathy in honor of their fathers Irwin Cohen and Moise Lasry.

The Jacob Hiatt Center for Urban Education develops models of urban schooling, teaching and teacher education through local partnership, in order to learn from these models and expand the knowledge-base of effective practice through research.

The Center for Risk and Security (CRS) at the George Perkins Marsh Institute conducts in-depth studies of homeland security issues using a risk-analysis perspective. The Center's broad range of security issues includes: terrorism; disaster management; law and human rights; resource availability; and public health.

The Center for Technology, Environment and Development (CENTED), founded in 1987, is a center for the study of natural and technological hazards in the United States. Projects include theoretical work on hazard analysis, hazard taxonomies, vulnerability, environmental equity, corporate risk management, emergency planning and hazardous waste transportation.

The Center for Community-Based Development (CCBD) is the research arm of the IDCE Program. CCBD works with host country colleagues and institutions to help local communities increase productivity and conserve natural resources. CCBD disseminates its approach and research through publications and training courses, both at Clark and overseas.

Clark Labs is engaged in the research and development on geospatial technologies including the development of computer software and analytical techniques for GIS and remote sensing with an emphasis on monitoring and modeling earth system dynamics. Clark Labs continues to develop and distribute IDRISI, a geographic information system (GIS) software package that is in use at more than 40,000 sites in over 180 countries worldwide. Its chief is Dr. J. Ronald Eastman, creator of IDRISI.

Notable alumni and faculty

• See List of Clark University people

Recent developments

In March 2009, Clark University convened a first-of-its-kind National Conference on Liberal Education and Effective Practice, co-sponsored by Clark’s Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

The Mosakowsi Institute for Public Enterprise was established in fall 2007 thanks to a generous founding gift from two Clark alumni, William '76 and Jane '75 Mosakowski.

Secretary of State and former senator and democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke at Clark University February 4, 2008, to an audience of approximately 3,500 in The Kneller Athletic Center.

In April 2009, then-President John Bassett denied Clark University Students for Palestinian Rights, a student group, to bring Norman Finkelstein to speak about the "Gaza Massacre" (2008-2009 Gaza War) because Finkelstein "would invite controversy and not dialogue or understanding". He also cited a conflict in scheduling regarding a conference on Holocaust and Genocide Studies presented by the university in the same month. However, following protests, which included a public protest in the center of campus, a petition campaign and outreach by alumni, students and faculty, Basset reversed his decision and allowed Finkelstein to speak April 27, the last day of classes for the semester. Finkelstein spoke to around 400 students, faculty and community members in Atwood Hall.

Clark University has an ongoing renovation project that will cover several buildings. In the summer of 2010, overhauls occurred in Bullock and Wright Hall dormitories.

Noam Chomsky spoke at Clark University on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Arab Spring April 12, 2011, in Atwood Hall. The visit was unprecedented not only for Chomsky's notoriety, but also because this was the first ever lecture given on a Spree Day at Clark.

In summer 2012, Clark University underwent more renovations. The city of Worcester allowed the university to close Downing Street to unite the campus. The area was landscaped to become a pedestrian plaza. Johnson and Sanford halls were united to become the Johnson Sanford Center featuring new social, study, and multimedia spaces. The project included addition of an outdoor roof terrace and an elevator to all levels. The University has recently begun a project called LEEP to connect students and the world of academia to practical experience.

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in southwestern Worcester, Massachusetts
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Worcester County, Massachusetts

References

Further reading

• Ryan, W. Carson. Studies in Early Graduate Education: The Johns Hopkins, Clark University, The University of Chicago. New York: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1939. OCLC 41645290.
• Koelsch, William A. Clark University, 1887â€"1987: A Narrative History. Worcester: Clark University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-914206-25-7. OCLC 17064546.

External links

• Clark University Homepage
• Clark University Athletics Homepage
• Clark University Graduate School of Management
• Clark Voices Multimedia
• Clark University News & Media Relations
• University Park Campus School
• Colleges of Worcester Consortium Homepage
• Clark Labs Homepage
• U.S. News Best College Rankings: Clark University
• Johnson Sanford Center
• Forbes: Clark University