Clark magazine, winter 2023

AHEAD OF THE game

Fueled by the liberal arts, the Becker School of Design & Technology is reimagining our digital path.

A girder signed by members of the Clark community and construction crew is guided into place as part of the “topping off” ceremony for the new Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design, slated to open in Fall 2023.

FROM GUITAR TO GAVEL

Long before he upheld the law, Judge George Overton ’76 brought down the house in style.

CAMERA READY

His images of war, 9/11, and the Capitol riot have earned Spencer Platt ’94 a front-row seat to history, and a Pulitzer Prize.

CRISIS MODE

From Sandy Hook to Uvalde, Clark psychologist Wendy Grolnick treats the hidden wounds of tragedy.

AHEAD OF THE GAME

Fueled by the liberal arts, the Becker School of Design & Technology is reimagining our digital path.

DEPARTMENTS

Dear alumni, families, and friends,

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

It is often said that we respect and admire firefighters because they run into burning buildings when everyone else is fleeing them. They have to overcome fear, step into perilous conditions, and risk their own mortality when — for most of us — our natural instincts would urge us to avoid danger and difficulty.

But I find that many Clarkies think and act differently. They make the conscious decision to confront society’s harshest realities and deal with the consequences of humanity’s worst impulses. In effect, they choose to run into the burning building.

I’ve learned in my time as president about a number of faculty and alumni who have done important work under incredibly stressful circumstances, sometimes at great personal risk. Last year, Clark magazine recalled the sacrifice of John Granville, M.A. ’04, killed by terrorists in response to his efforts on behalf of the citizens of southern Sudan, who were pushing for independence after a bitter civil war.

I’m not surprised that this current issue features stories about two more people with Clark ties who refuse to turn away.

Professor of psychology Wendy Grolnick regularly travels with the Red Cross to the sites of natural disasters and mass-casualty events to help survivors and victims’ families who have been left reeling by shock and grief. She’s been deployed to Sandy Hook and Uvalde in the aftermath of their deadly school shootings, and to cities and towns devastated by hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. Wendy goes to these places to bring healing to those who have suffered unimaginable pain and loss, and to help them recover a sense of reason and purpose where none seems possible. Hers is a selfless, compassionate, and very Clarkie calling.

Photojournalist Spencer Platt ’94 has been on the front lines, literally, for most of his career — in war zones around the world, at the site of the 9/11 attacks, and on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, where he took the photo that earned him the Pulitzer Prize. Spencer’s powerful images remind us how necessary it is to capture those moments when rage, polarization, and desperation seem to be fracturing our world. By venturing into harrowing situations with camera poised, Spencer bears witness for all of us, telling the stories that demand to be heeded.

Wendy and Spencer are just two members of our Clark community who display courage and empathy while persevering through searing conditions. They are a source of inspiration and pride for me as a member of our community — and after reading their stories, I’m sure you will feel the same.

Sincerely,

David B. Fithian ’87

’74 relaunches the legend of Clark’s space pioneer

Gala

a triumphant return in 2022.

Clark amplifies its focus on the whole student

WHAT SHOULD COLLEGE BE AND DO FOR A STUDENT?

The answer to that question is at the heart of the new Division of Student Success at Clark University. By bringing together into one function all of the support services and resources provided to students, the University is committed to ensuring every student is offered the opportunity to find a sense of purpose, cultivate their authentic selves, feel a sense of belonging, foster lifelong connections, and engage in transformational Clark experiences.

Designed with input from faculty and other University stakeholders, the Division of Student Success draws from programs that were previously organized under the dean of the college, the dean of students, and University Advancement, with changes to the student experience instituted in the current Spring 2023 semester.

“What we are working toward is for students, especially those experiencing challenges, to have a surround-sound experience where services, resources, and technology are all interconnected when they reach out for support,” says Kamala Kiem, associate provost for student success and dean of students, who oversees the division.

In short, Kiem says, “For our students to be successful we have to operate from a philosophical perspective that their life and their academic learning experiences are equally important. The new division merges ‘Life + Learning’ into our policies, decision-making, and actions.”

This essential reorganization is expected to improve student outcomes, including student retention and persistence, educational attainment, academic achievement, student advancement, and holistic personal development. It also

will operationalize and further evolve Clark’s distinctive Liberal Education and Effective Practice (LEEP) model, engraining it more fundamentally into our core academic offering.

Throughout the fall semester Clark began aligning multiple areas of student support, including Residence Life and Housing, Career Connections Center, Academic Advising Center and Academic Support, Health Services, Wellness Education, and Identity, Student Engagement, and Access, among others.

Within the division, new and expanded units facilitate increased student support. For instance, the Office of Community Standards oversees student conduct and compliance; the Office of Student Employment focuses on matching students to employment opportunities on campus; and the newly expanded Office of Identity, Student Engagement, and Access (formerly the Office of Multicultural and First Generation Student Support) deepens students’ sense of belonging, especially for the BIPOC, first-generation, and LGBTQIA+ communities at Clark.

Clark is creating a more concentrated and elevated focus on overall student health and well-being, with resources and programs now organized under an associate dean of health and well-being. Also of significance is the creation of the First-Year Student Success Advising Unit, dedicated exclusively to enhancing the academic experience and success of first-year students.

“I am beyond excited and filled with tremendous hope to achieve this highest aspiration for Clark students,” Kiem says, “and to cultivate a holistic experience that inspires every one of our students to discover more about themselves and find their calling.”

DIVISION OF STUDENT SUCCESS

A newly formed division to unite student success efforts and enhance the Clark experience.

2 NEW UNDERGRADUATE MAJORS Finance

EMT Ethan Lutz ’21 works at the coronavirus epicenter

BOLD PLANS. BRIGHT FUTURE.

western Queens, where he responded to 911 calls, including incidents of domestic violence.

LAST FALL, we welcomed the largest incoming class of undergraduates in Clark history, as well as the largest-ever cohort of graduate students. This accomplished and diverse group of scholars confirms what we’ve known for a long time: Clark University’s future is bright.

“You hear about the rates of domestic violence increasing, but to actually see a human being with broken fingers due to a domestic violence situation made it far more real,” he said. “That call was a reminder that all these things are still going on, even if the world has stopped because of the pandemic.”

And behind this bright future are bold plans. Our Strategic Framework is now at an advanced stage and will, by design, continue to evolve.

Already, we have:

communities hit hardest in the nation by COVID-19. The rising Clark senior was deployed as a contractor alongside medical workers from across the country to provide additional support at the pandemic’s epicenter.

The cardiac arrest call was among the most significant events of Lutz’s deployment. He does not know if the man was infected with COVID-19, but the pandemic’s increasing presence in the city was accompanied by a substantial rise in the number of heart attacks, he said.

n Expanded curricular offerings to include a minor in Interactive Media and Design; a major and minor in Finance; a major in Math Education; and programs in Cybersecurity and General Education in the School of Professional Studies (SPS)

In addition to his EMT work, Lutz is in the process of launching a small business. The pandemic led him to become interested in the antiviral and antibacterial properties of copper, which has been proven to kill coronaviruses faster than many other elements. He recently filed patent and trademark information for a PPE storage bag that is lined with an 88 percent copper polyester fabric.

n Made significant progress on construction of the Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design

ENEW ACADEMIC BUILDING

THAN LUTZ ’21 was working a 16-hour shift as an EMT in New York City when his ambulance was dispatched to a call for a man who had collapsed outside his home and gone into cardiac arrest. With the man’s family gathered around, Lutz and his partner began performing CPR.

THE CENTER FOR MEDIA ARTS, COMPUTING, AND DESIGN

Alternating chest compressions and ventilations, they eventually brought his pulse back.

Opening in fall 2023, MACD will house the Becker School of Design & Technology, Department of Computer Science, and programs from the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.

“Most of the time when you’re doing CPR you’re not expecting that to happen,” Lutz said. “To successfully use the training we’re given to pull that off was a really nice thing.”

Lutz spent three weeks working as an EMT with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in western Queens — one of the

“This has been a learning opportunity,” Lutz noted. “We dealt with a lot of serious calls.”

n Reopened the newly renovated Little Center and Michelson Theater

Lutz, who’s majoring in political science with a biochemistry and molecular biology minor, is on the premed track at Clark. He began working as an EMT with Worcester-based Vital EMS three years ago. When Vital’s parent company, Global Medical Response, began deploying crews and ambulances to New York under a FEMA contract, he regarded it as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a difference.

n Launched the Division of Student Success, bringing together all student support services in one responsive, holistic, student-centered unit

Medical workers typically store their gear in paper bags, which can lead to the transfer of bacteria and virus particles, Lutz said. He expects his bag will remove much of that risk. “The copper polyester bag is a sterile environment that lets you reuse masks,” he said.

Lutz has been gauging interest among his colleagues and plans to pursue the idea further.

We’re just getting started — soon, we will start construction on a new greenhouse adjacent to the Lasry Biosciences building.

As for his own personal safety on the job, Lutz wasn’t worried. He’d been supplied with PPE and said there was never a moment when he wasn’t adequately cared for. The show of support from the public also was astounding.

We hope you’ll help these bold plans support Clark’s bright future by making a gift to The Clark Fund this year.

n Use the envelope in this magazine to mail a check

Lutz arrived in the city in mid-April and was initially assigned to take patients from area hospitals to the Javits Center — a large convention center in Manhattan that had been

n Visit us online at alumni.clark.edu/magazine

n Call 888-257-5363 to make your gift by credit card

For more information on how to give, including through securities or IRA transfer, please call 508-421-3716.

“The people of New York have been spectacular. There’s the 7 o’clock claps every night, so if you’re out, you’ll hear pots and pans banging and everybody clapping. They’re very thankful for all the people who have come to help out.”

Aviva Luttrell

MORE THAN FUN AND GAMES

Iam old enough, sadly, to remember when the video game Pong was introduced. No one I knew had an at-home console, so the only place we could play was at a local pizza shop. It was fantastic.

In those misty times, Pong was the pinnacle of video game technology and design — a digital approximation of a table tennis match where two players with “paddles” (vertical rectangles of light) batted a square “ball” across a central line until one of the players missed a shot. Not much strategy required, just exceptional reflexes.

Pong was followed by games like Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Centipede, kill-or-bekilled duels against an encroaching force in which I exhibited no special talent for survival.

I was hopeless at Pac-Man, jilted by Ms. Pac-Man, and lacked the sense of daring — not to mention direction — to successfully navigate monster-infested sewers with plumbers Mario and Luigi, aka Mario Bros. Finding little joy in the joystick, I limped away.

But I’m back. Not as a player, but as an observer fascinated by the pioneering possibilities for game design unfolding in Clark’s Becker School of Design & Technology. I hope that you’ve been able to read some of the stories we’ve written about the accomplishments of our BSDT students and faculty that have appeared on our ClarkNow news site (clarknow. clarku.edu). If you haven’t, you’ll be particularly interested in this magazine’s cover story detailing how the University is meshing the best of a Clark liberal arts education with the Becker School’s internationally recognized strength in game design and technology to produce media that are reshaping how we interact with the world.

That’s no exaggeration. In addition to games that entertain, BSDT students and faculty also design so-called serious games that provide academic instruction and professional training in everything from emergency procedures to combating the abuse of opioids. They are forging fresh communication pathways in an emergent, technology-dependent language that will demand fluency from all of us in the evolving 21st century. I think … no, I know that we have some serious learning ahead.

Now, I’m watching the progress on Clark’s rising building, the Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design, which by fall of 2023 will be home to the Becker School of Design & Technology as well as computer science and some visual and performing arts programs. The Center represents the full integration of the Becker program onto the Clark campus, and its state-of-the-art facilities and equipment will be key to inspiring and energizing generations of designers and media specialists.

I can’t wait to see what’s next. My, how the game has changed.

Executive Editor

JILL FRIEDMAN

Editor-in-Chief

JIM KEOGH

Associate Editor

MELISSA LYNCH ’95, MSPC ’15

Design

KAAJAL ASHER

Editorial Staff

ANGELA BAZYDLO

MELISSA HANSON

STEVEN KING

KIM PRIORE

Contributing writer

DANIEL KELLY ’25

Contributing photographer

MONICA HERNDON

Contributing illustrators

VIKTOR KOEN

MARINA LI

Printed by Flagship Press, Inc.

Address correspondence to: jkeogh@clarku.edu

or mail to: Jim Keogh Clark University

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Event honors 100 years of geography at Clark

In his inaugural address in February 1921, Clark President Wallace Atwood decried the geographic illiteracy of the American people and announced the creation at Clark of “a department unique in America and preeminent in its special field,” in which faculty would conduct research, and instruct undergraduate and graduate students as well as postgraduates.

A century later, Clark University’s Graduate School of Geography is preparing to celebrate its legacy as a transformational force in geography with a special event to be held April 13–15 on the Clark campus. (The centennial celebration was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Kicking off on April 13 with the annual Wallace W. Atwood Lecture — presented by Kendra McSweeney, professor and distinguished scholar of geography at The Ohio State University — the subsequent days will feature multiple sessions that are open to the campus community and public. Panelists and speakers will examine the significance and leadership of the Graduate School of Geography in society and in the discipline, take stock of where GSG is today, and look toward its future and its role in addressing many of the most urgent issues facing the world.

Among other topics, the session will include discussions on Black and feminist geographies; GSG’s impact in the areas of human-environment interactions, as well as risks, hazards, and sustainability science; its contributions to public policy; and the legacy of Roger Kasperson, the longtime GSG professor and administrator who was an internationally recognized researcher in the areas of risk analysis and communication, global environmental change, and sustainability science.

“Within steps of my office, I have experts in carbon cycling, economic geographies of innovation, polar science, Black and indigenous geographies, GIScience and remote sensing, urban geographies, landscape ecology, development studies, and so much more,” says James McCarthy, director of the Graduate School of Geography. “The issues at the heart of geography — helping to create understandings of how we can live together, sustainably and justly, on a dynamic, heterogenous planet — have never been more relevant and urgent than they are right now.”

To learn more about the April celebration and register to attend, visit clarku.edu/geo100.

School of Management to mark 40 years

On Sept. 24, 1982, Clark University marked the launch of the Graduate School of Management with a daylong symposium, “The United States in Today’s Competitive World.”

This April, another daylong event will celebrate 40 years of management education girded by the principles of social responsibility, sustainability, and ethical business practice.

The School of Management

— “graduate” was dropped from the name in 2020 — has always provided a solid business education with a social innovation focus, says Dean Alan Eisner, but over the years, big corporations have also become more community-minded.

“They want to be connected to the society they’re a part of,” Eisner says. “We’re helping to create the next generation of managers, who understand the social fabric of the business.”

The School of Management, one of the less than 5% of business schools accredited globally by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), is a signatory to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Education (PRME), which reflect a commitment to education, research, and collaboration that fosters sustainable social, economic, and environmental change.

The April 21 “Social Innovation Conference at Clark University” will include speakers from across the disciplines at Clark and beyond, with sessions addressing climate finance; sustainable business branding and marketing; environmental, social, and governance investing; and community engagement and social impact.

Rewriting the playbook on men’s mental health

hen Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin crumbled to the turf after suffering a cardiac arrest in a Jan. 2 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, the ESPN cameras captured not only the life-saving response of medical personnel but also the stunned and tearful reactions of players from both football teams as they comforted one another in a public display of emotion that would have been less evident even a couple of decades ago. Hamlin’s life-threatening heart stoppage was a rarity in a game typically associated with orthopedic injuries and long-term brain trauma, and the sight of medics performing CPR on a fellow player left the athletes shaken, despondent, and grappling with a heightened sense of their own fears and vulnerabilities.

In the days afterward, the media reported on Hamlin’s improving status, but they also turned their attention to the longstanding issue of how the players on

the field, as well as the millions of fans watching at home, may still be processing what they’d witnessed. Several national outlets turned to Clark Psychology Professor Michael Addis, an expert on men’s mental health and the author of “Invisible Men,” to offer insight into the ramifications for players, and men in general, when they deal with emotional upheaval.

“I think it’s a sign that we’re better prepared than we were a quarter of a century ago to acknowledge emotional and physical health problems in men because, of course, all the sort of traditional laws of masculinity teach us to hide that,” Addis told CNN.com.

In an interview with The Athletic, Addis noted that players typically repress the notion that an injury even in a game as violent as professional football might be fatal. “Over time they develop, I think, a sense of invincibility and the necessity of putting your body at risk. But doing that can insulate you to the

possibility of mortality.” The life-threatening injury to Hamlin suddenly gave them a heightened awareness of their own mortality.

A long-form piece in The Buffalo News deftly wove the narrative of Hamlin’s saga and its impact on his teammates, family, and the city of Buffalo. “Men getting more flexible in how we handle our emotions is good for everyone around us,” Addis noted — including the men in helmets and shoulder pads who were on the field that Jan. 2 night.

Galaglory!

PHOTO BY STEVEN KING

Turning opera into cinema | The return of Annie’s | Unwrapping Omar | Clark’s virtual home run INSIDE

Clark leads transformative community education efforts

LARK CONTINUES to build and sustain partnerships that enhance and empower K–12 education, particularly in the Main South community. Last year saw three significant initiatives that are making a difference.

Clark University received a three-year, $2 million grant from AmeriCorps to support the service of urban teachers-in-training in K–12 schools in Main South.

“AmeriCorps and our Master of Arts in Teaching [MAT] program is a great combination,” Thomas Del Prete, then-director of Clark’s Adam Institute for Urban Teaching and School Practice, said when the grant was announced.

Goddard, Hiatt, and Woodland elementary schools and Claremont Academy, South High School, and the University Park Campus School (UPCS) each host between four and seven MAT candidates each year. The AmeriCorps funding will support up to 32 qualified students to serve in the schools for the entire school year.

More than 100 MAT alumni are educators, and close to 60 of them teach in Main South partner schools.

***

In partnership with Clark, the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation of Worcester gave $100,000 to fund after-school programs and field trips for students at the University Park Campus

School over the next two years. The grant provides UPCS students opportunities to explore extracurricular interests and activities, build skills and relationships, improve their academic performance through specialized classes and homework assistance, and enjoy new sports and recreational offerings. Budget constraints forced the Main South school to discontinue these types of experiential learning programs more than a decade ago.

Daniel St. Louis ’00, M.Ed. ’01, principal of the University Park Campus School, noted that a robust slate of after-school clubs and off-campus activities will further strengthen the partnership between Clark and Main South schools.

“We’re excited by and grateful for every opportunity to collaborate with Clark on programs that benefit Main South kids in real and enduring ways,” St. Louis said.

***

The Audre Lorde Transformative Arts School (ALTAS) started as a summer program at Clark, but organizers hope it can become a new public school that challenges the standard approach to education.

ALTAS organizers want to reimagine school as we know it and create a center of community revitalization, where the city becomes part of the classroom and youths focus on collaborative projects that benefit the public. They envision ALTAS operating within the Worcester Public Schools.

“I think artists like science fiction writers, people with imaginations, and people who can see the world in different ways are who will actually lead us to changes that are required globally,” says Eric DeMeulenaere, a Clark education professor and a member of the ALTAS organizing team. “We look to artists like Audre Lorde, who thought outside the box. We designed

Students at work in the Audre Lorde Transformative Arts School. (Below) In the classroom at UPCS.

a program that was for the kids who don’t always enjoy school but who can develop their critical consciousness and radical imagination.”

As a full-time school, ALTAS would likely serve grades 7–12. The curriculum would be based on “the realities of today and the challenges of tomorrow,” DeMeulenaere says.

After a hiatus, Annie’s is back

If Tom Brady could unretire in 2022, then so could Annie Jenkins.

In June, Jenkins, the longtime owner of Annie’s Clark Brunch, announced her retirement after working at the restaurant for 35 years and owning it for most of that time. To her legion of admirers, Annie’s without Annie was unthinkable.

But by September, she was back behind the grill, filling plates with eggs and hash browns, meatloaf and fries, tuna and grilled cheese sandwiches, and trading one-liners with her regulars.

Temporarily, anyway. When Jenkins announced her departure, Clark recognized the importance of continuing the Annie’s legacy of serving comfort food at reasonable prices to the University’s students, faculty, and staff, as well as the many neighborhood residents who found Annie’s Clark Brunch a warm and welcoming place (and one of the best deals in Worcester). To sustain the tradition, Clark Dining Services stepped in to oversee the restaurant’s operations — with the menu unchanged, right down to the heaping bowl of mac-and-cheese with your choice of topping.

Jenkins and her daughter, Megan Mancini Zawalich, who worked alongside her mother for 15 years, were recruited to share their expertise and kitchen secrets with the Clark team so that Clarkies will continue to benefit even when Annie herself is no longer at the grill.

“We were fortunate to be able to pry Annie out of retirement to help us out,” said President David Fithian. “We could never have reopened with confidence without having Annie and Megan by our side.” As the mother-daughter team assisted with the transition, Jenkins acknowledged that helping out required her to accept an unfamiliar role.

“It’s a new experience for me to work for someone else,” she laughed. “But I’m getting used to it. I’m working it, honey.”

A framed photo of Annie and Megan from their days owning and operating Annie’s Clark Brunch.

Clark’s virtual home run

The Boston Red Sox may not have reached the playoffs, but some Clark gamers certainly felt like they’d made it to the big leagues last summer.

Throughout the Red Sox season, New England Sports Network, which broadcasts the team’s games, aired five segments of the program “NESN Clubhouse” in which faculty from the Becker School of Design & Technology at Clark, like Kathleen Andler (pictured), presented a behind-the-scenes look at video game development — through a baseball lens. Among their topics, Becker professors described how to fashion a three-dimensional baseball uniform; demonstrated how motion-capture technology gives virtual players the ability to throw, hit, and run; and explored the nuances of animation, color choice, and user interface and experience that put you on the “field.”

“We thought that since kids love video games, they would be interested in how the games get made,” said Paul Paquette, producer of NESN’s pre-game show for kids, “and the Becker School of Design & Technology is the perfect place to go to teach kids about coding and game design.”

TURNING OPERA INTO CINEMA

This past August, The Grind in the Higgins University Center was transformed into a movie set. But for over two weeks, the actors never spoke a word on film.

The production was “Oblivion,” an opera composed by Professor John Aylward and inspired by Dante’s “Purgatorio,” which explores the concepts of redemption and memories. The cast of four performers filmed the opera while lip-synching to their previously recorded voices (except for a few scenes outdoors, the entire opera was filmed in The Grind).

“Oblivion,” which Aylward expects to be ready for release next fall, is a very Clark affair. Along with Aylward, who wrote the music and libretto, and Professor Cailin Marcel Manson, who plays one of the characters, Professor Kevin McGerigle served as a technical consultant, and four Clark students were employed behind the scenes as production assistants.

Cailin Marcel Manson,left, in a scene from “Oblivion.”

(Photo by Stephen DiRado)

Unwrapping Omar

Clark screen studies Professor Soren Sorensen will never forget the first time he filmed Omar Sosa. The Grammy-nominated jazz pianist was performing alongside Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu in 2013 at the South Orange Performing Arts Center in New Jersey. Sosa’s skills on the keys combined with Fresu’s circular breathing during a rendition of “Rimanere Grande” felt magical.

“It gives me chills just thinking about it,” Sorensen says. “It was a beautiful moment.”

That moment is central to “Omar Sosa’s 88 Well-Tuned Drums,” a feature-length documentary directed, produced, and edited by Sorensen that shows a slice of Sosa’s life both as a composer and a native of Cuba.

Sorensen’s film had its world premiere at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, and has been screened at festivals across the country and in London. It won Best Feature Documentary at the Albuquerque Film & Music Experience and Best Art Documentary at the Ag & Art Film Festival. At the Los Angeles screening, Sorensen also had the good fortune of meeting up with Clark screen studies alums Skye Wingo ’16 and Aisling Lynch ’21, who both work in the film industry. Sosa is scheduled to perform at Clark in April.

John Clemente of the Facilities Management team goes behind the scenes to check out the workings of the iconic Jonas Clark Hall clock.

Can democracy be preserved?

When Harvard professors Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky wrote “How Democracies Die” in 2018, some critics accused them of being alarmist, insisting that the authors were overstating the threats to American democracy.

“In all seriousness, I don’t think we were alarmist enough,” Ziblatt told the Clark audience at the Oct. 26 Presidential Lecture in Tilton Hall. “American democracy is in trouble.”

Ziblatt made the case that “old, rich democracies” are particularly resilient and less vulnerable to toppling, like those in Hungary or Turkey. But U.S. democracy does look to be “on the precipice,” he said, pointing to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol as the most public manifestation of the steady erosion of democratic principles.

Ziblatt stressed that a strong constitution works best when it’s reinforced by robust democratic norms. “Mutual toleration”

(acknowledging the legitimacy of your partisan opponents) and “institutional forbearance” (a shared commitment between parties to exercise self-restraint) are critical components of a healthy democracy, he said. “Words on a page are not enough.”

Ziblatt recommended four reforms that he believes will help preserve democracy’s guardrails: eliminate the filibuster, impose term limits and/ or retirement requirements on Supreme Court justices, eliminate the Electoral College, and institute election reform.

“I’m actually quite optimistic,” Ziblatt said of the future of U.S. democracy. “It’s pretty clear the majority of Americans embrace core democratic values. The issue is that we don’t have the institutions we deserve. That requires lots of work, pressure on politicians, and mobilization. It’s in our hands.”

Clark biology students traveled to the town of Nahant, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, to investigate coastal ecosystems.

From “no” to “go” for Gala

Like a good friend who has reentered your life after a long absence, the International Gala made a triumphant return to the stage in the Kneller Athletic Center last March following a forced two-year hiatus due to COVID-19. Rebranded as “Gala: Remastered” and organized and hosted by the International Students Association, the dance and music performance — and accompanying fashion show earned a rousing reception from the estimated 1,500 people in attendance. The student cast performed 16 distinct dances that reflected the traditions and cultures of the countries represented onstage and celebrated both national pride and global unity. The applause they earned was testament to the audience’s appreciation for their artistry and precision, and sent a clear message to the Gala organizers: Welcome back — and we can’t wait to see you in Spring 2023.

The refurbishing of Goddard Library’s exterior provides an ever-changing view for those studying inside. Once the work is completed, the iconic 54-year-old building will have undergone major renovation of its façade, roof, and windows.

AHEAD OF THE game

AHEAD OF THE game AHEAD OF THE game

Fueled by the liberal arts, the Becker School of Design & Technology is reimagining our digital path.

BY MELISSA HANSON | ILLUSTRATION BY VIKTOR KOEN

Ed

Greig ’23 sits in a booth in the Goddard Library’s Academic Commons, observing the hustle and hum of a typical weekday afternoon. Nearby, students gather around tables to collaborate on class projects. A line forms for coffee and cookies at the café, while a hi-def screen flashes announcements of upcoming lectures and concerts.

The scene is fairly typical. But Greig notices other things as well: the texture of the library’s brick walls and concrete supports; the two-toned gray carpeting checkered with scarlet squares; the staircase leading to the second floor; the view through the glass to the Kneller Athletic Center.

The grace and geometry of the place — Greig is processing it all. Only he’s not considering the library merely as a setting for learning; he’s looking at it as the virtual environment for a video game, one that he’d like to design right down to every eccentric angle of the building’s Brutalist architecture.

The Clark senior insists he could convincingly reconstruct the library, digital piece by digital piece.

“I’d add each individual asset,” he explains, “first modeling each item, then adding texture. I’d bring these items into the virtual space until they look exactly as they do right now.”

Greig is turning a lifelong passion into a career plan that began when he enrolled in Becker College’s internationally recognized programs in game design and interactive media. He feared those plans would be derailed when, in March 2021, the chair of Becker’s Board of Trustees regretfully announced that the Worcester institution, which traced its origins to 1784, would close its doors due to financial difficulties accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Greig launched a frantic search for another college with a promising gaming program. To his surprise, he wouldn’t need to move far. “Two days before I finalized my decision,” he says, “I found out Clark was adopting the Becker program.”

« • »

Not long after the news of Becker’s closing was made public, Clark President David Fithian announced plans to establish the Becker School of Design & Technology (BSDT) at Clark. Doing so was a deliberate and delicate process that kept intact Becker’s undergraduate and graduate interactive media programs under terms negotiated with Becker’s leadership and approved by Clark’s Board of Trustees.

In August 2021, the BSDT began its first semester of operation at Clark with 179 students in two leased buildings on the site of the former Becker College

Professor Michael Swartz instructs a BSDT student in 3D animation.

campus. The merging of Becker College’s strengths in game design and interactive media with the heft of Clark’s liberal arts education and research capabilities offered the potential for an amplified and energized academic experience that would inspire students to confront challenges on a global scale and embrace emerging opportunities in the 21st-century economy.

Just a year and a half since the plan was executed, the results are exceptional. Students are thriving, recruitment is strong, academic synergies have developed, and the Becker School of Design & Technology has held its place as a top-ranked program.

Clark now is building the state-of-the-art Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design, which will be home to the Becker School, the Computer Science Department, and some programs in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. The Center is expected to open this fall (see sidebar on page 22).

“David Fithian saw this as an opportunity from the very beginning, not only for our program, not only for the community and the students, but for Clark to forge ahead along the strategic line that he has planned for the college,” says Paul Cotnoir, dean of the Becker School. “He was a huge advocate, and he was relentless in pursuing that goal.”

Cotnoir notes that nearly 3 billion people play games worldwide, part of a $159 billion industry. But the idea that gaming is only for entertainment is a myth. Becker students are also deeply involved in creating so-called serious games, such as for academic instruction or professional training. BSDT students have designed games to simulate emergency room procedures for medical students and to coach elementary school students on how to avoid opioid use.

“We’re now working with Professor Tim Downs and other faculty from Clark, along with researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, on a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant to develop a virtual digital visualization experience related to the potential effects of climate change in the Mexico City Basin,” Cotnoir says.

Though other colleges tried to woo the Becker program in the wake of the college’s closing, Clark was clearly the best fit, he insists.

“The wider humanitarian focus, the focus on social justice, the ability to access visual arts and computer science, sociology, and psychology, and have that type of

Stuck on gaming

What do a museum heist and a disdain for hot dogs have in common?

Both have been the subject of video games developed by Arielle Johnson ’25 and Dillon Remuck ’25 in collaboration with Professor Terrasa Ulm.

“The Case of the Sticky Vandal: A Detective Hunter Mystery” asks players to become detectives and investigate who placed “anti-hot dog” stickers across a small town. Players must canvass the game’s neighborhood and hunt down clues. Eventually, they make their way to a hotel, searching each room for evidence to guess where the vandal is staying.

Johnson created an evidence log, an interactive journal, character art, and more than 40 stickers that appear plastered throughout the fictional town. Remuck programmed dialogue for characters, who include a café owner and food truck operator.

“The neighborhood level of the game is where you’re testing spatial reasoning because you rely on a map for navigation,” Remuck says. “The second level tests logical reasoning because you’re in a hotel and investigating each room. Each room has clues, and you have to determine if the clues correlate to the person you’re looking for.”

Through Ulm’s Game Studio course, Johnson and Remuck also worked on a project called Caligo, which tests how well two players can communicate using only nonverbal clues. The game centers on a museum heist with digital art pieces that must be “stolen” within a certain amount of time.

“When you put your head into something and think about how to solve a problem, it puts you into a zone where it doesn’t feel like class,” Remuck says. “It feels like a puzzle.”

Examples of student- and faculty-generated game art.

a campus experience were extremely important,” Cotnoir says. “Those factors set Clark apart.”

Last spring, Stanley Pierre-Louis ’92, CEO and president of the Entertainment Software Association, sat for a Q&A with Cotnoir in Dana Commons, where he noted that today’s games routinely draw on history, archaeology, and other scholarly disciplines to inform their narratives and visuals. The result is a steady supply of games with elevated sophistication and widening appeal. Gaming during the COVID-19 lockdowns, he added, is credited with giving many people an avenue to engage virtually when they lost the ability to be together in person.

A ‘Cosmic’ experience

Boston-based White Snake Projects started a partnership with Becker College years ago to fulfill a desire to make a multimedia opera.

Mengliu Lu ’22, MFA ’23, helped White Snake with a production performed in September called “Cosmic Cowboy,” billed as a “sci-fi opera exploring the mysteries of space, time, and love.” That relationship continues with the Becker School of Design & Technology at Clark. Lu used her knowledge of 3D modeling, texturing, and rigging to create animated costumes for the performers. In the past, Becker students have used technology to motion-capture the performers in real time during the opera, creating a digital version of the live show.

“This was a great opportunity after taking Professor Cove’s organic modeling course,” Lu says. “I want to be a 3D artist in the game industry.”

Lu’s résumé also includes an internship with WPI-based MassDigi, an experience she shared over the summer with Ethan Nappi ’22 and Lucas Oliveira-Chace ’23. Over the course of 12 weeks, they partnered with other game-design students to develop game prototypes from the ground up. They ended the summer with original and unique game concepts that included dancing grandpas, cat cafés, and superpowered babies, all available for download from Apple and Google app stores.

“Being there every day and working hard gives you a better perspective of what’s expected in the industry, and, even better, what you can do in it,” Oliveira-Chace says.

Pierre-Louis lauded Clark for “future-proofing” its students by helping them develop in-demand skills in game design, publishing, and promotion for a robust market. “They are literally always hiring in our industry,” he said. “I hear from CEOs on my board that there are never enough people to fill the jobs.”

« • »

When BSDT gaming Professor Ezra Cove met theater Professor Jessie Darrell-Jarbadan at a faculty orientation event, the two quickly discovered a connection between their areas that laid the foundation for their joint course, Interactive Theater. The course, which also drew on the talents of BSDT professors Terrasa Ulm and Amanda Theinert, culminated with a December performance of Ulm’s original fantasy story, “Waiting for Obols,” in the Michelson Theater. Unlike a traditional play with a defined stage and audience seating, this was a one-of-akind show that encouraged the audience to interact with the performers.

Cove oversaw the design of costumes and props with specialty software. Students acting in the play went through a 3D scan so their peers could design costumes to scale. Darrell-Jarbadan and her students handled the physical aspects of creating the costumes and props.

“This is stretching my skill set and understanding of how my talents can be used. That’s the selfish side,” Cove says. “The unselfish side is that this shows that subdisciplines within game development — mainly 3D art, narrative design, and interactivity — are being brought into experiences that are not games.”

As professors and students cross-pollinate, they’re finding unexpected ways to relate to one another, Cove says. But they’re also teaching each other.

“I’m steeped in games. I’ve been playing them almost all my life and know the culture well. There’s probably some language I can use with my students and colleagues in games that would be unfamiliar to everyone else,” he says. “At the same time, I have no theater experience. I’ve never been involved in any kind of production like this and am already learning new themes, concepts, practices, and things to avoid.”

Greig, who was enrolled in the Interactive Theater course, designed digital versions of the costume for an ethereal cloaked character named Potone. He then had to learn how to give Potone’s garments physical life.

“All my studies have been exclusively computer-based, so it felt awkward to have a needle and a thread in my hands,” he says, “but that’s the beauty of this class.”

Clockwise from top: Stanley Pierre-Louis ’92, CEO and president of the Entertainment Software Association, shown here visiting BSDT, says job prospects in the game industry are robust. Students study armor at the Worcester Art Museum, with plans to incorporate the design into future games. “Waiting for Obols,” a collaboration beween BSDT and Visual and Performing Arts, was staged in December.

«

Gaming culture has clearly arrived at Clark.

Students gather outside of class to in creative exercises they call Game Jams. These events can happen on an international scale, with groups from competing universities racing to complete games by a deadline. On a more casual level, game parties, sometimes called Game Galas, break out among BSDT students and can even evolve into tournament play. And then there are the various levels of esports teams led by coach Nicholas “Shifty” Travis that have attracted students from all Clark disciplines.

“When you play a game, you’re building a community. And it’s a community where we’re able to put aside things like differences of race, differences about where we live,

A new home for BSDT

The Becker School of Design & Technology will have a new home at Clark in Fall 2023 with the opening of the Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design. The building will house not only the BSDT, but also the Computer Science Department and some programs within the Department of Visual and Performing Arts.

As a hub for interdisciplinary research and projects, the Center will have high-end computer labs with double-monitor stations; two virtual- and augmented-reality areas for motion capture and behindthe-scenes functions; a production studio; areas for robotics, makerspaces, and game art; a video game library for play and research; and a gallery for student work. It will be located just southeast of the Strassler Center, between Woodland and Hawthorne streets, and its main entrance will be oriented toward the Goddard Library.

More important than the bells and whistles, however, are the opportunities for multi-department collaboration within the Center’s spaces. “Students will have a place to congregate with students from other disciplines, and I think that’s probably the greatest feature of this new building,” says Paul Cotnoir, dean of the Becker School.

The 70,000-square-foot building will include two wings. Clark is pursuing LEED Gold certification, and the Center will rely primarily on geothermal wells for heating and cooling.

The design firm Ayers Saint Gross facilitated extensive engagement with Clark faculty, students, and staff to envision the scope and structure of the new building, which broke ground last April.

differences between blue states or red states. It doesn’t matter in a game environment,” Cotnoir says.

But the program is about more than play. Interactive media can change the way people learn, and a degree from BSDT covers fine art, user-focused software development, and human-computer interaction.

Ulm describes the seamless fit of the BSDT program with Clark’s liberal arts education as a “perfect marriage.”

“Our program is the study of engagement across all the fields in media,” Ulm explains. “We’re not just technology. We’re design and technology, but also liberal arts and technology. They are all integrated and reliant on each other. If people see that, they recognize how obviously the program fits into a liberal arts education.”

BSDT students can work with the Geography Department to aid in the visualization of GIS data. Or they can collaborate with the Education Department,

using technology to help elementary school students comprehend math concepts.

“Everything at Clark has a human center, whether it’s psychology, sociology, geography, biology, the humanities, or the visual arts,” Cotnoir says. “People can come together and share ideas. That’s really the key that unlocks the door to making games that can help teach.”

With BSDT courses available to all students, undergraduates outside of the interactive media major have taken an interest in gaming and design courses.

“They’ve been coming to events and they’re in our classes,” Ulm says. “It’s been absolutely wonderful to see that smooth transition.”

A key element of BSDT is its Game Studio course. Each Wednesday, sophomores, juniors, and seniors gather in classrooms to build interactive media properties, often working on projects for outside entities.

“It’s similar to real-world scenarios where you work with a team,” says Arielle Johnson ’25. “You learn problemsolving skills. Artists, programmers, and designers learn how to work together and figure it out.”

In the Spring 2022 semester, BSDT students brought historic arms and armor back to life in a video game format through a partnership with the Worcester Art Museum. The museum is home to the John Woodman Higgins Armory Collection, which contains more than 1,500 pieces of arms and armor dating from ancient Egypt to 19th-century Japan. After touring the collection at the museum, students were inspired to turn real-life weapons and armor into game graphics, which appear on screen as players navigate through some of history’s most notable battles. The game was part of the Becker School’s showcase at the PAX East gaming convention in Boston last April.

Ulm is typically contacted by outside entities, ranging from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences to Old Sturbridge Village, who suggest topics that might be turned into games. Students develop, demo, and revise games around health care, defense, education, politics, and emergency management, among other areas.

“While the work can be challenging, it’s also very personal,” Ulm says. “Our goal is to help everyone recognize their potential and their passion.”

« • »

Since the transition to Clark, Cotnoir has noticed that Becker School students appear exceptionally motivated, encouraged by robust student services and the ability to explore an array of subject areas.

“I think it shows they’re interested in this new expansive view that they’re being offered here at Clark,” he says.

Becker graduates have landed jobs at large gaming studios, while others have gravitated toward small independent companies or created their own, determined to make their game idea a reality.

“We want our students to be leaders in the game industry because that’s how they’re going to change the industry,” Cotnoir says.

“And if they change the game industry, they can change the world.”

The Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design will mark the full integration of the Becker School of Design & Technology into campus.

C A M E R AR E A D Y

His images of war, 9/11, and the Capitol insurrection have earned Spencer Platt ’ 94 a front-row seat to history, a reputation for fearlessness, and a Pulitzer Prize.

BY JIM KEOGH

SPENCER PLATT ’94 IS NO STRANGER TO THE UNIMAGINABLE.

As a photojournalist for Getty Images, he has been deployed to some of the world’s most warravaged countries, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Republic of the Congo. He was in New York City on September 11, 2001, his camera capturing the horrific moment when the second plane exploded into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. He was dispatched to Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 to chronicle the immediate aftermath of the shooting deaths of 26 children and teachers, and to the Pulse nightclub in Orlando shortly after 49 people were murdered by a gunman. For more than two decades, his unsparing images have told hard truths.

Still, when he was assigned to cover the confirmation of Joe Biden’s presidential victory in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, Platt was confident that despite Donald Trump’s baseless assertions that the election had been stolen, the day would end peacefully.

“I thought [Trump] would speak, there would be screaming and yelling, then things would settle down and I’d be on the 6:07 back to New York,” he recalls. Even with his “antenna up,” Platt purchased a train ticket to return home to Brooklyn that night.

The ticket never got used. By day’s end, he had borne witness to an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob intent on halting the final step in the electoral process and forcefully reinstalling Trump as president. In the mayhem outside the building, as rioters stormed metal barricades and attacked Capitol police officers, Platt trained his camera on a man in a red hoodie and black ball cap clutching an American flag while the crowd swirled around him. The man’s face was covered in a gas mask, but his eyes, visible behind the glass, turned toward Platt, acknowledging his camera just as the photo was taken.

Platt’s picture of the rioter earned him a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news, an honor shared with four Getty colleagues whose collection of gripping photos chronicle the assault on the Capitol.

When he looks at the photo, Platt wonders what became of the man in the gas mask or what his motivations were for storming the Capitol, but, as he notes, “We had no time to chat.”

Platt’s road to the Pulitzer has Clark origins. The photography student from Darien, Connecticut, found classroom work far less alluring than the streets of Worcester, which he roamed at every opportunity, camera in hand. His mentor, Professor Stephen DiRado, “pushed me out the door to meet people, to explore the city, which is what I did. And I discovered that street photography was my forte. This is what I loved.”

Platt worked as a freelancer for the Worcester Telegram the summer after he graduated from Clark, before landing his first full-time photography job at a small newspaper in Milford, Massachusetts. A few years later, while working at a paper in New York state, he used some vacation time to travel to Albania when it was experiencing violent political protests. His

(Opposite page) Spencer Platt and one of his images from 9/11. (From top) Platt’s 2007 World Press Photo of the Year taken at the site of a bombing in Beirut. He chronicled this Manhattan protest against the Iranian regime following the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after allegedly violating the country’s hijab rules.

series of photographs were published in the newspaper, and one of them was republished by LIFE magazine.

“Albania was in severe strife at the time — you could hear the guns. I knew then that this is what I’m cut out for,” he recalls. “I’m not an adrenaline junkie, but I do like some risk and adventure.

“Photojournalism offers me an unpredictable life. The news sometimes can wear me down, but there’s no way I can just read about it. I have a mental and physical need to witness it. That’s what leads me into those places.”

It’s in those places where Platt documents conflict in its rawest and most perilous form. The fallout from September 11 set the course of his career for the next five years, much of that time spent photographing the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He remembers being lined up with other journalists on the Kuwait-Iraq border, awaiting the official declaration of war.

“We all had rental trucks, ready to go. When the gun went off, we started them up and sped off into the desert. It was like the start of some mad endurance car race.”

The settings were chaotic; the conditions lethal; the work exhilarating. Platt can speak with authority about what it’s like to navigate a road cratered by explosions, or the whistling sound an approaching shell makes as you hurl yourself to the ground. He shot photos, and was shot at with rifles.

“I thrived on it,” he says of his time in high-conflict areas, “but I was also pragmatic. When you’re in it, ultimately, your main goal is to make it out of there. I’ve lost a number of colleagues covering war, and each loss brings home that this is serious and can happen in a very small conflict, or the biggest conflict.”

Some threats are less explicit. While covering the Arab Spring rebellions a decade ago, Pratt roamed Cairo while it was under military lockdown. “There was a surreal quality to it — like walking through Manhattan on a Tuesday afternoon and nobody is there,” he recalls. “You could feel the soldiers eyeing you, debating what to do with you. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have been out on the streets at that moment.”

Platt won the 2007 World Press Photo of the Year for his image of a group of Lebanese men and women cruising in a red convertible past

the wreckage of a recent bombing. Years ago, he was in Ukraine chronicling the Russian invasion of the Donbas region when he was detained at a roadblock by Chechen soldiers who believed he was a spy.

“There were some heated moments,” he says. “With Russian soldiers, things can escalate pretty quickly if you don’t have someone on the scene who is level-headed.”

Platt no longer seeks out assignments in war zones. He acknowledges that as the married

father of a young daughter, family considerations play into his decisions about the length of time he spends away from home and the risks he’ll assume. “I’d be lying if I said having a child doesn’t affect the calculations you make,” he says.

Despite the changing calculus of his career, Platt would gladly welcome the opportunity to bring his camera to places where political and economic instabilities exert themselves on vulnerable populations

sort of emotional armor allowing him to capture images at the scene.

When he arrived in Newtown, Connecticut, the day of the Sandy Hook shootings, he had to struggle against his own sadness and disbelief — and the surreality of schoolchildren being murdered in classrooms just 30 miles from where he grew up — to emerge with photos that captured both the devastation and resilience of the townspeople.

He faced similar challenges at the scenes of the Pulse nightclub massacre and the 2022 supermarket shooting in Buffalo that left 10 people dead. Always, he says, the photographer needs to find a way to compartmentalize the dispiriting emotions to get at the story.

“You have to make yourself a little bit numb to what has happened, or you wouldn’t be able to function,” he says. “In the end, we have a responsibility to cover these stories we have to get the news out. There are some people who would prefer we don’t do that and just go away. But the response is, ‘No. We’re not going to forget what happened here.’ ”

Through his lens, Platt not only chronicles the world’s conflicts, but celebrates its joys. He’s photographed the Tour de France and bread makers in Tripoli; communities of people at their most buoyant and individuals in quiet reflection. The subjects of these pictures are a persistent reminder of the good things among us that deserve a Spencer Platt photograph.

Sometimes, accessing those things requires a well-timed road trip.

— if those opportunities are ever offered. He’s troubled by media organizations’ unwillingness to extend their storytelling resources to parts of the world where long-standing problems go unrecognized because they don’t align with consumers’ short-term interests and flickering attention spans. Catastrophe and scandal rule the day.

“I try not to be cynical about the news business, but the story that dominates today is

easily eclipsed by novelty and titillation,” he says. “We’re too easily distracted and forget what’s happening elsewhere, especially in places like Central Africa that don’t always get a lot of attention. If I can find an editor to support coverage in those locations, I will always accept that work.”

Platt has covered his share of American tragedies, each of them requiring that he don a

Once he’d finished his grim assignment in Buffalo, Platt climbed onto his Moto Guzzi motorcycle and left for an appointment in Syracuse. To decompress from what he’d just experienced, he chose a route that took him along backroads and through small towns. Within 20 minutes, he was passing by Little League games in progress and waving back to the people who waved to him from outside their homes. It was the tonic he needed.

“Here I was, just an hour before, thinking that this country is hopeless,” he says. “Maybe I’m romanticizing, but it’s important to recognize the great things happening every minute of every day, and remember there are a lot of good people in this world. I always try to remind myself of that.”

A young boy looks through concertina wire at three United Nations peacekeepers at a refugee camp in Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo, following a wave of ethnic killings. Platt took the photo in 2003.

FR OM SANDY HOOK

T O THE BOSTON MARATHON

T O UVALDE, CLARK PSYCHOLOGIST WENDY GROLNICK

TREATS THE HIDDEN WOUNDS OF TRAGEDY.

By Jim Keogh Pho tography by Steve King

HE IMAGES emerging from Uvalde, Texas, were as familiar as they were haunting. Police vehicles crowded around a school entrance. Parents clutching their children, weeping and dazed. Bystanders solemnly laying flowers and teddy bears at a makeshift shrine.

But those scenes following the May 24, 2022, massacre of 19 students and two teachers by a gunman at Robb Elementary School were simply the public face of this terrible event. The moment she learned of the shooting, Clark Psychology Professor Wendy Grolnick knew that, away from the cameras, members of the Uvalde community were staggered by grief, rage, and confusion, and that they needed immediate help from mental health professionals.

As she’d done many times in the past — following the Sandy Hook shooting and the Boston Marathon bombing; after fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes

— Grolnick reached out to the American Red Cross and volunteered to head down to Uvalde. Soon, she was again at the site of a national tragedy.

Grolnick first contacted the American Red Cross in 2007 to volunteer her services at disaster sites in her Western Massachusetts community. After years of research and teaching, the longtime Clark professor and specialist in family dynamics looked forward to doing more clinical work and believed she could be of value assisting local people who were left reeling after a life-altering event.

“The opportunity to work directly with people one-on-one pulled me right in,” she recalls.

After undergoing Red Cross training, Grolnick joined the organization’s Disaster Mental Health Team and began supporting people at their rawest and most vulnerable moments in the wake of fires, drownings, and accidents — when they may be struggling to make sense of the death of a loved one, the destruction of personal property, or even their own survival.

By 2011, she’d been promoted to lead the Disaster Mental Health Team for the Western Massachusetts region. Two weeks into her new position, a tornado ripped through the city of Springfield and surrounding towns, killing three people and injuring 200. The twister was both calamitous and exceedingly rare for New England.

“That was my first experience with a big operation,” she remembers. “I’d never seen anything of that magnitude. These people were very distressed when they showed up at the Red Cross shelter, not only from the devastation, but

because they had never experienced a tornado in Springfield — it was unheard of.”

By then, Grolnick had visited enough disaster scenes to appreciate the resilience that people exhibit under the most daunting circumstances. But she also knew that coping with an event that falls outside the realm of typical human experience leaves the survivors questioning whether their response to it is “normal.”

“Even when the immediate danger has passed, people are still terrified and overwhelmed and angry. They may be experiencing all kinds of emotions, and they’re unsure if these emotions are appropriate because they’ve never been in this extreme situation before. We work to help them understand that their reactions are understandable. They’re having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.”

Crisis intervention at a disaster site is not the same as clinical therapy, which is built around an ongoing relationship between a mental health professional and a client. Grolnick is present to help sustain people in the moment and to share strategies that allow them to move forward — even if that means simply determining what they’ll do the following day. Most important, she works to marshal local mental health services for the support they’ll require over the long term to deal with their personal pain once the disaster team has left.

Wendy Grolnick’s name appears on a list of licensed mental health professionals who, depending on their availability, are deployed to disasters across the country. As part of the Red Cross’ Disaster Response Operation team, she is typically on-site within 24 to 48 hours of an event, but has also been called as much as a week later to assist.

“In order to do this work, you have to be really honest with yourself that you can go to a mass-casualty event and see person after person who has been affected,” she says. “You need to be sure you’re in the right psychological space and that the resources are in place at home so that you’re able to say, ‘This is the right time for me to go.’”

To help prevent burnout, Red Cross protocols limit how often Grolnick and her colleagues can be deployed to certain kinds of events as well as the number of consecutive days they can be in the field. She typically responds to two or three national-level events in a year.

“What happens on these operations is that the team becomes connected very quickly, and we really look out for one another,” she says. “At Sandy Hook, after one of us would talk to a family, we would all support that person, and

“We tell parents that despite the terrible thing they’re going through, life will go on, and their kid will be a kid again.”

then we’d send each other back out. You have to be very mindful of how you’re reacting in that moment.”

The sheer number of disasters that occur in any given year can mean that some events earn far less public attention than others. Six years ago, Grolnick traveled to West Virginia after a series of floods ravaged the Charleston area. Twenty-three people perished as surging waters and mud flows engulfed entire towns and choked off access to homes and businesses.

“Everything was wiped out,” she remembers. “Every store and pharmacy was gone. People came to the shelter with no meds, no phones, no access to family members and friends. All they had were the clothes on their backs. But when I returned from West Virginia and told people what was going on there, the response was, ‘Oh?’ They hadn’t known about it.”

In 2013, Grolnick sped to Boston to assist with the emergency response after learning that two bombs had detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, firing deadly shrapnel into the crowd. A year later, she was stationed at the starting line to talk runners through their fears of entering a race that still wore the scars of the attack. Some racers were burdened by memories of that day and questioned whether they wanted to compete.

“It was a very interesting experience psychologically that following year,” she says. “I talked with people who had been at the marathon the year before and hadn’t completed the race. Returning to the marathon was more than some of them had bargained for, so I talked them through it and walked them through some exercises to help them relax. I let them know that they did not have to do this if it felt like too much.”

Supporting the surviving children and their families in the aftermath of a mass-casualty event like Sandy Hook and Uvalde requires special care and consideration. Sometimes it can take the form of restoring a semblance of order to lives upended by unimaginable chaos.

“We want to be sure every child has an opportunity to have counseling,” Grolnick notes. “We tell parents that they will help see their child through this; that despite the terrible thing they’re going through, life will go on, and their kid will be a kid again.”

Working through the emotions in the aftermath of a traumatic event can take many forms. “Some people don’t want to talk about it, and that’s okay. We never push or pressure anyone to talk. Each person’s timetable is different.”

Children may express themselves through drawing or painting. “Sometimes it can be a matter of simply providing paper and a pencil, or some kind of activity, or an opportunity to talk. Kids will find a way to express themselves.”

Grolnick has advocated for more research on the impact of disasters on children and families. During a yearlong fellowship at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Washington, D.C., in 2014–15, she organized a conference that asked hard questions about whether the current approaches to mental health interventions at disasters were helping to curb instances of post-traumatic stress disorder, and where improvements could be made. She later was the lead author of an article published in American Psychologist that argued for a more robust database of relevant research funded through the National Institutes of Health.

When she was interviewed for this piece, Grolnick had been in Uvalde only weeks earlier and had gone through a necessary period of decompression.

“Sometimes coming home is the most difficult part,” she acknowledges. “You feel so much for the people you’ve worked with, whom you’ve had to leave behind as you return to your own life. And when you get back, you really can’t explain what it was like.”

Red Cross procedures mandated that Grolnick wouldn’t be requested to assist at the site of a major crisis in the immediate future. But eventually, inevitably, that call will come. And when it does, she will gladly return to the front line.

“I’m with people at the worst times in their lives,” she says, “and I’m honored that they allow me to be there.”

Pictured are the credentials Wendy Grolnick carries with her to disaster sites across the country.

GUITAR TO

Long before he upheld the law, Judge George Overton ’76 brought down the house in style.

gavel

< From the bench in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, Judge George Overton ’76 renders decisions on legal matters that don’t make headlines but are indelible milestones in the lives of everyday people: the final resolution of a family member’s estate; the care and custody of someone incapacitated by illness or age; the adoption of a child.

The legal complexities and charged emotions surrounding these cases require Overton to balance compassion with objectivity.

“You have to submerge your personal feelings because everybody has personal beliefs or leanings,” he says. “But when you hear a case, you have to put those aside.”

There was a time, prior to establishing his reputation as an impartial jurist, when Overton did indeed express himself with flair and feeling, performing with the popular R&B group The Stylistics in front of thousands — from New York to New Zealand, San Francisco to Singapore.

How he got there is a Philadelphia story. <

By Kim Priore | Photography by Monica Herndon

SINCE EARLY CHILDHOOD, music has always been a part of Overton’s life. He began playing piano at age 7, and for seven years studied classical piano before his parents gave him permission to switch to guitar.

Changing instruments was irresistible for young George. He grew up in Philadelphia in the 1960s during the advent of The Philadelphia Sound, characterized by funk influences and lush instrumental arrangements, often featuring sweeping strings and piercing horns. Across the street lived the young bass player for Patti LaBelle and Grover Washington. Amazing music was the neighborhood oxygen.

“They would be rehearsing outside during the summer, and we would hear the music. The guitar just kind of caught my ear,” Overton recalls. “Once I got to eighth grade, I switched instruments.”

His good friend Ed Moore, who lived around the corner, played guitar and became an important mentor. Overton began performing with several local groups, including one called Chromatic Funk, whose lead singer, Jimmy Williams, went on to become a recording artist with the group Double Exposure.

“I played during the summers all throughout college, and even when I was at Clark, I would sit in with a lot of the groups that would come through, just to keep my guitar skills up. I met a lot of great musicians who were very helpful in terms of sharing their craft — people like Larry Coryell, George Benson, and Earl Klugh.”

Overton came to Clark through a connection with his employer’s son, who encouraged him to look at schools in the Northeast. He initially majored in English before moving to political science and eventually earning a degree in sociology.

“I got a great education,” he says. “I was involved in student government, played some intramural sports, and actually did a short stint with the crew team. It was a wonderful, very enriching environment. I met a lot of good people, some of whom I maintain friendships with to this day.”

After graduation, Overton devoted himself to music. He toured the U.S. with a group called Blue Magic before joining the Philadelphia soul group The Stylistics, with whom he went on a six-month world tour in 1982. The Stylistics, who continue to perform today, formed in 1968 and surged in popularity in the 1970s with some of the most recognizable songs of the era. Their chart-topping odes to young love and heartache — like “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” “You Are Everything,” “Betcha by Golly, Wow,” and “I’m Stone in Love with You” — became touchstones for legions of fans.

Even in the early 1980s, with their biggest hits behind them, The Stylistics were a formidable band, and being on stage with them was heady stuff as the group toured throughout Asia, Australia, and Europe. But over time, the allure of the road waned for the Philly guitarist. “I think I knew all along that I wouldn’t perform for the rest of my life, although I knew I’d always play the guitar in some form or fashion. But touring allowed me to travel, see the world, and play some great music.”

Craving more stability in his life, Overton turned his attention to another aspiration he’d had since childhood: becoming a lawyer.

Just as music permeated his young life, so did the presence of “giants” in Philadelphia’s Black community — among them prominent lawyers — whom the young George had met through his father. Something about their distinguished bearing and their polish stirred in him a desire to maybe one day follow in their footsteps.

As an adult, interacting with lawyers and others on the business side of the music industry reignited Overton’s earlier dreams of pursuing a law career. He took prep courses, passed the LSAT, and applied to a few schools before enrolling at Delaware Law School at Widener University. “Actually, I was on the road when I found out I got accepted to Delaware,” he recalls. “I think I was in the Middle East at the time.”

During his first year of law school, he continued touring with The Stylistics.

“ WHEN THE JUDGE COMES INTO THE COURTROOM AND THEY SAY, ‘ALL STAND,’ PEOPLE ARE NOT STANDING FOR ME — I’M STANDING, TOO.”

“Wherever we’d be traveling, I would study en route. When I had downtime, I had the books with me. I just made it work,” Overton says. That level of discipline came naturally for someone who had practiced up to 10 hours a day to master the guitar. His fellow musicians, he notes, ultimately understood his desire for a career change. “In talking to the guys in the group, they certainly say it wasn’t a bad decision!” he laughs.

He officially left The Stylistics at the start of his second year of law school. It was around this same time that he married, and he and his wife, Nadine, went on to have two sons. After graduating, he entered private practice in the area of general civil litigation.

As his career progressed, Overton was presented with the prospect of a judgeship. When first approached about the possibility, he declined, saying he wanted to gain more experience and that he was enjoying the practice of law. Several years later, he was asked again. This time, he considered it more seriously.

“I realized that I could bring the skills I had developed, the insight and the maturity, and I could be an asset to the bench,” he says. “Sometimes your focus is one way, but when opportunities present, you have to step out of your comfort zone.”

He hasn’t looked back. Since being elected to the bench in 2001, Overton has served in the criminal, civil, and family court divisions, and currently resides in “Orphans’ Court,” a division of the Court of Common Pleas, where he hears probate cases, nonprofit charitable matters, cases involving minors, and incapacity cases.

The work is not without its challenges. Overton cites the responsibility to “make decisions that may be at odds with how I personally feel about a particular matter, because the evidence may not support my particular beliefs.”

The greatest reward of the position? “Being able to serve the citizens of Philadelphia and citizens of this commonwealth,” he answers without hesitation. He also recently completed a term serving as president of the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges, where he represented more than 450 judicial colleagues.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being a judge, because it allows me to exercise that part of my brain that is analytical and geared toward the law,” he says.

The transition from a law practice to the bench came with an unforeseen benefit: It opened up some space in his life to continue playing music. Overton jams with several

informal bands composed of professionals from the law, medicine, academia, and business who want to continue indulging their love of performing music.

The judge has never had trouble finding a connection between music and the law. Each is about being part of something larger than yourself, he insists. Playing an instrument inspires camaraderie among musicians, and a judge is “the representative of a system and a process.”

“When I do things, I’m mindful of my representation of the court as a whole,” he says. “It’s not just an individual pursuit. When the judge comes into the courtroom and they say, ‘All stand,’ people are not standing for me I’m standing, too. We’re standing for the system that we all represent.”

Of course, Overton and his fellow Stylistics also experienced standing ovations from thousands of fans expressing appreciation for their artistry.

“My friends from the music world and those from the legal world are often amazed that I’m able to meld the two,” he acknowledges. “But to me it just seemed like a natural transition, an evolution. You can’t have a world without music, and you can’t have a world without law. They both provide something that we can’t live without.”

“ YOU CAN’T HAVE A WORLD WITHOUT MUSIC, AND YOU CAN’T HAVE A WORLD WITHOUT LAW.”

George Overton (right) performing in England with The Stylistics in 1982.

Clark Inspired: A Strategic Framework for Our Future

IN SUMMER 2020 , our University began an 18-month process to develop a strategic framework to lay out a course for the University’s future. A steering committee of faculty and staff representatives gathered and drove broad participation and engagement of faculty, staff, and students.

The result is Clark Inspired, a living document that is adaptable to changing circumstances, serving as a dynamic guide for decision-making and planning over the coming years. Unlike a fixed strategic plan, Clark Inspired has no end date, allowing us to engage in an iterative process of ongoing evolution put that puts ideas into action.

Five core goals

The framework is geared toward fulfilling five overarching goals. The goals are grounded in Clark’s mission and values and will operate as a compass to help the University stay on course.

• Achieving greater excellence in academic and research programs

• Advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion

• Enhancing the campus experience

• Expanding outward engagement

• Broadening institutional capacity

Areas of Focus

Clark Inspired is built upon core academic and foundational areas of focus to elevate Clark’s position as a university of distinction. Four academic areas of focus capitalize on Clark’s intellectual, institutional, and educational assets to push the institution forward — building on strengths and traditions in search of new levels of academic excellence, and enhancing the ways in which Clark University is distinctive and unique. The academic areas of focus include:

• Climate and global change

• Creative arts, media, design, and technology

• Science and health

• Social and urban issues

At the same time, Clark has established five foundational areas of focus through which we will identify and refine multiple initiatives to promote excellence across the University and prepare the University to better meet the future needs of the Clark

In pursuing our bold path forward, we affirm an indisputable fact — that we are all a part of something worthwhile and important, and that the world needs Clark.”

—PRESIDENT DAVID B. FITHIAN ’87

community. Within and across these five areas of focus, the University is developing initiatives and investments aimed at promoting students’ relationships with each other and with Clark. New spaces will be created that allow faculty, students, and staff to better connect with one another and the Worcester community, and the quality of our classrooms will be improved to align with our academic vision of transforming Clark’s liberal arts education. The foundational areas of focus include:

• Student success

• Culture and identity

• Physical environment

• Environmental sustainability

• Amplifying excellence

Current Effort

Multiple Initiatives Teams, made up of faculty and staff from across the University, are further refining the initiatives within each area of focus in Clark Inspired. Teams are at different stages of the process, generating new ideas and inspiration, developing visions, making plans, or even moving into implementation. These teams are playing an important role in driving movement forward, prioritizing resources, and channeling community engagement.

You can learn more about Clark Inspired and some of the exciting initiatives already underway at: Clarku.edu/Inspired.

Clark Inspired is a strategic roadmap to inspire steady and persistent progress and position Clark as a university of distinction.

A love of work, of learning, of life

Dianne Dyslin has always approached life at full throttle.

She likes to travel, so she’s been to 30 countries and 45 states.

Her passion for learning led her to earn three master’s degrees.

When she lost her job as director of donor relations as part of widespread layoffs at Yeshiva University — whose finances were hit hard in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme — she secured a position in 2009 at Clark, where she works as associate director of stewardship in the office of University Advancement.

But Dyslin’s most formidable challenge presented itself in 2016 when a routine mammogram revealed a suspicious mass. Further testing confirmed metastatic breast cancer that likely had been growing for years and had advanced to her lower spine. Doctors gave her a prognosis of two to three years. That was six years ago.

And counting.

Dyslin underwent a mastectomy and has endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy, as well as radiation treatments to her right jaw, where the cancer spread. The disease is in her bones now, but she insists there is no pain.

She has responded to her situation in the only fashion that makes sense to her: by

continuing to travel and learn, and finding purpose in her work for Clark University.

When a donor makes a gift to Clark for a directed use, it’s Dyslin’s job to share with them how their gift is making an impact. She may profile a student who is receiving a scholarship that has put a Clark education within their reach, highlight the distinctive research of a faculty member who holds an endowed chair, or report on a donor-supported lecture.

She enjoys sharing these examples of how donors’ gifts are making a tangible difference, taking particular delight in showcasing student accomplishments.

“We want our donors to know how much they are appreciated,” she says, “and they want to know that their gift is being used wisely. If we can show them that it is, they may be inclined to give again.”

Dyslin arrived at Clark with an ALM (Master of Liberal Arts) in psychology from Harvard Extension and a master’s in organizational psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University (she earned her bachelor’s in comparative religion and psychology from Boston University). She has since earned her master’s in professional communication at Clark and studied in the master of public administration program. For good measure, she’s also taken 10 undergraduate courses at Clark, most of them in criminal justice.

“I just love learning. That’s why working in higher ed has been the perfect fit for me,” she says.

Her international travel destinations are a source of pride — Mongolia, Australia, and United Arab Emirates are some of the places she’s been. On her most recent trip, last spring, she kept it closer to home, visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania, Harpers Ferry, and Shenandoah National Park, among other destinations. She suspects she may have taken her last vacation, in large part because she relies on the nutritional supplement Ensure, which can be hard to find on the road (“They don’t sell it in gas stations and convenience stores,” she notes.)

While the medicines do fatigue her, the only concession Dyslin makes is allowing herself a lunchtime nap in her car to recharge herself for the second half of her day and taking the rare (very rare) day off to rest. She keeps a full schedule, and is glad to be working on campus rather than remotely, as she did during the COVID lockdown. While employees are eligible to work three days in the office and two days from home, she chooses to come to Clark every day.

“For me, it’s so much better to be back in person and connected to campus,” she says. “People have left it up to me about how I prefer to work, but I find it’s more productive to be in the office.”

Asked if she’d ever considered retirement, Dyslin, 68, laughs. “No,” she says. “I feel more productive when I’m working.

“I’m actually grateful for work, and my supervisor, George Bacher, has made it possible for me to get to all my appointments and treatments.”

Those treatments continued with a new regimen of chemotherapy infusions that began in mid-December, a week after this interview took place. Dyslin was typically nonchalant about how she would approach chemo. “I’ll drive to UMass Medical Center, get the treatment, and drive back to work.” Asked if she had any help managing the logistics, she was blunt: “I don’t need any.” She said this with a smile.

Then she added, “I’m going to keep going until I can’t.”

Jim Keogh

Who bought my house?

Greetings from Garrett | Relaunching a legend | The Steinbrecher legacy

Our time to look ahead

This past November the Alumni Council met on campus, bringing together alumni from California, Puerto Rico, and even Clark’s backyard of Worcester. We had the opportunity to connect with past presidents of the Alumni Council and the current GOLD Council.

Whenever you gather as a group of alumni it is easy to get nostalgic. We reminisce about fall at Clark — with leaves falling on the Green, first-year students building lifelong friendships in Wright and Bullock, and student groups preparing their first events and showcases of the year.

But on this early November weekend, we spent a lot of time looking ahead.

We toured the newly renovated Little Center/Michelson Theater and even saw a sneak peak of the debut show, “Assassins.” The bones are still there from my time at Clark, but the inside is refreshed and ready for the performances of the future.

We walked by the frame of the Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design (MACD), which was erected at warp speed. The inner core of the campus will feel familiar as you walk through, but the campus footprint is growing. The new MACD brings a cutting-edge building to host the Becker School of Design & Technology on Clark’s campus.

The future isn’t only in the buildings, it is also in the people. Clark unveiled a Division of Student Success to foster synergy, responsiveness, collaboration, and integration while creating a holistic, student-centered approach to student support. The Division of Student Success will create the foundation for a new generation of Clark students as they join us in the alumni community.

And as the student body becomes more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, it is also important that we recognize and understand that some of our fellow Clarkies do not look back on their time on campus with nostalgia and fondness. The essence of the Clarkie is the same: to Challenge Convention and Change the World. But we must be better as we look to the future.

I am excited to begin my two-year term as the Alumni Council president — to work with an amazing group of our fellow alumni, and to stand on the shoulders of the past presidents, including the most recent, Mary Owens ’86, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for her guidance and mentorship.

This year, we will continue to build on our DEI efforts, engage international students and alumni, and expand the Alumni Council Awards presented annually. My goal is to increase the reach of the Alumni Council, to have a visible presence at events, to engage in dialogue across the alumni community, and to welcome each new graduating class as they become alumni.

One way you can make an immediate impact on the future is through your annual fund gift. You can designate your gift to the area on campus that is most important to you like the D’Army Bailey ’65 Diversity Fund, the Student Emergency Fund, or Clark Fund Scholarships, or you can make an unrestricted gift to The Clark Fund, which benefits the areas of greatest need. No matter what area you choose to support, you are making a difference for our campus community.

Fiat Lux.

GARRETT ABRAHAMSON ’07, MBA ’08 President, Clark Alumni Council

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?

Did you get a promotion? Get married?

Write a book?

Meet up with fellow Clarkies for a mini-reunion?

We want to hear all about it, and your classmates do, too.

Send your class note to: classnotes@clarku.edu

Want to send a photo? Please be sure it’s as high resolution as possible (preferably 300 dpi) and send it as an attachment to your email.

Or, if you prefer snail mail:

Melissa Lynch, Associate Editor Clark University Marketing and Communications 950 Main St. Worcester, MA 01610

ROBERT BROOKS, M.A. ’66, PH.D. ’69, a clinical psychologist, recently published his 19th book, “Tenacity in Children: Nurturing the Seven Instincts for Lifetime Success” (Springer Publishing). The book, co-authored with his colleague Sam Goldstein, elaborates upon their earlier writings related to resilience in children and adults. Bob, former director of the Department of Psychology at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, is married to fellow Clark grad Marilyn Brooks ’67. They have two sons and four grandchildren — and their daughter-in-law Suzanne is also a Clark alum in the Class of 1994.

1964

LAWRENCE BERK has embarked on a second career as a movie extra and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. To name a few roles: he is a vampire in the soon-to-be-released film adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot,” a Pilgrim judge in “Hocus Pocus 2,” a ballroom guest in HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” a lawyer in Apple TV’s “Defending Jacob,” and even on stage as a Renaissance gentleman in Boston Ballet’s “Swan Lake.” He writes, “It’s a wonderful and rewarding way to enjoy semi-retirement.”

1966

RICHARD LITTLE discovered lithified armored mud balls — which date to the Jurassic Era, 200 million years ago — in the quarried stone supports of an old bridge in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, in 1970. He is a co-organizer of the current “Save the Rare Massachusetts Armored Mud Balls (AMBs)” project, which seeks to have AMBs designated as the official state sedimentary structure. Designation as an official “state symbol” would protect and celebrate these rare geologic forms, which document interesting and hard-to-preserve Earth events. Visit armoredmudballs. rocks to learn more and watch a video in which Richard explains more about AMBs.

1970

RICK KALETSKY wants to let his fellow Clark alums know that the most recent edition of his book “Ali and Me: Through the Ropes” is available by contacting Rick at rkaletsky@gmail.com or 203-393-1233. This updated account of his longtime friendship with Muhammad Ali includes additional photos of Rick with the legendary boxer, an epilogue, and other tweaks. Besides writing about Ali, Rick created a museum devoted to the fighter’s career in the basement of his Connecticut home.

1973

DAVID BRENERMAN has been named to the 2023 class of the Maine Jewish Hall of Fame, which was founded in 2018 to recognize Maine Jewish leaders who have brought distinction and honor to the State of Maine or beyond. The Hall of Fame is honoring David for his life and work, which reflects “the Jewish value of making the world a better place through outstanding accomplishments and/or humanitarian endeavors.” The induction ceremony will take place on Sunday, May 21, 2023. David is a member of the Clark University Alumni Council and is looking forward to celebrating his 50th Clark reunion this spring.

MICHAEL ACREE, M.A. ’73, PH.D. ’78, has published “The Myth of Statistical Inference” (Springer Publishing) — a rewrite of his dissertation under Clark psychology professors Rachel Falmagne and the late Lenny Cirillo — about 35 years in the making. According to the publisher: “General readers will find here an interesting study with implications far beyond statistics. The development of statistical inference, to its present position of prominence in the social sciences, epitomizes a number of trends in Western intellectual history of the last three centuries, and the 11th chapter, considering the function of statistical inference in light of our needs for structure, rules, authority, and consensus in general, develops some provocative parallels, especially between epistemology and politics.”

1976

DAVID BUSHMAN has published “Murder at Teal’s Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks.” Co-authored with Mark Givens and including a foreword by Mark Frost, co-creator of the TV show “Twin Peaks,” the book reconstructs and investigates the 1908 murder of Hazel Drew, which inspired the television show. David spent 27 years as a television curator at The Paley Center for Media and has taught media at colleges in the New York area. He is the founding president and publisher at Fayetteville Mafia Press, dedicated to producing high-quality nonfiction by authors with distinctive voices and original insights into the world around them.

1978

MELANIE KILLEN is professor of human development and quantitative methodology and affiliate professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, where she researches the origins of morality and justice as well as the emergence of prejudice and bias in childhood and adolescence. She is currently conducting a randomized control trial of a web-based curriculum tool and classroom discussion component called “Developing Inclusive Youth,” a program her team created with funding from the NIH/NICHD and the National Science Foundation, which has been featured in various news outlets. Previously, she was commissioned by CNN’s AC360, hosted by Anderson Cooper, to design, implement, and analyze the results of a special study on how children form opinions on race — research that was central to the program’s Emmy Award-winning series “Kids on Race: The Hidden Picture.” Melanie mentors both doctoral students and undergraduate research assistants, and has fond memories of her days as an undergraduate research assistant for professors Ina Uzgiris, William Damon, and Roger Bibace in the Clark Psychology Department.

class notes

Clark University alums, many of whom played for Clark’s club hockey team, gathered in Boston for the NCAA Frozen Four in April 2022. (Left, from front) JOE FITZPATRICK ’80, JOHN

1980

JUDITH PEDERSON, PH.D. ’80, received a 2021 Harbor Hero Award from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, on whose board of directors she served for more than 30 years. A former coastal ecologist at the MIT Sea Grant College Program, she was honored for her decades of advocacy and policy development toward improving the waters of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay.

1983

RUSSELL GREAVES has been appointed as director of the Office of Contract Archeology (OCA) of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico (UNM). He has more than 40 years of archaeological experience in the American Southwest, Great Plains, and other areas. He also has collaborated on complementary ethnoarchaeological projects with several Native American groups in the Southwest, and

has performed extensive ethnographic fieldwork with Pumé hunter-gatherers of Venezuela and Yucatec Maya farmers of Mexico. In his role as OCA director, Rusty is looking forward to contributing to the office’s legacy of sophisticated public archaeology at UNM.

1987

CHRISTOPHER E. SICKELS has published the “Life Legacy Trilogy,” a fictional series centered on social philosophy, decision-making, happiness, personal freedom, and reflection. The series, available on Amazon, includes a playful short comedy about how women and men eventually find love, a thought-provoking book about 365 progressive life questions, and a unique collection of people’s secrets. describing what they are hiding, and when/whether their secrets are ever revealed. Chris is a senior executive director of development at the University of California – San Diego.

1990

BRIAN LEBEAU, M.A. ’90, has published “A Disturbing Nature,” a psychological thriller set in New England in 1975. From the publisher: “When FBI Chief Investigator Francis Palmer and Maurice Lumen’s paths collide, a dozen young women are already dead — bodies strewn in the woods across southern New England. Crippled by the loss of their families and haunted by mistakes, Palmer and Lumen wrestle with skeletons and ghosts neither understands.” Previously, Brian taught economics at several colleges and universities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island before moving to Fauquier County, Virginia, to work as a defense

A group of Clark alumni friends met up at Far Shot in downtown Worcester for an hour of axe throwing in August. From right: SCOTT HEFFERNAN ’94, RICH PEDRICK ’95, NATHAN TILL ’99, MICHAEL MOONEY ’93, MBA ’94, AARON GRANLUND ’97, RAVI SINGH ’01, ARUNA WICKREMERATNE ’95, MBA ’96, IAN ROSENBLUTH ’01, and CARL LEONG ’95.

ANDRELIUNAS ’82, DAVID KAHL ’81, GORDON DIEHL ’82; (right, from front) JOSH LEBENGER ’80, JOHN CANAVARI ’82, JONATHAN KAPPEL ’81, RUSS CANAVARI ’83, and TOM DOLAN ’79.

ANGELO GUISADO ’08 and CAITLIN ROGERS ’08 were married on Aug. 6, 2022. Celebrating with them were Bill Cobb ’08, Kenyon Hayes ’08, M.A. ’11, Kim Edwards ’09, Aliza Kuperstock ’08, Rachel Kenemore ’08, Abby Cost, Erin Burns-Maine ’08, M.A./CDP ’09, Hallie Picard, Ashley Emerson-Gilbert ’08, M.A./IDSC ’92, Amy McPheeters ’08, M.A./CDP ’09, Hannah Cox ’12, Ryan Dougherty ’09, Mallory Gagnon ’09, MBA ’11, David Gagnon ’09, MBA ’10, Nell Strizich ’09, MSPC ’10, Joe Silva ’08, Luke Neustadt ’10, Danielle Center ’08, MAT ’09, Rory Ruane ’08, MSPC ’09, Mike Woodruff ’08, Joel Kolkmann ’08, MPA ’09, Kelly Richardson ’10, and Jim Callahan ’09.

contractor for two decades. In his debut novel, he merges three key interests: a keen fascination with World War II, a morbid curiosity surrounding the motivations and mayhem of notorious serial killers, and a lifelong obsession with the Red Sox. Learn more at brianlebeau.com.

1993

PAUL E. LAMBERT, M.A. ’93, has been elected vice president of the New England Historical Association. Paul is a member of the history faculty at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts, where he has taught since 1995.

1994

HONG JIANG, M.A. ’94, PH.D. ’97, associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, recently won a Fulbright U.S. Scholars award for her academic research on tea cultures in Taiwan, where she studied the factors and processes for making oolong tea in Taiwan’s mountainous area — specifically the transformation from tea leaves to processed teas as a culture of taste. Her research interests have spanned human-environment geography to GIS, cultural-political ecology, and now cultural geography. She received the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa College of Social Science’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016.

SUSAN WRIGHT is the lead author of the 2021 forensic science textbook, “So You Want to Be a CSI?” and created an online component for the creation of virtual crime scenes. After graduating from Clark, Susan earned her master’s in forensic science from George Washington University in 2002. She worked as a crime scene investigator for the Montgomery County and Baltimore City police departments in Maryland before becoming a college professor in 2003. Susan is now an associate professor in the Forensic Science Program at Youngstown State University in Ohio.

1997

ARLINDA SHTUNI has curated “Waterlines: Stories of Urban Ebb and Flow,” an exhibit on display at the Somerville Museum (Somerville, Massachusetts; somervillemuseum.org) through this March and then at the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum (Boston) from April through the fall. The show and its associated programming survey the connection between water and urban development; over time, as our water infrastructure has become more complex and invisible, so has our relationship with water. “The artists invite the public to explore the many facets of our relationship with water and ask us to consider our own intimate and spiritual connection to this life-giving source,” Arlinda writes, noting that the topic speaks directly to the environmentally engaged work done by members of the Clark community.

MARISA LEVENSON has been accepted as a voting member of The Recording Academy, which represents the voices of performers, songwriters, producers, engineers, and music professionals and celebrates excellence with the Grammy Awards each year. Marisa is a London-based musician and the founder of Young Folkies (youngfolkies.com), playing acoustic versions of nursery rhymes and original new songs in regular live sessions for babies and toddlers.

SAMANTHA HORN ’10, MPA ’11, and GRAHAM TWIBELL ’10, M.A. ’11, were married on April 23, 2022. Clarkies in attendance included, from left: Beckie Moses ’10, Quinn Burton ’10, M.A. ’11, Suela John ’10, M.A. ’11, Graham and Samantha, Jarrod Brennet ’12, M.A. ’13, Ally Boguhn ’12, MSPC ’13, Libby Coley ’11, and Josh Cole ’10, MBA ’21.

KATY NOWOSWIAT ’12, MBA ’13, and Jack Weissman were married Oct. 22, 2021, in Worcester. Celebrating the event were (left to right) Chantha Son ’12, Lily Morganstern ’12, Ann (Rokosky) Villarreal ’11, MAT ’12, Katy, Julia Greenspan ’12, and Genevieve DeAngelis ’12.

ASH (HAMES) L’ESPERANCE and her husband, Eric who play and record as Ash & Eric — have released their third folk album, “Sure,” which they describe as “an album for leaving, losing and everything you find when you do.” To promote the album and their music, the Worcester-based singer/songwriter duo has been touring the East Coast. Ash has been a professor of practice at Clark since 2015.

2017

GEORGE JREIJE ’17, MBA ’18, has published “Shad Hadid and the Alchemists of Alexandria” with HarperCollins Publishers, with a sequel expected later this year. This debut fantasy novel for ages 8 to 12 follows 12-year-old aspiring baker Shad, whose life is uprooted when he discovers he’s descended from a long line of alchemists and is sent to the mysterious Alexandria Academy. But Shad’s arrival at the school awakens a nefarious force, and he soon learns he holds the key to either stopping — or unleashing — their evil plot. Learn more at georgejreije.com.

2018

KOBY GARDNER-LEVINE ’18, M.S. ’19, was recently promoted from district manager to regional manager for the Office of Congressman Jim McGovern, and oversees activities pertaining to the western region of the Massachusetts 2nd Congressional District.

’14, JOEY HERSH ’15, M.A./CDP ’16, and HANNAH ROMIG ’17, M.A./CPD ’18 are the founders of Rattle Root Farm, a one acre, no-till, hand-scale farm in Princeton, Massachusetts. Through sustainable farming practices, they work with the land to regenerate topsoil, improve biodiversity, and produce nutrient-dense food to feed the community. The farm’s produce is sold at their farm stand, various farmers markets, and through a CSA that strengthens the resilience of the local food system and economy.

MSF ’20, and Daniel Rosborg were married on Oct. 8, 2022, in Farmington, Connecticut. Clarkies in attendance included (left to right) Jayce Bauer ’17, Hannah Goldberg ’19, MBA ’20, Alexis Epstein ’19, Anastasiya Demba ’18, Sophia and Daniel, Mitchell Dumke ’18, MBA ’19, Julie Reed ’20, Eleanor Eaton ’20, M.A./CDP ’21, and Matthew Hoskins ’21.

SOPHIA DZIKAS ’19,

PETER HERCEG

Of the things that truly made Stephen Steinbrecher ’55 proud, family was first — and Clark University wasn’t far behind.

In 2005, Steinbrecher merged his two passions when he and his late wife Phyllis, with daughters Laura Steinbrecher and Marcy Puklin ’80, P ’10, endowed the Steinbrecher Fellowship Program in honor of their late son and brother, David C. Steinbrecher ’81. The gift allows Clark undergraduates (five to seven a year) to pursue original ideas, creative research, public service, or enrichment projects across the globe, producing the types of outcomes that result when inspiration meets opportunity.

The enduring contribution of Stephen Steinbrecher to the students of his beloved alma mater was remembered following news of his passing on Oct. 18, 2022.

“Year after year, Steve Steinbrecher empowered a group of Clark students to do the kind of independent research that allowed them to push the boundaries of their passions. That’s a rare gift,” said Clark President David Fithian.

Among their many projects, Steinbrecher fellows have sought solutions to food insecurity in Chile, created a documentary chronicling the lives of Brazilian immigrants in Massachusetts, interviewed

Holocaust survivors on the complicated topic of forgiveness, researched the effects of extreme poverty on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, and investigated the impact of human activity on the microbial communities of the renowned Walden Pond.

“Stephen was a legend — kind, passionate, and he set the bar high,” said Professor Nancy Budwig, director of the Steinbrecher Fellowship program. “Hardly a week goes by where I don’t hear a new tale of how he transformed the lives of our students and alums.”

An active alumnus, Steinbrecher served three terms as a Clark trustee from 1981 to 1995. He received Clark’s highest alumni honor, the Distinguished

Service Award, in 1998. He also was exceedingly proud to be the standard bearer of three generations of Clarkies when his granddaughter, Rachel, graduated in 2010.

Sharon Krefetz, retired professor and former longtime director of the Steinbrecher Fellowship Program, recalled how Steinbrecher avidly followed the accomplishments of the students, even keeping in touch with some of them long after they’d graduated. It was his idea to form the Steinbrecher Fellows Society, which included reunions of former fellows, who returned to campus to provide updates on their lives and careers.

“You could see the glow in Stephen’s eyes anytime a student would share their research or

when alums would describe how their Steinbrecher project influenced what they were doing in the world, whether as scientists, community leaders, or artists,” Krefetz said. “He cared so much about the continuing impact this work had on them, and it’s amazing how much gratitude and appreciation he received in return over the years.”

Gifts in memory of Stephen Steinbrecher ’55 can be made at alumni.clarku.edu/steinbrecher or by mailing a check to Clark University, University Advancement, 950 Main St., Worcester, MA 01610. In the memo line of the check, please note: David C. Steinbrecher ’81 Undergraduate Fellowship Program.

Stephen Steinbrecher ’55

Robert Deam Tobin

Robert Deam Tobin, the Henry J. Leir Chair in Language, Literature, and Culture, chair of the faculty, and a cornerstone of the languages department, passed away on Aug. 10, 2022. He was known for his intellectual rapacity that sent him into deep and forgotten corners of German and queer history, from which he emerged with fresh perspectives and profound truths, and for his welcome-to-Clark dinners that, in a single evening, would turn newly arrived faculty into dear friends.

“He was thirsty and hungry at every level,” recalled Steve DiRado, a longtime friend and professor of photography. “Thirsty and hungry for intellect, for culture, for human community, to be the best scholar and academic he could be.”

Tobin partnered with collaborators from Holy Cross and WPI to produce the wellreceived 2019 exhibit “LGBTQ+ Worcester — For the Record” at the Worcester Historical Museum. The exhibition, which documented and celebrated the history of the LGBTQ+ community in Worcester County, earned him the key to the city. Tobin also worked with students in several of his comparative literature courses on gay and lesbian history to research and mount a satellite exhibit, “Queering Clark,” which highlighted Clark’s LGBTQ+ heritage from the 1970s to the present. The exhibit included a return visit to campus from William Koelsch, professor emeritus of geography, who spoke movingly of what it was like to be among the “silent generation” of gay men in the 1950s and 1960s.

“He was our center, really,” said Alice Valentine, chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Culture. “His students and advisees have written to me of his inspirational mentorship, his thought-provoking courses, his kindness.

He was such a proselytizer for Clark’s possibilities. We all thought we’d have a little more time with him.”

Tobin’s fascination with Sigmund Freud motivated him to co-chair the 2009 celebration recognizing the 100th anniversary of the famed psychologist’s historic lectures at Clark.

He wrote eloquently about the international music contest, Eurovision, and each spring he was sought out by media outlets to explain the political and historical context surrounding the pop-culture phenomenon.

He is survived by his husband, Ivan

A fund has been established in Professor Tobin’s name to provide scholarships and to defray the costs of student academic-related travel. You can make a gift online at alumni. clarku.edu/tobin, or by sending a check to Clark University, University Advancement, 950 Main St., Worcester, MA 01610. On the memo line of your check, please note: “In memory of Robert D. Tobin.”

Raykoff; his father, David Tobin; his brother, Joseph Tobin; and his sisters, Jean, Mary-Sue, Teresa, and Anastasia Tobin, and Rebekah Whittaker.

Perry Pero ’61

Former longtime Clark trustee Perry R. Pero ’61 passed away on May 19, 2022.

Pero, a Worcester native, paid for his college tuition with his earnings from the newspaper delivery route he’d worked for years and his part-time job as a drug store clerk. He excelled at Clark, and in 1961 was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated cum laude with high honors in economics. He served on the Board of Trustees from 1989 to 2010.

Pero earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1963, and served in the United States Army Reserves from 1963 to 1969. In 1964, he began his career at Northern Trust Corporation in Chicago, serving in a wide variety of roles from 1964 to 2005. His career spanned a remarkable progression from assistant cashier to chief financial officer, a position he held for 16 years. He retired in 2005 as vice chairman and head of corporate risk management, while also chairman of the Corporate Asset and Liability Committee. Pero continued to actively serve on major Chicago not-forprofit boards.

He is survived by his wife, Diane Pero; daughter, Alexis Pero; son, Arthur Pero; and grandchildren, Ava and Milo Pero.

William Rotch Ferguson

William Rotch Ferguson, 79, died May 3, 2022, in his home in Worcester, Massachusetts, after many years of declining health due to Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy.

Ferguson’s undergraduate through doctoral years were spent at Harvard, where he specialized in Spanish literature of the Golden Age, and Fernando de Herrera in particular. He taught for many years in the Department of Foreign Languages at Clark, retiring at the end of 2004 due to illness. Before coming to Clark, he taught at Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He was especially pleased when his own students continued their studies to develop academic careers.

He founded two presses, Halty Ferguson Publishing Company in Cambridge, and Metacom Press in Worcester, which produced limited first editions of works by 20th-century poets and writers.

Ferguson was the ideal travel companion, with a facility for languages and an enthusiasm for exploration. He earned the moniker “Mad William” after leading a small group of hungry fellow travelers through the narrow streets of the Alfama neighborhood to the hands-down best restaurant in all of Lisbon. He was a poet and a writer, a scholar and a mensch, who happily dirtied his hands with printer’s ink.

Bobby Weinstock ’76

Bobby Weinstock ’76 passed away on Aug. 31, 2022, after a battle with cancer. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he studied psychology as a Clark undergraduate and as a graduate student at Emory University. During his 68 years, he maintained close relationships with people he knew from childhood, college, and graduate school. He moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1980, and spent the next four decades in social services creating programs to help homeless and vulnerable adults.

Weinstock became one of Portland’s most compassionate and effective housing advocates, working at Northwest Pilot Project. “Bobby is the most compassionate person I have ever met,” noted former Northwest Pilot Project board chair A.C. Caldwell. “There may be other reasons he has done the work he has done in his lifetime — his sense of justice, his desire to make complex systems easy for people to navigate, his deep desire to do good in the work — but witnessing his compassion for others, especially those in need, is truly transforming.” He had a strong and abiding commitment to social justice, and created a team that has helped thousands of individuals find their permanent homes.

He is survived by his wife, Ann Augustine; his sister, Sue Weinstock; and his brother, Richard Weinstock.

Melvin “Mel” Rosenblatt ’53

Melvin “Mel” Rosenblatt ’53, a former longtime member of the Clark University Board of Trustees and the namesake of the University’s Rosenblatt Room passed away on Tuesday, July 5, 2022, in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

After graduating from Clark, Rosenblatt went on to an illustrious career as a CPA and business adviser in Worcester — but he remained committed to the University for 55 years. He spent 16 years as a trustee (1982–96), including three as chair, followed by 10 years as an honorary trustee.

“He provided great counsel and wisdom in every discussion and important decision undertaken by the Board and was instrumental in shaping much of the progress Clark has made over these past three decades,” then-Chair William Mosakowski ’76, LHD ’12, said upon Rosenblatt’s retirement from the Board in 2008.

A generous gift by Rosenblatt and his wife, Martha, in 1998 established the Martha and Melvin ’53 Rosenblatt Fund at Clark University, to be used at the president’s discretion.

He is survived by his son, David Rosenblatt; daughter, Judy Sockol; grandchildren Daniel, Sam, and Sarah Rosenblatt, Alyson Basil, and Jessica Ginsberg; and greatgrandchildren Seth and Simon Rosenblatt and Colby Basil.

William “Bill” Koelsch, 89, professor emeritus of geography, retired University historian, and a longtime activist for LBGTQ rights, died Nov. 5, 2022.

Koelsch, who established the modern Clark Archives, is perhaps best known as the author of “Clark University, 1887-1987: A Narrative History,” a chronicle of Clark’s first 100 years, researched and written over five years and published to coincide with the University’s centennial celebration in 1987. The volume graces bookshelves across campus and remains an invaluable repository of Clark’s early history.

In a 2012 story in Clark magazine, Koelsch recalled that he convinced then-President Mortimer Appley to grant him some time off from teaching to craft the book, which he insisted would be a robust, accurate, and honest accounting of Clark’s past.

“Non-Clark people are more interested in the University’s early years, and Clark people tend not to know about them,” he said. “I tried to get the record reasonably straight about those years. It wasn’t a public relations piece — I attempted to call the shots as I saw them.”

Koelsch scoured the academic landscape for sources. According to the story, in the 1970s, he’d crossed the country looking for original manuscripts related to early Clark, conducted interviews with former faculty and administrators, and culled from the unpublished memoirs of former presidents Howard Jefferson and Appley.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University (1955), a master’s from Clark (1959), and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1966), and served several years in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps. He joined Clark as an assistant professor of geography in 1967 and later became a tenured professor.

Koelsch, who retired in 1998, moved to San Diego, where he wrote more than 20 scholarly articles and essays, including articles about G. Stanley Hall, and about the influence that Jonas Clark’s strong abolitionist beliefs had on the formation of Clark University. His book “Geography and the Classical World: Unearthing Historical Geography’s Forgotten Past” was published in 2012.

Koelsch made a memorable return to Clark in 2019 to speak at the invitation of the late Professor Robert Tobin, who had organized an exhibition titled “Queering Clark.” The retired professor recounted his personal experience as a member of the “silent generation” of gay men, recalling that he wrote columns for Boston’s Gay Community News under the pseudonym “A. Nolder Gay.”

In 1975, Koelsch began teaching a course at Clark on the gay liberation movement. In 1982, when the HIV/AIDS crisis was dawning, he incorporated information on that scourge into the syllabus of his course Health and Disease in the American Habitat and spoke about HIV/AIDS to church groups.

In his return visit to Clark, Koelsch cited reasons for optimism about the future of gay rights in the U.S., noting with satisfaction that same-sex couples can now marry, and an openly gay soldier can serve in the U.S. military. “I never expected to see either of those things in my lifetime,” he marveled.

He is survived by his partner of over 50 years, William Dennison.

William “Bill” Koelsch, M.A. ’59

Gary Chaison

Gary Chaison, professor emeritus in the School of Management, passed away on Feb. 17, 2022, at his home in Florida.

Chaison joined the Clark University faculty in 1981 after teaching at SUNY Buffalo State College — where he earned his Ph.D. in 1972 — and Baruch College, the University of New Brunswick, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was an expert in industrial labor relations, collective bargaining, and unions, and taught courses on those topics as well as human resource management and labor-management relations, discrimination in employment, and the contemporary workplace.

During his time at Clark, Chaison authored or co-authored multiple books about unions, including “Unions and Legitimacy,” written with his School of Management colleague Barbara Bigelow.

Chaison was a highly sought-after

source for members of the media, frequently appearing in Associated Press stories and articles in other top news outlets like NPR, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

In 2005, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium (now the Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts) highlighted Chaison’s extraordinary media influence, noting that a single article in which he was quoted had a combined circulation of more than 9.2 million, and that his quotes about a Verizon strike were picked up by more than 90 news outlets nationwide.

He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Joanne Danaher Chaison.

Ruth Butler, M.A.Ed. ‘48

Ruth Meyer Butler, M.A.Ed. ’48, passed away on Jan. 3, 2022, at the age of 95. The Worcester native decided to leave the cold, snow, and ice of the city to study at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, graduating in 1947 with a degree in speech/drama, but returned to Worcester to earn her master’s degree in education from Clark University in 1948.

She moved south to Texas to work, where she met her husband,

David Haan Groll ’62 passed away on Feb. 24, 2022, at age 81, from lymphoma.

Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), the Clark University motto, was a guiding principle for Groll. He took his studies in finance at Clark seriously, second only to mastering ping pong, darts, and pool!

His financial responsibilities increased as he rose through the ranks during the growth years of tech giants Raytheon, Varian Associates, and United Technologies. He ultimately became controller at the Chemical Systems Division at United Technologies and earned an MBA from Santa Clara University.

After retiring at age 55, he and his wife, Betty Crowder, lived in Geneva, Switzerland, and Nuka’alofa, Kingdom of Tonga (he and Betty met their goal of visiting 100 countries). They settled in Pacific Grove, California, where Groll’s idea of fun was preparing taxes for seniors through the Alliance on Aging. He reveled in the numbers, but he mostly enjoyed the extraordinary life stories of the people he was helping.

Dr. James Butler, a native Texan. They eventually settled in Arlington, Texas, where Ruth became a teacher at Arlington High School. She enjoyed a 35-year teaching career.

In their retirement, James and Ruth traveled to Europe every year and visited many foreign countries.

She was predeceased by her husband and is survived by her son, Mark Butler, his wife, Yvette, and their son, Dr. Andrew Butler.

David Haan Groll ’62

PASSINGS

ELEANOR M. EMERSON ZAJAC ’46

West Hartford, Conn., 1/10/2022

RUTH P. MEYER BUTLER, M.A.ED. ’48

Austin, Texas, 1/3/2022

SYMA BIMBAUM GRUSS ’49

Wilton, Conn. 6/11/2022

KENNETH B. HEDENBURG ’50

Worcester, Mass., 2/23/2022

NICHOLAS E. ANDRESON ’51

Worcester, Mass., 1/8/2022

JUNE MANN FINAN ’51

Cranston, R.I., 6/26/2022

S. BERNARD GARBOSE ’51

Needham, Mass., 1/5/2022

SAMUEL M. LAIPSON ’51

Worcester, Mass., 3/7/2022

ROBERT L. LECLAIRE ’51

Sutton, Mass., 1/21/2022

JOHN NIMMO ’51

Wellesley, Mass., 2/5/2022

CECILE HURWITZ PLOTKIN ’51

Ithaca, N.Y., 6/20/2022

MARTIN FEINBERG ’53

Lafayette Hill, Pa., 3/1/2022

RICHARD A. NELSON ’53

Mashpee, Mass., 1/16/2022

MELVIN M. ROSENBLATT ’53

Gloucester, Mass., 7/5/2022

ELLIOT D. TURNBULL ’53

Portland, Maine, 2/20/2022

HERBERT H. HOFFNER ’55, P ’09

Lawrence, N.Y., 1/27/2022

NANCY A. JOHNSON ’55, M.A.ED. ’57

Worcester, Mass., 12/5/2021

PAUL J. MCCARTHY, PH.D. ’55

Bronx, N.Y., 1/18/2022

JUNE HARTWELL BROUSSEAU ’56

North Easton, Mass., 4/23/2022

ROBERT H. CONSOLMAGNO, M.A.ED. ’56

Worcester, Mass., 4/29/2022

JOSEPH R. EID ’56

Worcester, Mass., 4/25/2022

L. HUNTER GREENWOOD ’56

Millbury, Mass., 12/17/2021

JAMES J. SAITAS ’57

Putnam, Conn., 2/24/2022

STEPHEN R. GOLDBERG ’58, P ’94

Malden, Mass., 3/15/2022

NANCY E. HARRIS ’59

Orange, Mass., 2/25/2022

HUGH D. SCHRADER ’59

Kingston, N.Y., 4/24/2022

ANGELO R. SCOLA ’59

Boylston, Mass., 6/5/2022

EILEEN K. CARROLL SCHOFIELD ’60

Manhattan, Kan., 3/28/2022

LOIS F. SILVER ’60

Providence, R.I., 11/11/2020

RICHARD J. COURTNEY ’61

Worcester, Mass., 2/17/2022

PERRY R. PERO ’61

Chicago, Ill., 5/19/2022

DAVID H. GROLL ’62 Pacific Grove, Calif., 2/24/2022

HAROLD W. BENTLEY ’63

Tucson, Ariz., 3/15/2022

JOAN P. DONOGHUE ’63

Dover, N.H., 5/19/2022

JAMES F. TETZLAFF ’63

Phoenixville, Penn., 5/25/2022

RUSSELL L. EATON ’64

Auburn, Mass., 5/15/2022

JACK HAROIAN ’64

Auburn, Mass., 2/19/2022

PAUL C. KESSELI ’64 Shrewsbury, Mass., 6/2/2022

VIRGINIA KINGSBURY ’64

Worcester, Mass., 2/25/2022

STUART A. MARCUS ’64

Brooklyn, N.Y., 1/18/2022

PAUL G. NADEAU, M.A. ’64 Boerne, Texas, 3/1/2022

BARRY TEPLOW ’64 Canton, Mass., /5/2022

CRAIG T. KENNERLY, M.A. ’65 Plymouth Meeting, Pa., 1/13/2022

LAIRD E. WIGGIN ’65 Westfield, Mass., 6/11/2022

GERALD B. FERRECHIO ’66, P ’90

Melrose, Mass., 1/18/2022

FRANCES F. (FREEDMAN) JACOBSON, M.A.ED. ’66 Needham, Mass., 1/28/2022

H. JAMES. MURIN ’66 Hopkinton, Mass., 6/21/2022

JOHN F. SWANTEK ’66

Scranton, Pa., 1/7/2022

MARVIN R. BRAMS, PH.D. ’67 Newark, Del., 4/20/2022

GREGORY L. CARDINAL ’67

Winchendon, Mass., 3/3/2022

WILLIAM H. HOLMES ’67

Chatham, Mass., 3/9/2022

EUGENE C. SEUSS ’67

Auburn, Mass., 2/13/2022

ROBERT K. DAND ’68 Dudley, Mass., 12/18/2021

LEONARD H. SPENCER, M.A.ED. ’68 Cabot, Vt., 1/1/2022

JOANNE MASCI FRIEDMAN ’69 Newton, N.J., 1/29/2022

LORRAINE M. LANGEVIN ’69 Sturbridge, Mass., 12/27/2021

MARY A. SCULLANE CALAWA ’70

Pepperell, Mass., 4/12/2022

DAVID M. KERESEY ’70

Stoughton, Mass., 12/12/2021

ROBERT A. MOLLER ’70, P ’07

Clinton, Mass., 5/18/2022

BERNARD E. FITZGIBBONS ’71

West Palm Beach, Fla., 7/7/2022

DOROTHY M. MASTERSON, MBA ’71

Oxford, Mass., 1/10/2022

RONA MODELL STERN ’72

Cherry Hill, N.J., 12/13/2021

JOHN F. WISNESKI ’72

Holbrook, Mass., 12/17/2021

LLOYD D. DELONG ’73

Groton, Conn., 1/23/2022

WILLIAM P. GORDON ’73

Shrewsbury, Mass., 3/1/2022

WILLIAM T. HUTCH ’73

Marlborough, Mass., 5/5/2022

JOHN A. MCGINNIS ’73

Shrewsbury, Mass., 3/9/2022

ALLAN G. SAVAGE ’73

Kensington, Md., 5/15/2022

DONALD A. BRUCKMAN ’74

Stockton, N.J., 7/24/2022

VERONICA PETROSSIAN ’74

Webster, Mass., 12/6/2021

DONALD T. MORAN, MPA ’75

Worcester, Mass., 7/10/2022

DEBORAH L. MORSE ’75

Brooklyn, N.Y., 1/4/2022

FRANK J. MESSINA ’76

Logan, Utah, 2/25/2022

GEORGE A. HERZNER ’77

Chandler, Ariz., 3/14/2022

RONALD P. LUBIANEZ, M.A. ’77, PH.D. ’79 Fitchburg, Mass., 2/7/2022

KATHERINE D. ROGERS ’77

Concord, N.H., 4/10/2022

BARBARA KANE, MBA ’78 Boston, Mass., 6/6/2022

JOAN R. LEARD ’78

Scottsdale, Ariz., 3/24/2022

ERIC S. SCHREIBER ’78

Lexington, Mass., 7/19/2022

MARY E. JOHNSON ’80

Worcester, Mass., 2/28/2022

ALICE M. SEYMOUR WELCH ’80 Charles Town, W.V., 1/28/2022

URSULA PRADA ’82

Edgartown, Mass., 7/9/2022

ELAINE R. HARTWICK ’83, PH.D. ’95, P ’22 Leominster, Mass., 6/21/2022

JEFF P. MARIANO, MBA ’84 Cumming, Ga., 1/21/2022

SCOTT E. HARKER, MBA ’85 Groton, Mass., 6/24/2022

MICHAEL J. WALSH, M.A. ’85 Troy, N.H., 1/6/2022

PETER T. ANDREWS ’86

Worcester, Mass., 1/6/2022

CHERYL ARONSON ’86 Brookline, Mass., 1/31/2022

ELIZABETH A. CROWELL, M.A. ’87 Holyoke, Mass, 4/26/2022

JOHN R. POTTER ’87 Douglas, Mass., 3/17/2022

DARRELL T. GIBBS ’88

Worcester, Mass., 6/20/2022

SUZANNE LEON ’88 Forest Hills, N.Y., 3/6/2022

THOMAS G. VENTURA ’88 Worcester, Mass. 1/5/2022

SHEILA A. JAMESON ’89 Bradford, Mass., 2/6/2022

SANDRA J. JONES ’90

Hudson, Mass., 3/26/2022

TIMOTHY A. MILLER, M.A. ’90 Salem, Ore., 4/3/2022

JANICE G. RITARI, MBA ’92

Fitchburg, Mass., 7/22/2022

PETER W. NALBANDIAN, MBA ’95

Worcester, Mass., 5/13/2022

CHRISTOPHER S. CONDON ’98

Worcester, Mass., 1/30/2023

RICHARD C. GALLANT, M.A. ’07

Worcester, Mass., 12/13/2021

ADAM D. FRIEDMAN ’07

Unadilla, N.Y., 1/6/2022

JOSEPH P. MAIORANA ’08

Southborough, Mass., 1/22/2022

LEAH T. DERR ’14

Worcester, Mass., 12/25/22

know Monte would be proud.”

Monte Bliss ’59 always knew he wanted to be a child psychologist. He’d already done extensive work in the field and had been featured in a LOOK magazine article about mental health interventions for children when he arrived at Clark for graduate studies in psychology.

Sadly, Monte, who had battled Hodgkin’s disease since the age of 15, died four days before he was to deliver his dissertation. But thanks to his sister Jayne Bliss, Monte’s contributions to Clark Psychology endure.

In 1996, Jayne established the Monte M. Bliss ’59 Endowed Scholarship, which provides support for psychology graduate students focusing on child studies. Much of their work is conducted in The Bliss Child and Family Study Center, a research laboratory at Clark that allows students and faculty to observe children’s behavior in a series of rooms outfitted with one-way glass.

Thanks to a substantial bequest that Jayne has included in her will, she will provide additional scholarships and research support for psychology graduate students (a gift that also honors her late mother, Sophia), and fund innovative faculty research in psychology. Jayne, who owns a travel agency in New York, has generously named Clark as the recipient of much of her estate.

Monte’s memory and her devotion to Clark continue to inspire Jayne.

“Clark is an amazing school that does amazing work,” Jayne says. “I can’t tell you how proud I am to play some part in it, and I know Monte and our mother would be proud, too. This university represents a piece of my heart that can never be replaced.”

To learn how you can leave a legacy or honor a loved one with a gift during your lifetime or from your estate, contact Mary Richardson, director of planned giving, at 508-793-7593 or marichardson@clarku.edu.

I

Monte Bliss ’59 pictured in LOOK magazine.

Alum aims to relaunch the legend of Clark’s space pioneer

By Melissa Hanson

CHARLIE SLATKIN ’74 thinks kids today could use a new American hero. Who better, he suggests, than Clark’s own Robert Goddard, A.M. 1910, Ph.D. 1911.

Goddard, best known as the father of modern rocketry, perceived the potential for space flight then propelled it into reality. He taught physics at Clark while he developed the first liquid-fueled rocket, which he fired on March 16, 1926, at his aunt’s farm in nearby Auburn. The site is not far from his birthplace and childhood home at 1 Tallawanda Drive in Worcester.

“Every child knows the stories of Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers,” Slatkin says. “But something happened with Goddard. He’s lost to history a little bit.”

So when Slatkin learned last year that the Tallawanda Drive house was for sale, he felt compelled to act fast. Slatkin immediately put in an offer and purchased the home — sight unseen.

He had a vision: With the proper upkeep and funding, Goddard’s house could be the catalyst to connect the space pioneer with a new generation and give his accomplishments the recognition they deserve.

“I don’t think this place should be a shrine to the history of Goddard, but more of a launching pad,” Slatkin says. “This is where it started. Look how far we’ve come and look how much more there is to do.”

The house needs work. There’s lead paint to remove, heating and air conditioning upgrades to be done, and the property needs to be stabilized. But Slatkin wants to get the house into shape by 2026 to mark the 100th anniversary of Goddard’s rocket launch.

“My goal is for this to become a national historic landmark. I want to have something on the site, like a rocket or statue, and use the Goddard legacy to inspire this next generation of engineers, mathematicians, and scientists, which we’re calling the ‘Mars generation,’” he says.

Goddard earned his undergraduate degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1908 and is said to have set off explosions on campus while conducting his early experiments. Both Clark and WPI honor Goddard on their respective campuses, and the city has a monument to him at the corner of Apricot Street and Goddard Memorial Drive. Beyond Central Massachusetts, however, Goddard’s legacy is less known.

“It boggles my mind that he’s not looked at as more significant — I think that’s what emboldens me,” Slatkin says. “Goddard built all these rockets with one assistant. A rocket would crash, they’d go to the physics lab, and they’d get right back to work. He was so persistent to get it right.”

Once the house is outfitted with new memorabilia and educational materials, Slatkin plans to welcome in members of the community. He hopes local students will visit to learn about space, and that organizations and think tanks will host occasional meetings there. Perhaps, Slatkin speculates, the house could host science fellows from Clark and WPI.

“Goddard’s home is such an important landmark for the community, for Clark and WPI, and nationally,” Slatkin says. “This place, and the Auburn launch site, really are seminal to humanity’s exploration of the world.”

Among the most interesting features of the property is the cherry tree that Goddard climbed on Oct. 19, 1899. From his perch in the branches, he envisioned traveling to space, and

from then on he celebrated Oct. 19 as his “Anniversary Day.”

Goddard’s wife, Esther, was instrumental in keeping alive Robert’s legacy after his death in 1945. She typed up her husband’s notes chronicling his rocketry research and applied for 131 additional patents in his name. She died at Tallawanda Drive in 1982. Following Esther’s death, neighbor Kathryn McNamee and her son Jack McNamee purchased the home as a rental property until Jack McNamee decided to sell last year.

(From above) The American and NASA flags fly outside Goddard’s former home. Charlie Slatkin ’74 has big plans for the house. A display of artifacts speak to Slatkin’s passion for space and technology.

Slatkin, who shows his Goddard pride by wearing a rocket pin on his lapel, is a child of the space age. In his early teenage years, his mother gave him a miniature-sized volume titled “The Autobiography of Robert H. Goddard,” a copy of the book astronaut Buzz Aldrin took with him to the moon in 1969 — the original today resides in the Clark Archives.

The astronaut’s father, Edwin Aldrin Sr., Clark Class of 1915, was a student of Goddard’s. Buzz Aldrin told Clark magazine in 2011 that his father later convinced his friend, aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, to approach the Guggenheim family about funding Goddard’s revolutionary rocketry experiments. The Guggenheims agreed, and with that much-

needed infusion of cash, Goddard was able to take an extended leave from Clark and head for the open desert of Roswell, New Mexico, to work on his test rockets.

The Goddard project remains a labor of love for Slatkin, who arrived at Clark from Brooklyn in 1970, one year after Buzz Aldrin cut the ribbon on the new Goddard Library. He was determined to be a pre-med student and ended up with a self-designed major in electronic communication arts, later returning to Clark as a communications professor from 1976 to 1983. Today, he stays connected with fellow space enthusiasts across the country, and his plans for Goddard’s home are generating interest.

“Physicists, astrophysicists, astronauts, artists, poets, authors, and space industrialists have this common interest in the betterment of space and space for humanity,” he says. “It’s quite a ride.”

A Clarkie stands tall against nuclear proliferation

When Corey Hinderstein ’96 first sat down at a United Nations meeting in 2015, she thought back to her Model U.N. days at Clark University.

“That was a pretty stunning career moment for me,” she recalls. “To actually sit behind the nameplate of the United States at a meeting at the United Nations and recognize it wasn’t Model U.N. anymore.”

Hinderstein has experienced several careerdefining moments since then. In November 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed her to serve as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a job that requires her attention on preventing the use or acquisition of nuclear weapons, nuclear/radioactive material, or related technology by other countries or by nonstate actors such as terrorist organizations. She is well-suited for this critical position, having served as senior coordinator for nuclear security and nonproliferation policy affairs at the agency from 2015 to 2017.

Hinderstein notes that being the department’s top nonproliferation official is particularly demanding in a time when “everything related to nonproliferation and nuclear security is under challenge. Despite that, I would rather be trying to make a direct contribution during this really difficult time than feel powerless. I can make a difference.”

Hinderstein and the NNSA have monitored various global concerns over the past year, including North Korea’s apparent preparations

for a nuclear weapons test. Meanwhile, the U.S. is approaching the fifth anniversary of its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. During Hinderstein’s previous role with the NNSA in the Obama administration, she led the Iran Task Force and was deeply involved with the implementation of the deal.

The NNSA has been deeply engaged in supporting Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency since Russia launched its unprovoked war on its neighbor in February 2022.

“Everything from the reckless behavior of Russia in and around nuclear facilities, in particular at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and other operating power plants, to the Russian nuclear saber-rattling and veiled threats of nuclear weapons use has touched on the world that I’m working in,” Hinderstein says.

Part of the agency’s task was countering Russian misinformation that Ukraine may have nuclear weapons. Ukraine gave up the weapons it inherited as part of the breakup of the Soviet Union and NNSA removed the country’s weapons-usable nuclear material in 2012, she says.

“I’m particularly concerned about what lessons other countries might take in seeing a country that did the right thing and gave up nuclear weapons but now is under attack,” Hinderstein says. “The nuclear nonproliferation regime that has evolved over more than 50 years is now under great stress.”

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy, the NNSA is analyzing how it can contribute to a lower-carbon, clean-energy future while not increasing proliferation risks. Hinderstein believes the country can do both and be a good partner for responsible states, rather than have them choose to partner with Russia or China.

“We have a statutory responsibility related to U.S. exports of nuclear technology, and we also engage with nuclear newcomer countries to influence their technology policy decisions,” she says. “I will feel proud if we can contribute to that part of addressing the climate challenge.”

The agency is also investing in advanced modeling and simulation to increase nucleardetection capacity and address proliferation threats, Hinderstein says.

She notes that the idea of getting involved with advanced nuclear concepts would have been “mind-blowing” during her days at Clark. Hinderstein, who majored in government and international relations, credits the University with teaching her how to think through a problem and connecting her to internships that introduced her to nuclear issues.

“Clark didn’t tell me what do to, but Clark gave me the path to figure out what I could do,” she says. “I went to Clark right after the ’91 Gulf War. I was in a class where we discussed what it was about Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait that broke the world order there. Those are still issues we’re dealing with now.”

Corey met Chase Hinderstein ’96 during their sophomore year and the two married in 1999. Three years ago, they created a need-based scholarship that supports a Clark student seeking to make a global contribution in their chosen field.

When she travels to Massachusetts, Hinderstein typically builds a day into her schedule to visit Worcester. Often that’s included a stop at Annie’s Clark Brunch, where she reminisces about the University that helped lead her to success.

“I’m often a person in a room full of Ph.Ds. who only has a bachelor’s degree,” she says of her NNSA position. “I’m also a person in a room full of Ivy League or policy school graduates, who comes from a small liberal arts school where I got just as good an education, and also the best education for me. I can’t imagine having landed where I am now without Clark.”

Melissa Hanson

Corey Hinderstein tours a uranium facility at Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

From Caltech to Clark

Coach Bridgette Reyes aims to build something special

AFTER HER FIFTH SEASON as head coach of women’s basketball at Caltech, Bridgette Reyes knew she was ready for a fresh opportunity.

She just didn’t expect to find it 3,000 miles away.

Last summer, the Southern California native joined Clark University as the eighth head coach of the women’s basketball program, succeeding Pat Glispin, who retired after 38 years on the sideline.

“I think the fact that I moved so far from friends and family to come here says something special about Clark,” Reyes said in an interview just before the launch of the 2022–2023 season. “You have to believe in the school

you choose and in the people who are going to be around you.”

“I’m extremely excited to welcome Bridgette to the Clark athletic family,” Athletic Director Trish Cronin said upon hiring Reyes. “Her record of achievement speaks volumes to her passion for the sport, and the level of success she has attained in a very short time is something I know our student-athletes will seek to emulate in the future. I look forward to watching Bridgette build upon the storied tradition of our women’s basketball program and create her own legacy.”

The Clark women’s season opened on Nov. 11 with a hard-fought 62-57 win over Worcester State in the Worcester City Tournament hosted by WPI. The style of play was a hallmark of this year’s team: They compensated for a lack of size and speed with attention to defense, rebounding, and the intangibles like court discipline, hustle,

smart decision-making, and minimizing turnovers.

“Whatever discrepancy there is in a game, we always will compete, because our players are mentally and physically tough,” Reyes said. “We play in a tough league [New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference], and our goal is to improve in every category of play. Each game, we want to put ourselves in a position where we can make the final run to win it.”

Reyes played her college ball at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California, where she won an NAIA National Championship title and was also named Co-National Player of the Year. After she graduated, she played professionally for one year in Portugal, then began building her career with assistant coaching stints at Loyola Marymount, Vanguard, and Cal State University, and two years as head coach of a high school team.

‘CLARK IS A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN HAVE AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT.’

Clark wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to Reyes before she headed east. Caltech’s longtime men’s basketball coach, Oliver Eslinger, is a Clark alumnus (Class of 1997) and former player. When Eslinger heard that Reyes was interviewing at Clark, “he kept talking it up,” she recalled. “He loved it here.”

Worcester was a bit of an adjustment for the Californian, but a positive one. “This is a great city: the diversity, the culture, the opportunities. It’s amazing that within about 12 minutes, you can be hiking in the woods with no one around you.” She added with a laugh, “And I can move anywhere as long as the food is good.”

Reyes inherited a team with three seniors and two graduate students, and as of this writing she and assistant coach Jason Jaramillo had been actively recruiting for months. At every opportunity, they scoured high school tournaments and fall leagues, prep school games and open gyms, connecting with potential recruits both in person and through Zoom calls. Jaramillo, who coaches AAU basketball in California during the summer, said he’s looking forward to “sharing with these young athletes what Clark is all about. This is a great opportunity to create a strong pipeline from those AAU programs to Clark.”

Reyes was attracted to the Clark student-athlete ethos, which emphasizes that athletics is one piece of a balanced life that includes academics, internships, and outside activities. It’s an approach she pitches to her recruits as she builds the foundation for future teams.

“The great selling point about Clark is that it’s a place where you can have an immediate impact,” she said.

That goes for coaches, too.

“I saw Bridgette do wonders at Caltech,” Jaramillo said. “She’ll build the team and the culture the way she wants, and bring talented kids into this community to compete. We have the chance to start something really special here.”

Jim Keogh

Spurred to pursue an NBA career

WITH THE NBA SEASON IN FULL FORCE, among those paying closest attention to the outcomes is Charlie Stevens ’20, the former Clark basketball player who works as an operations assistant within the scouting and strategy group of the San Antonio Spurs.

Stevens defied the odds to secure a position with the team in the spring of 2021. Former shooting guards from Division 3 schools do not typically land with NBA franchises, whose jobs commonly go to graduates from Division 1 colleges with bigger programs, wider alumni basketball networks, and deeper access to the league’s decision-makers.

But Stevens had two key Clark allies, whose mentorship and connections proved invaluable.

Men’s basketball coach Tyler Simms met regularly with Stevens to help map out his career and “put me in contact with just about everyone he knew who worked in the NBA,” he says.

In his junior year, Stevens, a political science major, took Marketing to You, a class taught by Lawrence Norman ’94, MBA ’95, a former Adidas executive who played on the Clark basketball team during his student years. Norman brings prominent businesspeople from a variety of fields into his classroom to share their expertise and advice.

“All the speakers in Lawrence Norman’s class were compelling and engaging regardless of their industry,” Stevens says. “The lessons and takeaways from that class were transferable to anything you wanted to do.”

Simultaneous internships during his Clark years — with Excel Sports Management, a top

basketball agency, and with a professional team in Israel — gave him insight into the worlds of player development and basketball operations. Stevens began compiling 40-page scouting reports of players he believed had the potential to compete in the NBA. He submitted the summaries with his résumé to teams throughout the league “to show that I had a real passion for the work while also showing what I was capable of, even though I still had much to learn.”

“No one asked me to do this,” says the Bronx native, “but I figured if I include work samples with my résumé, maybe it separates me from the thousands of kids also trying to break into this industry.

“When you play Division 3 ball, you develop the mentality that you’re not bigger than any one task,” he adds. “Being part of the Clark men’s team taught me that. You needed to sacrifice your time and exert mental and physical energy over the course of the season. It was an excellent simulation of what life outside of college can look like.

“What I’m doing with the Spurs is not dissimilar to what I was doing at Clark — being competitive, functioning in a team setting, and working toward a common goal.”

Asked about his future plans, he laughs, and notes that his answer is always the same: “I want to ride it out as long as I can and see where it takes me.”

The Confessions of Matthew Strong

BY OUSMANE POWER-GREENE (HISTORY)

Power-Greene’s debut novel is a story of race and redemption in modern America. Mainly set in Alabama, the book — which was named to multiple “Best of 2022” lists follows Allegra Douglass, a philosophy professor who learns about a spate of disappearances of young Black women and receives a series of haunting letters before being kidnapped herself by white supremacist Matthew Strong.

2 3

Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s

BY ROX SAMER (SCREEN STUDIES)

Examining how feminist media and culture enabled critical thinking around radical feminist futures, Samer turns to feminist film, video, and science fiction literature to explore how 1970s feminists took up the figure of the lesbian in broad attempts to reimagine gender and sexuality. Samer challenges popular notions about shifting gender norms during a pivotal cultural and political decade in American history and introduces new voices into the discussion.

Metrics that Make a Difference: How to Analyze Change and Error

BY ROBERT GILMORE PONTIUS JR. (GEOGRAPHY)

This book, targeted to university students and professionals, is a compilation of fundamental ideas Pontius has developed around quantitative research methods that apply to numerous professions, and provides insights necessary to interpret metrics that make a difference in life’s decisions.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans

Studies

EDITED BY ABBIE GOLDBERG

(PSYCHOLOGY

) AND GENNY BEEMYN

Winner of the Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity’s 2022 Distinguished Book Award, this encyclopedia addresses a wide range of topics, from broad concepts like the criminal justice system and mental health, to specific subjects such as the trans pride flag and voice therapy, to key historical figures, events, and organizations including the Stonewall Riots and Black Lives Matter.

La

hermosa carne:

el cuerpo en la poesía puertorriqueña actual En invierno la batalla

BY JUAN PABLO RIVERA (SPANISH

)

From a feminist, anti-racist, and queer perspective, “La hermosa carne” offers cautious readings of Puerto Rican poetic production and argues that, despite the many natural and economic disasters Puerto Rico has faced, poetry continues to be a vibrant space for political agency. “En invierno la batalla,” a collection of Rivera’s poetry, includes diverse perspectives of the world in a battle against cold and loneliness.

Cambridge Companion to American Horror

Clark University faculty published books on subjects ranging from radical feminism to quantitative research methods, as well as creative works that include a personal poetry collection and a debut novel that confronts matters of race and violence in modern America. 1 4 5 6

CHAPTER BY BETSY HUANG (ENGLISH)

This collection includes a chapter by Huang in which she examines the way two related genres, science fiction and the weird, deploy horror to critique the sources and expressions of “American horror” — namely, the dark side of American exceptionalism and the social and environmental consequences of its imperialist projects.

Houdini’s near-Clark experience

Harry Houdini spent much of his life escaping from chains and straitjackets, but the one thing he never tried to elude was a robust intellectual argument. And he nearly had a doozy at Clark University.

On Nov. 29, 1926, Clark University faculty and students, along with members of the public, gathered in the auditorium of the Main Building (now called Jonas Clark Hall) for the first in a series of lectures around a subject not covered in any of the University’s classrooms: spiritualism.

The lecture series, “The Case For and Against Psychical Research,” was funded through a bequest by Susan Clark, Jonas Clark’s widow, who in her will left $5,300 to Clark University to establish a special fund for psychical research. It was organized by Professor Carl Murchison, the chair of the Clark Psychology Department, who wrote in the preface to a 1927 collection of the event’s lectures and additional essays “that Clark University, in promoting this symposium, is by no means assuming the role of friend to psychical research and its various adherents. Clark University is assuming only the role of parliamentarian in the controversy.”

The idea for the 1926 symposium came to Murchison while eating lunch in Worcester’s Bancroft Hotel with Harvard University Professor William McDougall and a more well-known guest — McDougall's friend, magician Harry Houdini. “[We] began talking about spirit mediums, psychic phenomena, and other matters relating to psychical research,” Murchison wrote.

“Professor McDougall and Mr. Houdini, though the best of friends, did not seem to be in entire agreement concerning certain matters that have become of wide social interest because of newspaper emphasis.

Half-jokingly and half in earnest, I suggested that they and other representatives thrash out the entire matter in a public symposium to be held at Clark University.”

The series of eight lectures included arguments from ardent supporters of spiritualism as well as its fervent opponents. Houdini was among the latter, and for years had been publicly campaigning against false spiritualism, debunking mediums and exposing their fraudulent acts. As an illusionist, he easily saw through the various tricks used to deceive believers. Houdini was slated to give the Clark series’ closing lecture, but he died of a ruptured appendix on Oct. 31, just a month before he was to visit campus.

Nevertheless, Murchison worked with Houdini’s widow to include several chapters from Houdini’s book “A Magician Among the Spiritualists” in the 1927 essay collection. “This book is only two years old, and

Mrs. Houdini agrees that it still represents Mr. Houdini’s final convictions on the subject,” Murchison wrote.

Strongly disagreeing with his longtime friend Houdini was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle, best known as creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, contributed an essay for the Clark event titled “The Psychic Question as I See It,” which asserted his firm belief in spiritualism and predicted that it would “lift humanity to a higher plane.” Murchison read the essay to the Nov. 29 audience.

Murchison insisted that he and his Psychology Department colleagues though not convinced of the validity of psychical interpretations — guaranteed “fair play” throughout the symposium.

“If there is a spirit world,” he said, “we also, being human beings, are interested in learning about it.”

Melissa A. Lynch

Harry Houdini demonstrates how “spirit photography” can easily be faked, like this photo of himself and the “spirit extras” of President and Mrs. Warren Harding. Houdini personally gave this photo to Clark Professor Carl Murchison.

NEW VP FOR UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT

Joe Manok has joined vice president for University Advancement.

As Clark’s chief development officer, Manok provides executive leadership to all aspects of fundraising, corporate and foundation relations, and alumni engagement. He brings to Clark decades of experience in high-level fundraising, successful campaign management, and motivating, mentoring, and effectively building high-performing teams. Previously, Manok held senior-level positions in the Office of Resource Development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), most recently as senior director of philanthropic partnerships and previously as director of global initiatives. Before joining MIT, Manok was a rising-star leader within the Office of Development at the American University of Beirut (AUB), serving as associate director of development for major gifts and advancement services, and the assistant director for development services. He had broad responsibilities at AUB, including managing a portfolio in North America; directing major, principal, and planned giving; and overseeing many elements of alumni programming.

APPOINTED TO CLIMATE SECURITY ROUNDTABLE

Professor Edward Carr, director of the International Development, Community, and Environment Department, was appointed to the Climate Security Roundtable of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The Roundtable, established at the direction of the U.S. Congress, brings together experts across different sectors to support the Climate Security Advisory Council, an existing partnership between the intelligence and federal science communities. The goal of these groups is to better understand and predict the effects of climate change on national security interests.

The Climate Security Roundtable will explore climate-related topics impacting national security.

RESEARCHING THE BEER ESSENTIALS

Economics Professor Jacqueline Geoghegan and Mary-Ellen Boyle, interim dean of the college and professor of management, brought a taste of home to the Environmental Protection and Sustainability Forum 2022 at the University of Graz in Austria. The professors presented their research on the resilience of New England craft breweries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among their findings, they learned that

the highly social nature of the craft beer industry — which emphasizes collaboration over competition — helped breweries navigate early pandemic uncertainties. The researchers suggested that the ways brewery owners pivoted their strategies to meet the challenge of COVID can be modeled by other industries as they address the challenges posed by climate change.

DIRECTOR NAMED FOR NEW CENTER FOR GEOSPATIAL ANALYTICS

Hamed Alemohammad has joined Clark University as the director of the new Center for Geospatial Analytics that will complement and expand Clark’s pioneering work in GIScience.

“The vision Clark’s administration has for this new center to become a place of excellence for the new wave of geospatial analytics really excites me,” Alemohammad says. A native of Iran, Alemohammad moved to the United States in 2009 and earned a doctorate at MIT in 2014. He has master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Sharif University of Technology in Iran. Most recently, he was the executive director of the Radiant Earth Foundation. There, he and his team created high-quality and geographically diverse training data for global-scale land-cover mapping, which emphasized the role humans play in annotating images.

Alemohammad expects to use data analytics technology to support the school’s research in areas of earth system science, human and environment interaction, human geography, urban geography, and remote sensing.

Mary-Ellen Boyle (l.) and Jacqueline Geoghegan

On May 12, 2022, Clark reluctantly bid farewell to nine retiring faculty members whose collective service to the University numbered an astounding 291 years. They are: Rhys Townsend, Visual and Performing Arts, 40 years; Fred Green, Computer Science, 36 years; Mark Turnbull, Chemistry, 36 years; Laura Graves, School of Management, 33 years; Patty Ewick, Sociology, 32 years; Priscilla Elsass, School of Management, 31 years; Janette Greenwood, History, 31 years; Elli Crocker, Visual and Performing Arts, 28 years; Keith Coulter, School of Management, 24 years. Pictured at the ceremony held in Tilton Hall are (l. to r.) James Elliott, who retired from the English Department in 2021 after 50 years at Clark, Ewick, Greenwood, Crocker, Graves, Townsend, and Green. Also retiring in August 2022 was Tom Del Prete after 28 years as professor of education and, since 2012, director of the Adam Institute for Urban Teaching and School Practice.

A special anniversary

In 2000, Worcester’s HOPE Coalition identified a troubling trend: Attendance in city teen programs was dwindling. In response, the Coalition, a partnership of local organizations that give local youth “healthy options for prevention and education,” created the Youth Worker Training Institute (YWTI).

The 15-week program is a collaboration between the HOPE Coalition, Clark University, and the Collaborative for Youth and Community Justice. Participants are professional youth workers and Clark students who are enrolled in Fundamentals of Youth Work, a required course for the Certificate in Youth Work Practice. The course is taught by YWTI Coordinator Jennifer Safford, who also is youth and gang violence special projects coordinator at Clark.

Professor Laurie Ross ’91, M.A. ’95 (first row, fourth from right), has led the HOPE Coalition since it was created, and is director of the Certificate in Youth Work Practice program. At least 500 professional youth workers and more than 300 Clark students have gone through the YWTI program since its inception. In May, the Institute’s 20th graduating class comprised 46 students and youth workers — its largest class ever.

Youth workers know the value of the work they’re doing, Ross says, even if they are not always recognized for it. “And that’s one of the reasons we hold the graduation every year — to celebrate these workers.”

Clark researchers to collaborate on NSF-funded climate research in Central Mexico

Researchers from Clark University are embarking on a three-year project in Central Mexico that, for the first time, will meld GIS mapping, system dynamics modeling, extended reality (XR) technology, and new educational experiences, to help policymakers and the public collectively understand how much is at stake under climate change.

Tim Downs, associate professor in Clark’s Department of International Development, Community, and Environment (IDCE), is the grant’s principal investigator.

Through the project’s co-creation model — where academic researchers collaborate with government and community stakeholders, including Indigenous populations — “we have the ability to explore alternative climate and development scenarios of the future,” Downs explains.

Funded by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) Program, the project, “Co-Creating Research and Education Capacities to Understand, Visualize, and Mitigate Climate-Change Impact Cascades and Inequities in Central Mexico,” will involve nine faculty and 19 graduate students from Clark’s IDCE Department, Graduate School of Geography, and Becker School of Design & Technology.

They will collaborate with their peers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, one of the top public research universities in Latin America.

Holding on to a heroic future

By Daniel Kelly ’25

During the COVID lockdown, people discovered fresh uses for their hands. They created new art and penned letters. They transformed yellowing recipe cards into delicious meals and stroked their pets when they should have been tabulating sales reports. Front-line workers used their hands to tend to the ailing, and others used theirs to applaud those noble efforts.

The notion of hands, and all they can do, became a prevailing theme in the lives of Jonathan Tamen ’26 and his twin brother, David, when, in March 2020, they started a nonprofit organization called Helping Hands MB at their high school in Miami Beach, Florida. The 24-member group learned how to harness 3D printing technology to provide prosthetic limbs to children who have lost a hand or fingers.

The prosthetics project was undertaken with some assistance. Helping Hands MB partners with e-NABLE, an online global organization of “digital humanitarian” volunteers who use 3D printers to “make free and low-cost prosthetic upper limb devices for children and adults who were born missing their fingers and hands or who have lost them due to war, natural disaster, illness or accidents.”

The e-NABLE technicians design the prosthetic limbs, then certify and train volunteers on how to make them. To date, Helping Hands members have fashioned 14 prosthetic limbs; the components of each limb take 30 to 40 hours to print and another 10 hours to assemble. David, an engineering student at Boston University, oversees the technical process, and Jonathan coordinates the distribution of the limbs to recipients.

“We’ve made a few different sizes of hands,” Tamen says. Recipients are fitted for the prosthetic devices, which typically extend from the upper arm to the fingers. When the elbow is

bent, the fingers can grip objects, such as a water bottle, utensil, or writing implement.

Helping Hands MB has partnered with Food for the Poor, a Florida nonprofit, to distribute eight prosthetics to a hospital in Haiti; six other limbs have gone to recipients in the U.S.

Some of the limbs are constructed with artistic — even superheroic — flair. It’s not uncommon for a child to request a hand in the aesthetic of a comic book character like Iron Man or Spider-Man. Tamen worked with a boy in Miami on a hand that is modeled after Captain America, star-spangled shield insignia and all.

As president of Helping Hands MB, Tamen is equally passionate about the group’s efforts to provide STEM education to elementary and middle school students. He envisions the organization’s expanding to other high schools and universities, and notes that two brothers have reached out to him from London to start their own Helping Hands chapter. Meanwhile, members of his original team are currently in their first year of college, launching chapters at their schools.

Tamen has registered for Clark’s annual entrepreneurship competition, Clark Tank, through which he hopes to make his pitch for resources to grow Helping Hands MB. “I would use the grant to invest in supplies, recruit members into a club on campus, and organize projects in local public schools to teach those students STEM skills — and how those skills can be used to change lives.”

It's a lot to take on, but in Jonathan Tamen’s world, the only hands he’s not interested in are idle ones.

Agift of notes

As a pianist and composer, Channing Webber ’25 can play just about any style of music, from classical to jazz to contemporary. But his most personal orchestration is the career plan he’s been constructing since he arrived at Clark. The Buxton, Maine, native is double-majoring in music and management, with an eye toward composing music scores for film and television.

Channing is a recipient of the Selma B. Geller Endowed Scholarship, whose support is helping him realize his musical dreams. He draws on the expertise and mentorship of John Aylward, professor of music, to guide his creative and technical endeavors.

Clark University has been an endless source of inspiration from the moment he applied.

“Clark heard my story and believed in me,” Channing says. “It’s my motivation.”

Make your gift today to inspire other Clark students like Channing at: alumni. clarku.edu/magazine.

Or use the envelope inside this issue of Clark magazine

Monte Bliss ’59 working with chidren Caption here TK

“Clark said, ‘We want to see what you can do.’ That meant everything to me.”