Clark University
Encyclopedia
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
and liberal arts college
Liberal arts college
A liberal arts college is one with a primary emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences.Students in the liberal arts generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including sciences as well as the traditional...
in Worcester
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
.
Founded in 1887, it is the oldest educational institution founded as an all-graduate university. Clark now also educates undergraduates
Undergraduate education
Undergraduate education is an education level taken prior to gaining a first degree . Hence, in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is...
. It is one of only three New England universities, along with Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, to be a founding member of the Association of American Universities
Association of American Universities
The Association of American Universities is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education...
, 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 three schools to do so. Clark is one of 40 schools profiled in the book Colleges That Change Lives
Colleges That Change Lives
Colleges That Change Lives is a college educational guide by Loren Pope. It was originally published in 1996, with a second edition in 2000, and a third edition in 2006...
by Loren Pope
Loren Pope
Loren Brooks Pope was an American writer and independent college placement counselor.In 1965, Pope, a former newspaperman and education editor of The New York Times, founded the College Placement Bureau, one of the first independent college placement counseling services in the United States...
.
History
Clark University was founded by American businessman Jonas Gilman ClarkJonas Gilman Clark
Jonas Gilman Clark was an American businessman, and the founder of Clark University. He started his business career in Massachusetts, before moving to California in the 1850s. He had a successful entrepreneurial career...
in 1887. He started the university with a million dollars, and later added another million dollars to the university fund because he feared the university might someday face lack of funds. The university was opened on October 2, 1889 as the first all-graduate university in the United States.
G. Stanley Hall
G. Stanley Hall
Granville Stanley Hall was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory...
was the first president of the university. He was the founder of the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
, and earned the first Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. 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
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
's famous "Clark Lectures" in 1909, introducing psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
to the US. The university 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.
Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
, founder of American cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
and advisor for the first Ph.D. in anthropology, taught at Clark between 1888 and 1892 before resigning (in a dispute with Hall
G. Stanley Hall
Granville Stanley Hall was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory...
over academic freedom) and moving to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. Albert Abraham Michelson
Albert Abraham Michelson
Albert Abraham Michelson was an American physicist known for his work on the measurement of the speed of light and especially for the Michelson-Morley experiment. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics...
, the first American to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
, best known for his involvement in the Michelson-Morley experiment
Michelson-Morley experiment
The Michelson–Morley experiment was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Its results are generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous ether and in favor of special...
, which measured the speed of light, served as 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
Robert H. Goddard Library
The Robert H. Goddard Library is the primary library of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. The library was named after rocketeer Robert H. Goddard, who earned a M.A. and Ph.D. at Clark in the 1910s. The building was built in 1969 and remodeled in 2009. It was designed by...
, a distinctive modern building by architect John M. Johansen
John M. Johansen
John MacLane Johansen is an architect and member of the Harvard Five. Johansen took an active role in the modern movement.- Early life :Johansen was born to two accomplished painters in New York in 1916...
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 a company that ultimately grew into 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.
On July 1, 2010, former provost David Angel became the ninth President of Clark.
Campus
The campus is located on Main Street in the Main SouthMain South
Main South is a neighborhood in southern Worcester, Massachusetts. The area is based around Main Street, the central roadway of the city...
neighborhood about two miles west of downtown Worcester, which is about 40 miles west of Boston.
Jonas Clark Hall, which was built in 1887 is in the center of campus and houses the economics, psychology and education departments. The Lasry Center (named for investor Marc Lasry
Marc Lasry
Marc Lasry is an American billionaire hedge fund manager and co-founder and chief executive officer of hedge fund Avenue Capital Group.-Career:...
and his wife Cathy) for Bioscience houses the biology department. It received a LEED Gold certification. The Jefferson Academic Center houses various social science departments. The Academic Center at Goddard Library houses more than 375,000 volumes. Administrative offices are housed in small buildings on Downing Street.
Students entering Clark must live on campus for the first two years unless their primary address is within 25 miles of campus. The residence halls at Clark are organized by those who live there; the
- First Year Experience halls (Bullock, Sanford, and Wright)
- Mixed Class halls (Johnson, Dana and Hughes)
- Single Sex hall (Dodd—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.
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
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
departments, with the latter having a distinctive, if increasingly unfashionable "humanistic" orientation (humanistic psychology
Humanistic psychology
Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology...
). 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 system
Geographic Information System
A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...
s software, named for the famous 12th century explorer and cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi
Muhammad al-Idrisi
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani al-Sabti or simply Al Idrisi was a Moroccan Muslim geographer, cartographer, Egyptologist and traveller who lived in Sicily, at the court of King Roger II. Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta then belonging to the Almoravid Empire and died in...
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.
Student body
Clark has marketed its programs off-campus and accepts a student body largely from out of the city and often from out of the state. Clark’s student body comes from all over the country and world. Sixty-eight percent of Clark undergraduate students are from outside Massachusetts and 8% are from abroad. The entire student body of undergraduate and graduate students is 16% international. ., Clark's freshman class consisted of 550 students with an average high school GPA of 3.46, average Verbal SAT of 597 and average Math SAT of 587. Seventy-nine percent of the freshmen were from top 30% of their high school class. Ninety-seven percent of freshmen live in campus housing. Of the freshmen, 64% are from outside Massachusetts and 90% 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.
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
University Park Campus School
The University Park Campus School is a public school in the Main South neighborhood of Worcester, Massachusetts. It educates 232 students in grades 7-12. Opened in 1997, the school is operated by a partnership between nearby Clark University and Worcester Public Schools...
(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
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, UPCS was named the 68th best high school in the nation. On November 22, 2007, UPCS was featured in a cover story entitled “Town-gown triumph In poorest part of Worcester, Clark helps put children on path to college” in the Boston Globe, by Peter Schworm, Globe Staff.
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.
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
Marc Lasry
Marc Lasry is an American billionaire hedge fund manager and co-founder and chief executive officer of hedge fund Avenue Capital Group.-Career:...
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. It is run by Dr. Ronald Eastman, creator of IDRISI.
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 the fall of 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 on 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, the right to bring Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
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 put on 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 on April 27, the last day of classes for the semester. Finkelstein spoke to around 400 students, faculty and community members in Atwood Hall.
Noam Chomsky spoke at Clark University on the topic of Israeli/Palestinian relations and Middle Eastern/African political upheavals on April 12, 2011 in Atwood Hall.
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. .
- Koelsch, William A. Clark University, 1887–1987: A Narrative History. Worcester: Clark University Press, 1987. ISBN 0914206257. .