where up-and coming-marketers, Internet marketers and growth hackers learn Internet marketing from world-class professionals. Staton is a partner with Learn Capital, and he is the founder and former CEO of Inigral, a pioneering social-enrollment management technology in higher education. Suzanne (Showstack) Adams ’02 , M.P.A. ’03,
Irene Walch turns a new page
O
ther than a brief stint teaching, Irene Walch ’64, M.A.Ed. ’66, spent her entire career as a reference librarian in the Goddard Library. And she expects to spend a good chunk of her retirement there, too, especially in Jazzman’s Café.
“I’m looking forward to buying a cup of coffee at Jazzman’s and sitting down to read a book while
writes that her son, Blake Charles Adams, was
my colleagues are still working — isn’t that awful?” she says with a laugh. “They’re so jealous of me
born on Aug. 28, 2012. He weighed five pounds,
right now.”
eight ounces and was 18.5 inches long. Suzanne
They also know she deserves some quiet time. Walch, who retired in June, joined the library staff
and her husband, Ryan, live in Charlestown,
in September 1969, a few months after astronaut Buzz Aldrin cut the ribbon on the new building
Mass. She is the director of development
with its revolutionary design. For nearly 44 years she mined the stacks and digital databases to help
communications for the Spaulding Rehabilitation
Clark students find the information that would inform their research papers, scholarly essays and
Network and Partners HealthCare at Home.
exam preparations. In turn, many of those students expressed deep appreciation, with one undergrad
2003
writing in a thank-you note: “You are known as the mother of the students.” Her dedication to Clark
GEOFF PHILLIPS has started graduate school at
Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Ala., where he is working toward a master of science in emergency management.
2004 RAJA VISWANATHAN and BECKY ALPER ’06 live
in Munich, Germany, where Becky is pursuing a master of science in transportation systems at the Technical University of Munich. “You can find us enjoying the beer halls of Bavaria or hiking the Alps, which are easily accessible by train,” Becky writes.
2005 AMANDA DEMAIO ’05, M.S.P.C. ’06, and COREY HARPER ’06 were married on Oct. 5, 2012, in
Farmington, Conn. Corey is a branch manager for a recruitment firm, and Amanda is a media director at a digital advertising agency. The couple recently purchased a home in Boston. Clarkies in attendance (pg. 51) included: Sally (Stark-Dreifus)
earned Irene the Sheila Chaman Service Award in 1999. “Working with students was my first love,” she says, noting the bonds she formed, particularly with international students. Irene devoted much of her time away from campus to caring for her elderly parents and a sister who battled multiple sclerosis for many years before she passed away in 2008. “The Clark community became my family,“ she says. Over the years, printed text gave way to CD-ROMs and then online search engines. Walch and her colleagues kept abreast of new technologies through constant education efforts (“It was never boring,” she acknowledges.) Despite the shifts in how information is delivered, the staff’s core mission of aiding and instructing students has remained undimmed. Walch notes that a particularly challenging question will inspire a good-natured scramble among library staffers to come up with the answer. “There’s a service orientation here, a collegial atmosphere that doesn’t exist in every library,” she says. “I’ve loved working in this place, with this team.” Retirement means the ability to do the things her busy work schedule rarely allowed, including attending events on campus like classical music concerts at the Traina Center, afternoon lectures, and foreign films at Cinema 320. Irene also has joined the Friends of the Robert Goddard Library, where she can offer a unique perspective influenced by her more than 40 years as a library insider. Irene says a bowl of candy left on the reference desk has done wonders to break the ice with students. “We discovered that if people stop for a piece of candy, they find the librarian less threatening.” When it’s pointed out that the words “threatening” and “librarian” typically do not appear in the same sentence, she chuckles. “I don’t know about that. Some of those old-time librarians were very strict!”
Seizer) ’05, Kimi De Leon Laws ’05, Megan Slocum ’05, Matt Olsen ’05, Alexandra (Bullock) Olsen ’04, Geneva Beaudry ’05, Tim Dutille ’06, Sean Connell ’06, Brendan Gregory ’06, Dan
DANIELLE MORGAN ’05, M.A.T. ’06, married Alan
Acosta on June 6, 2013, in Las Vegas. Clarkies in attendance (pg. 50, l. to r.) included: Anna Kupik ’06, Andrew Janey ’05 (groomsman), Danielle, and Lindsay Peck ’07. Danielle was recently promoted to associate director of student affairs/ student government at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla.
53 clark alumni magazine
’08.
fall 2013
McGuigan ’08, Mike Levy ’08 and Lauren Vachula