Clark magazine, winter/spring 2022

WINTER/SPRING 2022

INSIDE: Nothing but net | Justice delayed. Justice delivered. | When the world came to Clark

MISSION OF THE

MIND The Mosakowski Institute merges psychology with technology to confront the mental health crisis devastating America’s youth.

Winter/Spring 2022

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contents

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The Mosakowski Institute merges psychology with technology to address the mental health crisis confronting America’s youth.

When Marc Lasry ’81 bought the last-place Milwaukee Bucks, he believed they could be competitive. Today, they are champions.

MISSION OF THE MIND

NOTHING BUT NET

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JUSTICE DELAYED. JUSTICE DELIVERED. In 2008, John Granville, M.A. ’04, was gunned down in Sudan. A stunning admission by that country’s government has brought some solace to those he left behind.

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WHEN THE WORLD CAME TO CLARK The Graduate School of Geography was launched a century ago with a mission that persists today: to map a better future for our planet.

DEPARTMENT S Red Square Clark announces its Park Avenue presence.

Clarkives The day The Greatest paid a visit to Atwood Hall.

Sports Olympic swimmer Atu Ambala ’25 is making a splash at Clark.

Alumni News Alumni make history in Worcester election.

Clark Currents Rian Watt ’14 takes aim at the scourge of homelessness.

“ Homelessness is solvable, if we choose to solve it.”

PRE SIDENT ’S ME S SAGE

Dear fellow alumni and friends, In my State of the University address in December, I noted that Clark University was born of ambition, beginning with Jonas Clark’s drive to found a university in Worcester two short years after his friend, Leland Stanford, founded one in Palo Alto.

Following Jonas’ example, Clark continues not only to act on opportunities to change and grow as they arise, but also to create opportunities of our own design, and power them with momentum of our own making and collective ambition.

And such momentum is building on a number of fronts at Clark.

In the past few months alone, we have reached the final stages of developing an ambitious strategic framework from which dozens of initiatives are emerging. We completed the purchase of seven acres of vacant land on Park Avenue, just two blocks southwest of the main campus. We successfully executed a $156 million bond issuance, bringing $100 million in new resources to the University to jumpstart reinvestment in our campus and its facilities. We renovated the University’s Main Gate at 950 Main Street, restoring some of its original character and fabric while also widening its opening to the community. And we relandscaped Woodland Walk, the path immediately behind Jonas Clark Hall that extends from Maywood Street to the former Downing Street.

Recently, we announced plans for a new interdisciplinary academic building — the Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design — on which we will break ground in April, creating a whole new academic quadrangle between Hawthorne and Woodland streets. And the Board of Trustees announced that the inauguration ceremony formally investing me as Clark’s 10th president, delayed due to COVID, will now take place on April 30, affording us all an opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate Clark University’s distinctive past and bright future.

We will be creating a web presence to showcase for the entire Clark community these and other exciting initiatives ahead. In the meantime, I hope you share my enthusiasm for the progress our University is making and for the momentum hastening that progress. While I obviously cannot know what Jonas Clark would think of our University today, I do believe he would applaud our ambition.

Sincerely,

DAVID FITHIAN ’87

Winter/Spring 2022

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G

Garren Kalter wants to take Worcester for a ride

ARREN KALTER ’21, M.S. ’22, has seen the

future of Worcester public transit, and it includes more riders, better

Traffic signals also can be resequenced to coincide with bus

believes he knows how to make that all happen — and he’s ready to

schedules, he said, allowing buses to move faster through traffic,

take his message on the road.

particularly along busy thoroughfares like Main Street. And the

now pursuing a master’s in geographic information systems, was

streets themselves would undergo some basic redesign, to better accommodate pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

doing a fellowship with City Councilor Moe Bergman last summer

The WRTA only offers full service on weekdays, he said, with the

when he began studying the operations of the Worcester Regional

most frequent buses arriving at 30-minute intervals. By reconfigur-

Transit Authority. He was surprised to learn that of the 46,000

ing the WRTA network, reducing redundancies, and implementing

Worcester residents who do not have access to a vehicle, only one in

several one-time improvements, Kalter found that each bus line

20 uses the bus service.

could provide higher-quality service.

Burrowing further, he uncovered inefficient bus routes, faded

The goal, he said, is a system capable of having buses arrive every

signage that lacked key information about frequency of pickups, and

10 minutes Monday through Saturday, and every 20 minutes on

slower-than-necessary bus speeds through the city, all of which he

Sundays, at stops along the new corridors. He noted that a trip by

insists are impediments to increased ridership.

bus currently takes about 277% longer than a trip by car to reach the

Kalter took his analysis to the next level, crafting a proposal for

same destination.

improved public transit, which he will present to the Worcester City

Kalter envisions a public transit system whose ease of use and

Council in the near future. The report also serves as the basis for his

improved efficiency will entice more people onto the bus, including

honors thesis.

college students who may be reluctant to use the service.

“I think creating a solid core that is accessible, consistent,

“By safely increasing speeds and facilitating clear route

efficient, simple to navigate, is easily understandable ... and having

patterns, people can take the bus and it won’t cost the city any

solid routes in the places with the most [locations], most businesses,

additional money,” Kalter said in an interview for ClarkNow. “It’s a

and the most people who are transit-dependent, can be done while

great opportunity to invest in public transportation in a way that

also providing service that is convenient,” Kalter told The Worcester

will have public health ramifications, social ramifications,

Telegram & Gazette, which featured his research.

environmental ramifications, and individual household income

Kalter is proposing streamlined routes that service entire streets rather than specific locations, such as a particular shopping center

clarku.edu

the current 20 to nine major corridors.

service, and the will to pursue potentially transformative change. He

Kalter, an urban geography and economics double major who is

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or apartment complex. This would reduce the number of routes from

ramifications.

“This will be an investment in our community.”

C o n n e C t i o n s t h at M at t e r

Nick Capasso ’81

When Maire o’Donnell ’23, an art history major who plans to pursue a museum career, was looking for an internship with practical impact, the Career Connections Center linked her with Clark alum nick Capasso ’81, director of the Fitchburg Art Museum. Nick provided Maire a rare opportunity to curate an exhibit of 19-century still-life paintings, giving her valuable real-world experience and a major step toward realizing her career ambition.

With support from the Career Connections Center, students connect their liberal arts education with career exploration and preparation through mentorship and experiential opportunities. Here’s how you can become involved: • Become a mentor. Join ClarkCONNECT and share your professional and educational journey with

Maire O’Donnell ’23

students as they develop their career interests and face new challenges.

• Offer internships and entry-level jobs. Post opportunities for Clark students or champion the recruitment of Clark students to your colleagues.

• Support The Clark Fund. Designate a gift that helps give students access to internship and research opportunities.

Interested in joining ClarkCONNECT? Visit clarkconnect. clarku.edu or email clarkconnect@clarku.edu

VISIT

clarkconnect.clarku.edu

OR EmaIl

clarkconnect@clarku.edu

editor’s letter

Executive Editor JILL FRIEDMAN Editor-in-Chief JIM KEOGH Associate Editor MELISSA LYNCH ’95, MSPC ’15 Design KAAJAL ASHER www.kaajalasher.com Writers ANNE GIBSON, PH.D. ’95 AVIVA LUTTRELL ERICA PELLEGRINO ’21, MSC ’22 ZOE WRIGHT ’21, MSC ’22

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IN SE ARCH OF JOHN GRANVILLE

he very first magazine I produced for Clark in the fall of 2010 included a brief item

noting that a school for girls in the Sudanese town of Kurmuk had been opened in memory of John Granville, M.A. ’04. Two years earlier, John had been assassinated by gunmen in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum after he’d spent years doing community development work in remote villages in southern Sudan. At the time of his death, John was overseeing the distribution of solar-powered radios to citizens with little access to information so they could prepare themselves for upcoming elections following a bitter 20-year civil war.

The Department of International Development, Community, and Environment, where he’d studied at Clark, had named their conference room in John’s honor. The photo of John that we ran in the magazine more than a decade ago showed a handsome man with a kind face posing proudly in his Clark hooded sweatshirt.

And that’s really all I knew of John Granville.

Then, in December 2020, the U.S. State Department announced that the Sudanese government had reached an agreement with the U.S. to compensate the victims of statesponsored terrorism in that country, including the Granville family. When I heard the news, I decided it was the right time to learn more about John, and figured the best place to start was with the person who held him dearest — his mother, Jane.

With joy in her voice, she graciously shared memories and details of John from his boyhood in South Buffalo, recalling his days playing hockey and explaining how his Jesuit education helped shape his values. Before I sent her a draft of the story about her son that appears in this magazine, I cautioned Mrs. Granville that some passages might surface unpleasant memories for her. “That’s all right,” she assured me. “I can take it.”

I also enjoyed talking to John’s fellow Clark alums, who remembered their friend as someone hungry for knowledge and open to experience, who relished a good time, and who continually recruited people to accompany him on his journey to do meaningful things in this world. His intellect was expansive and his curiosity insatiable, they told me, but his heart is what led him to Africa.

The story that begins on page 26 is the product of those conversations. I do not know if it does John Granville justice — there is so much more to be told. But at the very least, I hope it gives some context to the fruitful life, and the supreme sacrifice, of the handsome man in the Clark sweatshirt.

Photography STEVE KING Vice President for University Advancement JEFFREY H. GILLOOLY Contributing Illustrators JOHN HOLCROFT ALEX NABAUM CELINA PEREIRA Printed by Flagship Press Inc. Address correspondence to: jkeogh@clarku.edu or mail to: Jim Keogh Clark University Marketing and Communications 950 Main St. Worcester, MA 01610 Letters to the editor are more than welcome — they’re celebrated.

TWITTER FACEBOOK YOUTUBE INSTAGRAM TIKTOK LINKEDIN

Visit ALUMNI.CLARKU.EDU, the online community for Clark alumni, family, and friends.

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red square INSIDE

Clark’s Park Avenue presence | Hitting back at ALS | Little Center’s next act | Game on!

A STITCH IN

time

PHOTO BY STEVEN KING

Winter/Spring 2022

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Clark‘s Park Avenue presence

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HE WALK ACROSS Park Avenue in Worcester can be covered

in a handful of steps, but for Clark University that short journey means far more.

In October, President David Fithian ’87 announced that Clark had ac-

quired 7.3 acres of land at the corner of Park Avenue and Maywood Street,

neighboring community.

“I hope you share my excitement in the prospect of augmenting and amplifying the campus experience in a way that energizes our community and strengthens the University overall,” he said.

just two blocks from the southwest corner of Clark’s campus. The site of

The Park Avenue purchase was just one piece of important news for

the former Duddie Chevrolet had lain vacant since 2010, when the dealer-

Clark this fall. President Fithian also revealed that Clark was securing

ship relocated its operations to Auburn. (Clark’s campus buildings are

$100 million in capital market financing to make essential capital im-

visible at upper right.)

provements at the University, and also was refinancing $56 million in

While no determination has been made for the site’s use, a range of op-

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with Clark’s strategic framework through input and partnership with our

debt following a favorable report from Moody’s.

tions are being considered, including a new recreation and athletics facil-

One of the first significant investments will be a new interdisciplinary

ity, a modernized health services center (bringing together Counseling

academic building. In addition to offering collaborative and classroom

and Personal Growth and Wellness Education programs), academic space,

space to benefit the entire University, the building will be home to the

and student housing. “Final decisions about the use of the site and the

Department of Computer Science, the Becker School of Design &

timeline for redeveloping it will come only after thorough dialogue, en-

Technology at Clark, and certain programs within the Department of

gagement, and visioning work across the Clark community,” the president

Visual and Performing Arts. The building will be sited east of the Strassler

said in his announcement. “Our goal is to strongly align our use of the site

Center, between Hawthorne and Woodland streets.

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Little Center’s next act GINO DIIORIO, a longtime professor of theater at Clark, affectionately describes Little Center as a “friendly old ghost” of a building.

Not for much longer.

Clark has undertaken a major renovation that will transform the 54-year-old building and its Michelson Theater into a vibrant, modern performance and theater arts teaching space.

Central to that effort is the creation of an elegant lobby and reception area that will welcome audience members to the hub of Clark’s student theatricals.

The work is being supported by a $2 million gift from Clark Trustee Vickie

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Riccardo, P ’17, and her husband, Don Spencer.

“We are incredibly grateful to be the beneficiaries of Vickie and Don’s generosity and their clear love for theater at Clark,” President David Fithian said. “It’s with a real sense of excitement that we’re reenergizing and reimagining one of our longtime buildings into a space that will have a direct impact on our University community.”

The rejuvenated theater will feature replacement seating, a renovated dressing room, refurbished office spaces, upgraded audiovisual and lighting equipment, and substantial improvements to the electrical and air conditioning systems. The entire

building also is being made handicappedaccessible, including the installation of an elevator.

Construction work began in the summer, and the building is scheduled to be ready for use by this coming June.

“ It’s with a real sense of excitement that we’re reenergizing and reimagining one of our longtime buildings into a space that will have a direct impact on our University community.”

Spared from the flames In 1914, the German army set fire to the town of Leuven, Belgium, deliberately torching the circa-1425 library at the local university, KU Leuven, along with its 300,000 books, 800 incunabula (books and pamphlets printed in Europe before the year 1500), and 1,000 manuscripts.

Last summer, Clark archivist Cynthia Shenette and intern Dillon Prus ’21 discovered in the University’s Archives and Special Collections a 17th-century manuscript that was saved from the fire at KU Leuven 107 years ago by a British war correspondent and donated to Clark in 1918.

When Prus emailed a photo of the manuscript to Tjamke Snijders, head of the KU Leuven Libraries Special Collections, he received an enthusiastic response. Snijders wrote she was “very excited to get the chance to reintegrate this lost fragment into our collections again,” adding that the manuscript resembles a 17th-century bill in which a Flemish pastor orders a member of his flock to pay his debt at the Tournai Parlement.

“It’s not every day that we can, in a very tangible way, right a historical wrong and help restore what was tragically lost in war,” Prus said.

Snijders is eager to share the story about the manuscript’s journey when the library celebrates its 600th anniversary in 2025.

A wheel-life education

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ome enterprising Clark students have

taken the notion of food that’s “to go” and flipped the model around, creating food that “goes to.”

Students in the Community-Based

Entrepreneurship capstone course took their education on the road by operating their own food truck in the Main South neighborhood. The truck also became a familiar, and popular, presence at campus events.

Several teams developed their own themes for the converted Volkswagen Combi, partnered with local stakeholders, underwent food safety certification training, and completed the city of Worcester’s food truck permitting process. The students sold everything from Caribbeaninspired specialties to tacos to smoothies, and while they learned the hard lessons of operating a small business, they also promoted businesses and community efforts in Main South.

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A STITCH IN TIME Some people sew sweaters for a hobby. Hannah Olech ’20 sews history. The New Hampshire native de-stresses by crafting lush, elegant gowns whose historically accurate designs span the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, her hobby requiring her to be many things — researcher, artist, and seamstress. Olech has been a familiar presence on and around the Clark campus, as she’s modeled her creations while being photographed and filmed by regional media, including from her home state. Dressmaking is a passion, but not something she’s interested in as a career: The biology major plans to pursue a doctorate in infectious diseases.

Pod squads For your listening pleasure, Clark is hosting podcasts that draw on the experiences and expertise of members of our University community. Here are two worth downloading:

RFU (Recommended For You) Screen studies professors Hugh Manon, Rox Samer, and Soren Sorensen break down movies recommended to them by Clark students. The genres are eclectic, ranging from the independent comedy “Shiva Baby” to the Disney confection “High School Musical” and the boy-meets-girl-meets-iceberg weepie, “Titanic,” as well as a host of movies you may be

encouraged to watch — or relieved you missed.

Moments of Uncertainty This limited-run podcast, produced and hosted by Alumni and Friends Engagement, explores the ways in which Clarkies responded to the challenges of COVID-19 in 2020, a year like no other at Clark.

Members of the Clark community discuss how they adapted to

ever-changing, and sometimes fraught, circumstances while continuing to work, learn, and remain connected to their communities.

And watch for a new podcast in which thought leaders across our campus and alumni network share stories, experiences, insight, and research that is challenging and changing our world.

Game on!

Nicholas Travis signals his Texas roots with the Stetson on his head and the big-state confidence in his step. In the world of competitive video gaming, he’s best known as Coach Shifty, the man who turned his pastime into a professional career as both an esports player and coach.

Travis arrived on campus last year when Clark established the Becker School of Design & Technology, becoming the University’s first-ever esports coach. He oversees a varsity program of 14 teams over seven different games that currently include Apex Legends, League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, and Hearthstone. He’s also creating opportunities for more casual gamers who are in it strictly for the joy of playing everything from Magic the Gathering to Dungeons and Dragons.

“I want to create a big gaming culture with video games, table-top games, and anything that may be related to that area. It’s about getting those clubs to communicate with each other and finding out what they need to grow,” Travis says. “I want them to interact with each other and support one another.”

He sees big things in the future for Clark’s varsity gamers.

“I expect Clark to get better each semester,” he says, “and to be able to compete with some of the best out there within a few semesters.”

Hitting back at ALS Last summer, Major League Baseball commemorated the 80th anniversary of the passing of Yankees great Lou Gehrig to raise awareness of the neuromuscular disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which took the player’s life on June 2, 1941.

Lou Gehrig Day holds special resonance for Clark Trustee Lee Plave ’80, whose wife, Ilene, passed away from ALS in October 2017, after 31 years of marriage.

In Ilene’s honor, Lee and their three children have made a substantial gift to the University to establish the Plave Family Research Fellowship. The Fellowship supports Clark undergraduates who are pursuing research in neuroscience, with an emphasis on the fundamental science needed to understand, diagnose, and treat ALS. Students who have been awarded the Fellowship conduct their research under the guidance of Professor Néva Meyer in the Biology Department.

“The disease is unimaginable and devastating to the patient, as well as to their family and friends,” Plave says. “When I met with Professor Meyer, I could see that she was passionate about this research, and I know that her students will do great things.”

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The Mosakowskı Instıtute merges psychology wıth technology to confront the mental health crısıs devastatıng Amerıca’s youth.

BY M E LI S SA LYNCH ’9 5, M S P C ’1 5

MISSION OF THE MIND

I LLUSTRATION BY JOH N HOLCROF T

Olivia has had a rough day.

She couldn’t focus at school, her thoughts bouncing from one topic to another. She lashed out at a friend while working on a class project (she’s not sure why) and is worried about the punishment her teacher will impose.

She feels like she can’t catch her breath; maybe she’ll pretend to be sick tomorrow.

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t home, Olivia knows she has chores to do — then homework — but instead sits on her bed, mindlessly scrolling on her phone when she notices the MI PEACE icon and opens the app.

“Welcome, Olivia,” the screen reads, quickly changing to a prompt, “How are you feeling?” She thinks for a moment and chooses “not so good.” Olivia clicks on a meditation exercise so she can take time to examine her thoughts and feelings in that moment. She may need to reach out to her counselor through the app, but she knows from experience that taking action is the only way she’ll eventually feel better.

MI PEACE, developed by the Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise at Clark University, allows adolescents and young adults — as well as their parents, counselors, and educators — to learn about common behavioral health concerns, assess their own symptoms, and determine a course of action that helps lead them toward a positive outcome.

The app, expected to be released to the public this spring, is just one example of the Mosakowski Institute innovating and delivering interventions and services that help adolescents and young adults develop the social and emotional skills they need to successfully navigate persistent challenges to their behavioral health.

That’s a good thing. Because in the United States today, there are many Olivias.

••• The reports couldn’t be any clearer: America’s kids are in crisis.

On Dec. 8, 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a rare advisory, warning that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects from the challenges experienced by their generation.

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The advisory echoed the stark declaration made on Oct. 19 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association: “We have witnessed soaring rates of mental health challenges among children, adolescents, and their families over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbating the situation that existed prior to the pandemic. … The inequities that result from structural racism have contributed to disproportionate impacts on children from communities of color.”

To help combat the crisis, the Mosakowski Institute is directing its intellectual resources toward creating immersive, technology-assisted approaches that effectively treat behavioral health issues among young people.

The work has required a significant shift in focus.

Established in 2007 with a gift from William ’76, L.H.D. ’12, and Jane ’75 Mosakowski, the Institute was launched to provide use-driven research on major issues of social concern, including education, health and well-being, energy and the environment, and economic development.

In 2019, Clark’s leadership reimagined the Institute’s mission “to address a social issue of national significance: adolescent mental health,” says Nadia Ward, who was recruited from Yale University to become the Institute’s director that year.

“What I appreciated when I came to Clark two years ago was the bold vision that then-President David Angel and Bill Mosakowski had,” Ward says. “They wanted the work to be about how we address the behavioral health concerns that young people across the country were experiencing — and how we leverage technology in the most innovative ways possible.”

Under Ward’s leadership, the Mosakowski Institute has developed an integrated behavioral model that provides

high-quality, evidence-based, and culturally relevant services. She notes that teaching resiliency skills is the most powerful way to address the root causes of behavioral health issues, diminish the stigma associated with those issues, and increase young people’s willingness to disclose their health concerns and seek care. While the work is designed for all adolescents and young adults, there is a special emphasis on boys and young men, particularly those of color (see sidebar on page 18).

Besides helping youth and families access accurate and comprehensive information, the Institute is collaborating with the School of Professional Studies to develop an online certification program for educators and practitioners. It is also conducting research and partnering with other agencies to maximize the reach and impact of its behavioral health care model.

When mental health practitioners identify a useful intervention — an evidence-based practice to improve a patient’s life — it can take as many as 15 or 20 years of testing and research to get it into the hands of people who want to use it in their work with young people, Ward says. “We actively considered how we could create an evidence base for the resources and tools we are building while simultaneously marketing and scaling them so that practitioners could more quickly use them with youth and their families.”

In short order, the Institute has undertaken four major initiatives: the Sensory Immersion Room at the Solnit Children’s Center in East Windsor, Connecticut; the MI PEACE mobile app; an online social-emotional learning curriculum; and clinical virtual reality therapies.

To advance the Institute’s mission, Ward has sought and established strategic partnerships with the City of Worcester and Worcester Public Schools, as well as organizations like the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts, and UMass Memorial Medical Center, among others. Financial support has come from agencies — including the Ruth H. and Warren A. Ellsworth Foundation, whose trustees include Sumner “Tony” Tilton, LL.D. ’13, life member of Clark’s Board of Trustees — and individuals like Signe Kurian ’91, who embraced the opportunity to raise awareness of and help address the mental health challenges facing America’s younger generations.

In the fall of 2021, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health awarded the Mosakowski Institute, in partnership with the Brookline Community Health Center and DMA Health Strategies, a $35 million grant to conduct a rigorous study of the impact of telebehavioral

Director Nadia Ward discusses the Mosakowski Institute’s work.

IN 2019, THE MOSAKOWSKI INSTITUTE’S MISSION SHIFTED TO ADDRESS A SOCIAL ISSUE OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE: ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH. health services on behavioral health outcomes among young people.

The Institute’s new model of behavioral health care is “an entrepreneurial way of meeting the needs of a social issue that’s of national concern,” Ward says. As a business enterprise that is designed to generate revenue for Clark, the Institute features three divisions: Translational Research, which establishes an evidence base and builds collaborations both within Clark and with outside agencies; Behavioral Health Initiatives, which serves as an incubator for programs and interventions for adolescents and young adults, and oversees the Institute’s overall growth and business strategy; and a soon-to-be-named third entity, separate from the Institute but still a subsidiary of the University, which will be charged with marketing and selling the innovations that the Institute develops.

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WORKING TO SHED THE STIGMA IKO GAYMAN ’21, MHS ’22, remembers when it was considered a sign of weakness for a young man to display any measure of emotional sensitivity.

“Growing up, it was frowned upon to be vulnerable, to cry,” he says. “The stigma is real.”

Gayman, Gralen Vereen ’22, and Andy Acevado ’23 are research fellows at the Mosakowski Institute, where they are contributing to the work to address the behavioral needs of adolescents and young people, especially boys and young men of color — and they are developing their own ventures that will support communities of color.

“Our fellows are encouraged to be creative and entrepreneurial in identifying real-world problems that can be solved by leveraging technology,” says Director Nadia Ward.

In spring 2021, Ward created an informal advisory group of college-aged Black men, including from Clark, to determine where the prevailing challenges are among this community. The group was asked a single question: What is it like to be young, male, and Black in the United States today?

That one-hour discussion led to three months of biweekly meetings of a group that became known as the King’s Council. “We just wanted to keep it going,” says Vereen.

Last October, the Mosakowski Institute hosted “We Are Our Brothers’ Keeper,” a retreat for young men of color, in Brimfield, Massachusetts, featuring activities, speakers, and wide-ranging conversations.

“We talked about relationships, manhood, masculinity, business, financial literacy, entrepreneurship,” Vereen says. “It meant a lot to me — first just being able to be in that space and be vulnerable but also to be held accountable. The speakers let us express how we felt, but they also pointed out where we needed to do more work.”

Speakers included Aaron Haddock, director of behavioral health initiatives at the Mosakowski Institute, Kamaro Abubakar, associate dean of students, and Matthew Graves, assistant men’s basketball coach — who all continue to serve as mentors for the young men involved — as well as Clark Trustee Kevin Cherry ’81.

Like Vereeen and Gayman, Acevedo rarely expressed his feelings when he was growing up. “Mental health was not something you could talk about. Now that I’ve gotten older, and with technology being more prominent in our lives, the conversation has become more public. People are starting to talk about mental health and being more comfortable with it.”

Gayman, who majored in biology as an undergraduate, is researching interventions to support young men of color, with a particular focus on the role of Black fraternities; his work, which will be published, includes interviewing fraternity leaders. A star guard on the Clark men’s basketball team, Gayman is developing an app for young men of color who are also athletes.

Vereen is also studying the impact of Black fraternities. A management major, he is looking at ways to uplift communities of color through entrepreneurship, including an app that showcases Black businesses.

As part of his fellowship, Acevedo, a management major who has a strong interest in esports, is contributing to the Institute’s clinical virtual reality projects and has created an online platform to bring together competitive gamers from across the country.

Last fall, the three research fellows traveled to Chicago to participate in the Entrenuity Business Plan Bootcamp, where they presented and received feedback on their business strategies.

••• When the Mosakowski Institute relaunched with its new mission thanks to a substantial gift from Bill and Jane Mosakowski, Ward knew that technology was key. “We had to catch up,” she says. Her experience as a practitioner and as a developer of interventions for schools and communities told her it was time to disrupt the traditional model of behavioral health treatment.

The first initiative to launch was the Clark University Sensory Immersion Room (SIR) at the Solnit Children’s Center, a psychiatric residential treatment facility for boys ages 13–17 whose backgrounds often include trauma, psychosis, depression, or anxiety. The SIR was designed and equipped using extensive scientific and clinical data and expertise that elevates it beyond being a “room with comfortable seating that’s just a place for a student to chill out,” Ward says.

The SIR incorporates Oculus virtual reality headsets, which clinicians can use to create individualized interventions based on a student’s sensory profiles and clinical assessments. Ward hopes some of those clinicians eventually will be from Clark’s doctoral program in psychology, with the sensory room providing myriad opportunities for practical training and experience.

Virtual reality is critical to interventions being created by the Institute. “We’ve developed several different ‘use cases’ with clinical VR,” says Aaron Haddock, director of behavioral health initiatives for the Institute. These use cases — for anxiety, depression, and ADHD — allow patients to develop and refine their coping skills by experiencing different life situations through a VR avatar.

“It’s a kind of exposure therapy where you get to experience the success of using your skills to effectively manage your condition.” And if you decide you didn’t make the best choice, you can go back and try again.

The clinical VR development has included a partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading information technology consulting company whose executive vice president is Gary Labovich ’81, vice-chair of Clark’s Board of Trustees.

The Institute also has developed an online curriculum focused on social-emotional learning (SEL), Digital MAAX2 (Maximizing Adolescent Academic Excellence), based on Ward’s previous work in this field. The program helps students develop the SEL skills that are critical to success in school, work, and life, including self-awareness, self-control, and social/interpersonal skills. The program was set to be piloted in fall 2020, but the pandemic intervened and pushed that launch to this spring.

The fourth intervention, the MI PEACE app, was created when the pandemic forced Ward to “think out of the box about how to connect and engage with young people,” since working with them in schools and community settings was impossible. This work landed the Institute the competitive 2021 Product Innovation Award from Boston-based OutSystems.

“We’ve created a platform that helps schools and youth-serving entities be more efficient and effective in addressing the needs of youths in schools and community settings. Our app helps behavioral health professionals coordinate care for their students using a wraparound service model, and helps adolescents and young people understand and manage their own concerns,” Ward says.

Users of the app can assess how they are feeling in the moment, set goals, and develop strategies to manage and mitigate some of the stressors they’re experiencing. If they choose, they can also employ the app to help them find mental health resources in their community and connect to a professional for assistance.

That human connection is critical, Ward says. “It’s still always about the relationship; the technology doesn’t replace it. The app can serve as a catalyst or facilitator, but at the end of the day, human beings prefer to connect with human beings.”

••• When COVID-19 spread across the country in early 2020, young people suddenly lost the ability to be with friends and family. Schools shut down and in-person interactions were rare. The only way to socialize was through a computer screen.

For almost two years, students from kindergarten through college saw their normal routines destroyed while pandemic chaos whirled around them. They relied on social media to connect with others, but those platforms also provided constant reminders of the virus’ toll. Many felt trapped by a pervasive sense of fear; others have dealt with the unfathomable loss of a loved one.

Every student’s pandemic experience has been different, Ward says. “You don’t know what their families have been going through — unemployment, food or housing insecurity, grief — and they’re bringing all of that back with them to school. Everybody is worried about the learning loss, but you can’t get to the learning loss without attending to kids where they are right now, emotionally and psychologically. Spend time on the social-emotional work and then create space for them to learn.”

As the world continues to wrestle with its pandemic realities, the Mosakowski Institute is strategizing the

(From left) Gralen Vereen, Andy Acevado, and Biko Gayman are Mosakowski Institute research fellows.

BEFORE YOU CAN GET TO THE LEARNING LOSS CAUSED BY THE PANDEMIC, YOU MUST ATTEND TO KIDS WHERE THEY ARE RIGHT NOW, EMOTIONALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY.

next steps it will take to have maximum impact. One emerging ally close to home is the Becker School of Design & Technology’s game-design program at Clark.

“They have an initiative dedicated to serious games, and are going to create games that are engaging for youth and drive mental health outcomes,” Haddock says.

“What Aaron and I ultimately want to do is push the field forward and think about how technology can help practitioners work best with their clients,” Ward says.

“Clark is the ideal place for it, with our top-rated psychology program steeped in evidence-based practices on how to work with children, youth, and families.”

The stresses on children and young people show no sign of abating. Indeed, they are present, encroaching, and a continual source of disruption for developing minds. And they make the Mosakowski Institute’s efforts to confront them more important than ever.

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NOTHING BUT NET

When Marc Lasry ’81 bought the last-place Milwaukee Bucks, he believed they could be competitive. Today, they are champions. B Y J I M K E O G H

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As Giannis Antetokounmpo looks on, Marc Lasry presents President Joe Biden with a Bucks jersey at a White House ceremony honoring the team.

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locker room, anticipating bad news — ligament damage seemed inevitable. But the preliminary examination produced a more hopeful diagnosis, later confirmed by an MRI: a hyperextension of the knee with no tears. Giannis had escaped serious injury and would need just a few days’ recovery time.

The Bucks not only stayed alive without their rehabbing superstar, but they thrived, sweeping the next two games and advancing to the finals against the Phoenix Suns.

Giannis returned in time for Game 1, resumed his role as a virtually unstoppable force, and powered Milwaukee to a basketball title the city hadn’t experienced since a young Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was lofting sky hooks for the Bucks.

With victory assured in the closing moments of the deciding Game 6, the fans inside the Fiserv Forum erupted, their joyous cheers echoed by another 100,000 people who’d gathered outside the arena to shout into the June sky.

“In those final moments, a huge sense of relief came over us. Then it was jubilation,” Lasry says. “It’s true that you have to be really good, but you also have to be a bit lucky and have things fall in the right place. So when you know you’re going to win, you’re like, ‘Yes! Thank God!’ It was a fabulous feeling.”

PHOTO BY WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES

When Giannis Antetokounmpo fell to the hardwood, his face contorted in pain, the championship prospects of the Milwaukee Bucks seemed to topple with him.

It was Game 4 of last year’s Eastern Conference finals against the Atlanta Hawks. The Bucks’ towering center had leaped to defend a pass, then crumbled, clutching his left knee. As the medical staff sprinted to Giannis’ side, his teammates watched in stunned silence. Even the Hawks players appeared unsettled by the sight of the big man brought low.

“It looked horrible from where I was sitting,” recalls Marc Lasry ’81, co-owner of the Bucks. “I just hoped that he was all right.”

Replays revealed that Giannis had landed awkwardly — the knee bent backward, as if mocking the limits of his anatomy. After he’d limped off the court with the assistance of two trainers, the Hawks played their way to a 11088 victory, tying the best-of-seven series at two games apiece and wounding the hopes of the Bucks’ title-starved fans. Everyone within the Bucks’ universe had embraced the notion that Giannis, perhaps the most gifted player of his generation, would lead Milwaukee to its first NBA championship in 50 years, and they knew reaching the summit was improbable without him.

Lasry joined Giannis and the medical staff inside the

PHOTO BY GARY DINEEN/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGES

**** Celebrating a title with some of the world’s best basketball players would once have seemed a distant dream for Marc Lasry, who was born in Morocco and came to the United States with his father, a computer programmer, and his mother, a teacher. The Lasrys lived in a modest two-bedroom apartment in Hartford, Connecticut, with Marc and his sisters, Sonia and Ruth, sharing a room until he left for Clark in the summer of 1977. “In that kind of living situation, you can either become really close to your sisters or you can absolutely hate them,” he laughs. “Fortunately, we were very close.”

Indeed they were. Sonia Gardner ’83 and Ruth Lasry Steinberg ’86 would eventually join their brother as Clarkies.

An accomplished student, Lasry loved basketball, and played his freshman year under ultra-ambitious Clark coach Wally Halas, who soon began assembling powerhouse teams to compete in the NCAA tournament. “They really started recruiting people then, and got very good. I was hoping they’d just stay OK and I could play all the time,” Lasry says with a smile.

He speaks with great affection of his Clark days. Of being a history major and studying under legendary professor George Billias. Of the good friends he made during his four years at the University, and with whom he remains connected today. Of meeting Cathy Cohen ’83 on the first day of school in 1979, falling in love, and marrying three years later.

He also recalls squeaking by on little cash and a lot of ingenuity. When he lived off campus, Lasry and his buddies snagged $20 in carpet remnants at a sale at the Holiday Inn and hammered them into the apartment floorboards. His bed, including the mattress, was a castoff he found at the Salvation Army. He even managed to cadge free meals in the dining hall through an inside connection.

“When you’re 18, everything seems great,” he says. “You don’t even realize how disgusting your room is or the things you don’t have.”

BUILDING A BIOLOGY LEGACY THE LASRY FAMILY NAME IS VERY FAMILIAR TO THE CLARK COMMUNITY. The Cathy ’83 and Marc ’81 Lasry Center for Bioscience is the campus cornerstone for the study of biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and environmental science at Clark. The 50,000-square-foot building on Maywood Street houses classrooms, laboratories, conference rooms, lounge spaces, and faculty offices, as well as an impressive array of equipment that helps advance research and teaching capabilities.

The building, which opened in 2005, was a gift from Marc and Cathy, who had asked then-provost David Angel “what Clark needs to keep moving to the next level,” Marc recalls. The answer was a bioscience center. Though Marc, a history major during his student days, and Cathy, an English major, had not been engaged in the sciences during their Clark careers, they didn’t hesitate to fund construction of one of Clark’s most distinctive structures.

“We have our own interests, but Cathy’s view was, ‘If this is what Clark needs, then this is what we’ll do,’” Marc says. “I agreed.”

The center is also a model of green design and construction, earning LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certification under the Green Building Rating System.

Across campus, the Lasrys also made substantial donations to renovate and expand the elegant turn-of-the-century villa that houses the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, including the Rose Library. The Cohen-Lasry House is home to the uniquely rich and renowned undergraduate and doctoral programs that provide training in Holocaust history, the Armenian Genocide, and other genocides perpetrated around the globe.

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“I loved Clark,” he continues. “It was the right place at the right time for me. I grew up pretty sheltered, and I wasn’t that sophisticated. Clark was a nice stepping stone to introduce me to the world.”

****

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PHOTO BY JOE MURPHY/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGES

After graduating from Clark, Lasry earned his juris doctor from New York Law School. He clerked for the chief bankruptcy judge of the Southern District of New York, and when he graduated from NYLS went to work in the bankruptcy division of the Manhattan law firm Angel & Frankel.

Despite his legal acumen, Lasry had different ambitions.

He and Cathy had begun a family — they would eventually have five children — and Marc wanted a job that paid better and engaged his talents and interests. He joined a small investment firm and discovered that he not only loved the work, but was very good at it. In 1989, he and Sonia co-founded Amroc Investments, and in 1995 the two launched Avenue Capital Group, whose primary focus is investing in distressed debt and other special-situations investments in the United States, Europe, and Asia. (The

Lasry siblings remain close professionally as well as personally: Marc is Avenue’s CEO, Sonia is president, and Ruth is a managing director.)

Much of Avenue Capital’s success has hinged on Lasry’s ability to perceive opportunities where others may not.

“My skill set is that I can look at something and do the work to understand it. Then, even though you and I have the same facts, I’m going to put a higher value on certain things than you will,” he says. “You might see problems that, to you, make it a bad investment, and I might say, ‘This can be turned around.’

“Basketball is much easier to explain,” he adds. “I can say the reason I’m good at basketball is because I’m too quick for you to cover me, or I’m a great shooter. But with investing, I find it more difficult to describe because it doesn’t always make perfect sense. I just try to take a complicated situation and simplify it so that others can understand it.”

His ability to synthesize the complexities of Wall Street has made Lasry a highly sought-after interview on business programs airing on MSNBC, CNBC, and Bloomberg, where he shares his insights about the market.

PHOTO BY JOHN LAMPARSKI/GETTY IMAGES

**** While high finance has its obvious rewards, Lasry never lost his passion for basketball. He invested in the Brooklyn Nets with hopes of becoming a principal owner, but when he learned that the Milwaukee Bucks were for sale, he was intrigued — with reservations.

This was a struggling team: Besides owning the worst record in the league, the Bucks languished in the bottom 10 percent of every business metric, from ticket revenues to the number of jerseys sold.

Still, as he often did with failing companies and underperforming stocks, Lasry saw potential. In May 2014 he inked a deal to become co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks with fellow majority owner Wesley Edens.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity — something super interesting and fun. There was clearly a lot of room for improvement, but you only invest in something because you believe you can turn things around,” he says. “I felt if we hired the right people we could get the team into the top half of the league. Then we’d have to establish a new identity, build a new arena and training facility, and hopefully in the next five to 10 years we could end up being one of the five- to 10-best teams in the NBA.” While Lasry knew the challenges he faced, he was unaware that he had a secret weapon. The year before he purchased the Bucks, the team drafted a skinny 6-foot-11inch player with a sunny disposition who’d been raised in Athens, Greece, by Nigerian immigrant parents.

“Giannis was just this sweet kid who was always in the gym working out,” Lasry recalls. “Our GM at the time said he had a lot of potential and hopefully he could be an allstar. It turned out that Giannis is not only a talented player, but he’s a phenomenal individual. He cares about the organization and cares about the city. We’re lucky to have him.”

The Milwaukee Bucks kicked off the 2021–22 season with a ceremony awarding the members of the organization their mammoth, diamond-encrusted championship rings.

The first to receive one was Marc Lasry. He delivered brief remarks, thanking the fans, before concluding with a line that exhilarated the crowd inside the Fiserv Forum.

“To Milwaukee,” Lasry said, raising his left fist into the air, the arena’s lights glinting off the jewels in his newly awarded ring. “The beginning of many, many championships!”

With Giannis once again dominating on the court, the Bucks are aiming to make good on their fans’ expectations of a repeat championship. Marc Lasry believes if they stay healthy, they can do just that. This June, Milwaukee may roar yet again.

(Top) Lasry is a frequent guest on business programs, where his market expertise is highly sought.

(Above) Sharing a happy moment with Bucks forward Khris Middleton following the title game.

(Opposite page) Lasry has put his basketball skills to good use in celebrity games throughout the years.

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JUSTICE D E L AY E D .

In 2008, John Granville, M.A. ’04, was gunned down in Sudan.

A stunning admission by that country’s government has brought some solace to those he left behind.

By Jim Keogh PH OTO IL LUSTR ATIO N BY CEL IN A PER IER A

JUSTICE DELIVERED.

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It was an act of violence that ended a lifetime of kindness.

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N THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of January 1, 2008, John Granville, 33, a diplomat with the U.S. Agency for International Development, was being driven home following a New Year’s Eve party at the British Embassy in Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum. Another car began to follow Granville’s vehicle, then overtook and cut it off in the city’s Al Riyadh section. Two men got out and fired 17 bullets into the diplomat’s car, instantly killing the driver and wounding Granville in the neck and chest. He died in a hospital several hours later.

Granville’s murder devastated his family and friends in his hometown of South Buffalo and rocked the international aid community. His peers and faculty in Clark’s Department of International Development, Community, and Environment (IDCE), where he’d earned his master’s degree in 2004, were left grappling with the loss of one of their own, a smart and charismatic man who’d dedicated himself to humanitarian work with unswaying commitment and boundless compassion.

“John had a great intellect,” recalls Laura Hammond, one of his IDCE professors. “But what really drove him was his heart.”

The circumstances behind Granville’s death had long been a source of pain and confusion for the people he left behind. Speculation held that the ambush was retribution by a terrorist faction over the West’s support of southern Sudan’s push toward independence from northern Sudan, and retaliation for the introduction of peacekeepers into Sudan’s embattled Darfur region. Before his death, Granville had been assisting with the distribution of more than 200,000 solar-powered radios to remote villages in southern Sudan, where access to information was scant.

He wanted the people to be well-prepared for elections planned for 2009, as well as for the 2011 referendum that would eventually establish South Sudan’s independence after a bitter 20-year civil war.

In the wake of the murders, the Sudanese government had quickly apprehended and imprisoned the two

gunmen and two accomplices who were in the vehicle that night (a fifth man was charged with buying the weapons).

All four escaped a year later in what the Sudan Tribune described as a “Shawshank Redemption-style prison breakout.” According to a 2020 account in The Buffalo News, “One of the convicts was quickly recaptured and another was killed in Somalia in 2011, but two remain at large and the Sudanese government even pardoned one of them.”

In December 2020, almost 13 years after Granville was assassinated on the streets of Khartoum, it was announced that Sudan had reached an agreement with the U.S. government under which it will commit $335 million to compensate the victims of state-sponsored terrorism, in effect removing the country from the U.S. list of terrorist-supporting states. Of that payout, $2.5 million will go to Granville’s mother, Jane.

Congressman Brian Higgins of Buffalo, who grew up three streets away from the Granville family and who fiercely advocated for restitution on their behalf, says Sudan’s admission of culpability was welcome and the financial settlement deserved, if late.

“It was insufficient justice,” Higgins insists, “but it was still some justice.”

The frigid winters of South Buffalo couldn’t have prepared John Granville for Sudan’s searing summers, but he never gauged his life or career by a metric as basic as a temperature reading. He’d grown up in a tightly knit Irish Catholic neighborhood, playing hockey and rowing on the crew team at Canisius High School. His mother attributes the Jesuit education he received at Canisius with instilling in John a desire to contribute to the world, a spark he carried with him to Fordham University, where he studied international relations.

Africa was his particular passion.

“He believed in the people of Africa,” says Jane Granville. “He did so much there; it was just part of his caring nature. It’s who he was.”

After Fordham, Granville worked for the Peace Corps, teaching English in the Cameroon village of Bamendjou.

There, he met fellow teacher and native of Cameroon Andre-Guy Soh, M.A. ’05. The two became fast friends.

John’s gentle and persuasive teaching method inspired his students to quickly master English-language skills, Soh says. “Go back and ask any of his former students, and they’ll tell you that John gave them a passion for English. He took something that seemed scary to them, and soon he had these kids discovering how to think in a new language.”

Granville was equally admired and respected beyond the school, so much so that the local chief, or sokoudjou, named John his adviser, or “chief ’s son,” a rare honor.

“John always wanted to understand why we did certain things, where those things came from in our history, and why they were important. He got to the roots of our culture, and he embraced it,” Soh explains.

When he came to Clark to pursue a master’s degree, Granville didn’t just want to learn about international development — he wanted to learn everything about international development.

“John would come to me and say, ‘You know about refugees. Teach us about refugees,’” Hammond recalls with a smile. “I’d say, ‘John, I’m not currently teaching a course on refugees, but if you can find five people to take it, I’ll teach it.’ Within 24 hours he’d recruit those five people, and we’d have a course on refugees and forced migration.”

Granville was determined to bring people together, whether that meant coaxing a guest speaker to visit Clark to offer expertise on a compelling topic or organizing a group trip to a sports bar to watch the Super Bowl. For a seminar on food insecurity taught by Hammond, the class would meet in a different student’s room and eat together.

‘ John had a great intellect, but what really drove him was his heart.’

LAURA HAMMOND, FORMER IDCE PROFESSOR

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When it was Granville’s turn to host, he drove home to Buffalo and brought back his mom’s meatloaf. “John didn’t know how to cook,” Hammond laughs. “I think he was a little panicked about what he could possibly serve us.”

Granville and fellow student Ka Vang, M.A. ’03, spent the summer of 2002 doing humanitarian work with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in southern Sudan. That experience led them to co-author their dissertation, and inspired them to return to the region in 2003.

“John was just one of those people who everyone wanted to be friends with,” Vang recalls. “He was kind,

‘ It was insufficient justice but it was still some justice.’

CONGRESSMAN BRIAN HIGGINS OF BUFFALO

generous, bright, and very idealistic. He wanted to make the world a better place.”

That world came with risks. Sudan’s civil war over natural resources, religion, and issues of autonomy was bloody and brutal. And while visitors from the West were welcome in the south, the reception was far chillier, sometimes hostile, in the north.

That didn’t bother Granville. When he went to work with USAID’s democracy and governance team, Hammond says, “He knew the risks, but he knew it was exactly what he wanted to do.”

Brian Higgins views the John Granville saga from a rare perspective. He is one of very few people on the planet who can speak with equal insight about Buffalo and Sudan, where he spent substantial time as a member of

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the Foreign Affairs Committee. On New Year’s Day, the morning John was killed, he was on the phone with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the State Department and CIA, trying to gather whatever information he could share with the Granville family.

Higgins reflects admiringly on Granville’s work in southern Sudan — his efforts to provide quality education for children and the initiative to bring radios to villages that often lacked electricity, roads, or running water.

Those radios, he notes, were critical to recruiting the poorest of southern Sudan into the process that would determine the fate of their country and perhaps their individual destinies.

“He dedicated his life to people most of us will never know, in a place most of us will never visit,” he says.

On March 8, 2010, a new school for young women was dedicated in the town of Kurmuk in southeastern Sudan.

The Granville-Abbas Girls’ Secondary School was named in honor of John Granville and Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama, the driver who was killed alongside Granville in 2008. The school’s stated mission was “to increase Sudan’s capacity to provide quality primary and secondary education, especially for girls, who have lower literacy and lower rates of school attendance than boys.”

Before it was later destroyed during the civil strife that engulfed the region, the school exemplified the work and spirit of John Granville, Hammond says. “John was all about being on the ground, delivering at the grassroots level,” she says. “His goal was to translate initiatives into concrete action.”

She suspects Granville’s attackers that night in Khartoum didn’t target him as an individual, but rather what he represented. He was, she says, symbolic of incipient change in Sudan that many were unwilling to accept.

“We’re still not sure if the assailants were tied to the government, but the government certainly covered up the crime,” she says. “Paying the settlement is recognition that the government bears at least some responsibility for what happened.

“Anyone who knew his commitment to local development — to education, to peace-building — wouldn’t have targeted him personally. No way. He didn’t

think of himself as any more special than anyone else; in fact, he was just the opposite. John’s attitude was not ‘Let me teach you how it’s done,’ but rather ‘Please teach me.’”

The Granville-Abbas Girls’ Secondary School may yet rise again. Vang notes that her husband, an adviser at USAID in East Africa, has met with a former governor in South Sudan to discuss plans to rebuild in the near future.

When he was in South Sudan in 2011, Higgins spoke with several of Granville’s former USAID colleagues, who were saddened to learn of the destruction of the girls’ school that bore his name. But they held out hope the emergent nation of South Sudan ultimately will be stronger thanks in part to the efforts of John Granville and others who helped the people embrace their independence.

“Nation building is arduous and takes a long time, and South Sudan is still the newest country in the world,” Higgins says. “I believe John’s work is still waiting to blossom there.”

In 2010, a new school for young women was dedicated in the town of Kurmuk in southeastern Sudan.

The Granville-Abbas Girls’ Secondary School was named in honor of John Granville and Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama.

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when the world came to The Graduate School of Geography was launched a century ago with a mission that persists today: to map a better future for our planet.

BY ANNE GIBSON, PH.D. ‘95

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o

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e

N AUGUST 25, 1928, a 170-foot steam barkentine named the City of New York was one of two ships that set out from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the first of famed explorer Richard E. Byrd’s five Antarctic expeditions. On board was 19-year-old Paul Allman Siple, chosen by Byrd from thousands of Eagle Scout applicants to join the undertaking.

Siple would accompany Byrd on five expeditions.

After the second, he paused to earn his doctorate in 1939 at Clark University’s Graduate School of Geography with a dissertation titled “Adaptations of the Explorer to the Climate of Antarctica,” in which he developed the theory of the wind chill factor. When he returned to Antarctica with the third expedition, Siple mapped and named the Clark Mountains, designating individual peaks for his wife and six Clark geography professors.

During World War II, Siple was tapped by the U.S. Army for his expertise in cold-climate clothing and equipment. By the time of his death in 1966, he’d served as president of the Association of American Geographers, graced the cover of the December 31, 1956, issue of TIME magazine, and numbered three Congressional Medals of Honor among his many awards for his work as a scientist, explorer, inventor, and author.

The story of Siple is special, but it is not solitary. His narrative is one of many that compose the vivid history and compelling present of Clark’s Graduate School of Geography (GSG), which in 2021 celebrated its 100th anniversary. It’s been a century of powerful scholarship and rigorous instruction characterized by the words with which former Clark President Richard Traina, in his book “Changing the World,” used to describe Siple: “inordinate curiosity, restless spirit and indefatigable energy.”

Clark University President Wallace W. Atwood, one of the professors who lent his name to a peak in the

Clark Mountains, launched the Graduate School of Geography in September 1921. Atwood had been a professor of physiography (now called physical geography) at Harvard University, and his selection as president in 1920 had been driven in part by the decision of Clark trustees to establish a second area of graduate research excellence — the first being psychology — that would elevate Clark’s visibility and academic standing. Few U.S. universities offered doctoral degrees in geography at that time, and it was hoped that psychology and geography would become the academic and research pillars that distinguished Clark from its competitors.

That first year, curious students could read an introduction to the new program in the academic catalog, which argued that education in geography was critical to prepare a post-World War I United States to take its deserved place in the world.

“During the last few years the American people have been awakened, in a remarkable way, to an interest, in Geography,” the introduction claimed.

“The period of isolation in national development is passed, and we have come to realize, almost suddenly, that the United States of America is one of the leading nations of the world and vitally interested in almost everything that is going on in the world. This awakening, and the consequent broadening of our horizon, have forced us to recognize that we have neglected in this country the scientific study of Geography.”

Among the faculty tasked with carrying forward this energized educational mission were Atwood himself, Charles F. Brooks, and Ellen Churchill Semple. Brooks had founded the American Meteorological Society two years prior. “Miss Semple,” as she was referred to in the catalog, was one of the foremost geographers in the country and had, that same year, assumed the role of president of the American Association of

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Geographers. A graduate of Vassar College, she studied geography in Europe but was denied a doctorate on account of her sex. Nonetheless, she was Clark’s first woman appointed to faculty rank.

In the century that followed, the GSG would become a global leader in a wide range of geographic scholarship, including physical, economic, urban, feminist, and Marxist geography; human-environment studies, including political ecology and the analysis of extractive industries; and, with the maturing of the digital revolution, geographic information science. Three notable peer-reviewed scholarly journals were born in Clark’s Graduate School of Geography: Economic Geography, today one of the most heavily cited journals in the world, in 1925; Antipode, central to the discipline’s radical turn in the 1960s and beyond, in 1969; and Human Geography, a relative newcomer, in 2008.

“ At its core, geography’s great strength is that it engages life in its fullness.”

A particular strength and point of pride of the GSG is its internationally renowned doctoral program. Over the past century, it has been one of the most important centers of doctoral training in geography in North America. One of its defining features is its global reach: It both draws students from all over the world, and trains students to do research in myriad locations across the globe. Along with that international composition and perspective, the GSG’s doctoral program has long been characterized by a strong sense of community and a constant intellectual ferment. It is no surprise, then, that its alumni have had a disproportionate influence in the field, with many going on to become tenured faculty at other leading departments not just in the United States, but around the world.

The Graduate School of Geography long ago accomplished the lofty goal set by Atwood and the university trustees. Its faculty is recognized worldwide for innovative scholarship, as are many of its alumni who hold positions at institutions of higher education in the U.S. and beyond.

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Kasperson ’59, who pioneered inquiry into human responses to environmental risk and hazards. Billie Lee Turner, distinguished research professor and former director of the GSG, analyzed changes in land use and land cover; Susan Hanson, distinguished university professor emerita and an urban geographer currently serving as the National Research Council’s Division Chair of the Transportation Research Board, has focused her research on gender and economy, transportation, local labor markets, and sustainability. Dick Peet taught in the GSG for 50 years, building its reputation as a key site for the study of political economy.

Emeritus professors and research faculty in humanenvironment geography played key roles in building Clark’s distinctive strengths and reputation in this domain: Dianne Rocheleau played a central role in founding and shaping the field of feminist political ecology; Sam Ratick integrated quantitative analysis into the formulation and analysis of environmental policy; and Jody Emel first established the GSG as a leader in the study of extractive industries and helped create the field of animal geographies.

Since the coming of the digital revolution in the latter part of the 20th century, the field of geography has been transformed by the development of computer-based geographic information science and remote sensing, with geographers employing advanced earth observation and spatial analysis technologies to address crucial issues surrounding socioeconomic development and environmental science and policy.

J. Ronald Eastman, GSG research professor and founder and director of Clark Labs, was an early innovator in this field with his development in the 1980s of the IDRISI GIS and Image Processing Software (now TerrSet Geospatial Monitoring and Modeling Software), designed to run on a personal computer. The software’s competitive pricing and compatibility with the Windows operating system made its professional-level analytical and mapping capabilities accessible to budget-conscious researchers, nonprofit organizations, and students around the world, essentially democratizing a valuable resource for examining the world through the lens of geography. Complementing this legacy, the GSG recently decided to establish a Center for Geospatial Analytics.

In 1987, the same year that IDRISI debuted, “The Earth as Transformed by Human Action,” a conference organized

by Kates, Turner, and William C. Clark of Harvard University, drew international attention from the scientific community, and resulted in the publication three years later of “The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere over the

(Clockwise from top left) Geographer Ellen Churchill Semple was the first woman appointed to faculty rank at Clark. President Wallace Atwood (fourth from left) visiting Clark alumni on a 1927 trip to Japan. Roger Kasperson was a pioneer in the study of human responses to environmental risk. In the 1920s, Clark geography students crossed the U.S. by bus on research excursions.

Students conduct research in the Map Room in this undated photo.

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“ If we’re to make progress toward addressing the major challenges of our time, then the world will need more geographers.”

Past 300 Years.” The volume was described by its publisher as “the culmination of a mammoth undertaking involving the examination of the toll our continual strides forward, technical and social, take on our world ... and to explain the major human forces that have driven these changes.”

The establishment of the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark in 1991 grew out of earlier University research clusters that focused on topics like environmental risk and hazards, and the potential of computer technology and remotely sensed imagery to map and analyze the environment. The Institute’s steering committee is primarily composed of faculty from the GSG and Clark’s Department of International Development, Community, and Environment, and is driven by “a dizzying assortment of urgent real-world challenges.” Funded projects have addressed topics such as shellfish aquaculture, marine plastics, natural climate solutions, climate monitoring for agriculture, and pollinator conservation.

Geography graduate and undergraduate students participate in essential research through the Institute.

Today’s Graduate School of Geography boasts research and teaching that span the areas of human-environment interaction, urban-economic geography, geographic information science, and earth system science. In addition to the Ph.D. in geography and master’s degree in geographic information science (maintained jointly with the Department of International Development, Community, and Environment), the School supports three undergraduate major/minor options in geography, global environmental studies, and the earth system science track of the environmental studies major.

A century after the Graduate School of Geography was launched, humans — and the planet — are facing the formidable challenge of climate change. Droughts and wildfires are threatening water resources, forests, agricultural production, and communities. Efforts to decarbonize energy systems and the economy are dramatically changing land uses and economic structures. Rising sea levels, food insecurity, war, and misgovernment are propelling people to cross international borders in search of a better life. Social polarization is disrupting relatively stable developed countries, while social media is rife with misinformation and redistricting alters political maps. The spatial contours and connections of all living things and social structures are shifting.

Paul Siple described the value of geographic thought for tackling complex problems as “a safe way around the 36

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crevasse of specialization which other scientists fall into.” Current geography alumni both exemplify and espouse the importance of coupling an area of expertise with a global outlook.

“Geographers craft a perspective of the world which is unique,” says Inbersagren “Sagie” Narsiah, Ph.D. ’06, who is associate professor at the Social Policy Programme of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Social Sciences in Durban, South Africa. “They have the ability to synthesize a host of often disparate fields of knowledge providing, in a sense, holistic understanding of phenomena.”

Assaf Anyamba, Ph.D. ’97, principal scientist with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, concurs.

“Geography is multidisciplinary in essence, allowing a practitioner to tease out and understand the relationships and complexities in the interactions between humans, societies, environment, weather, and climate — how all these components influence and impact each other. Geography enables us to answer and address challenges arising from these complex interactions.”

“I think the value of a geography degree has grown immensely since I graduated in 2004,” says Shana Johnson, who is vice president at Foursquare Innovative Transportation Planning. “At Clark we developed qualitative and quantitative research skills and gained an appreciation for the interrelationships between the built and natural environments, society, and the economy. If we’re to make progress toward addressing the major challenges of our time, including climate change and the environment, structural racism, and economic inequality, the world will need more geographers.”

Anthony Bebbington, Ph.D. ’90, who is both an alumnus and former director of the Graduate School of Geography, insists that its mission has never been more urgent.

“At its core,” he says, “geography’s great strength is that it engages life in its fullness: life’s material dimensions, its social dimensions, its subjective and spiritual dimensions. Questions about the meaning of life are never far from the surface in our discipline, whether you are studying mangrove loss in Southeast Asia, fiscal crises and race relations in U.S. cities, the thawing of ice caps and permafrost, or energy transitions.

“The principal challenge facing the field is the challenge of human and non-human existence: possibly survival, but certainly the quality of existence. I do think the Graduate School of Geography is in a good place to meet those challenges — and I also think it has no choice.”

A legacy of achievement H Clark’s Graduate School of Geography has been one of the top Ph.D.-granting departments in the United States for the past 100 years.

H The GSG is consistently ranked as one of the top 10 geography graduate programs by the National Research Council.

H Ten GSG faculty and Ph.D. alumni have served as president of the American Association of Geographers since its founding in 1904.

H The late Robert Kates and Roger Kasperson ’59; Susan E. Hanson, distinguished university professor emerita; and Billie L. Turner II, distinguished research professor, were all inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Anthony Bebbington, Ph.D. ’90, former director of the Graduate School of Geography, is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

H Clark counts two geographers among its 10 presidents: Wallace Atwood (1920-1946) and David P. Angel (2010-2020)

H The Clark-owned and -edited Economic Geography is one of the most highly cited journals worldwide, ranking second out of 85 journals in geography and second out

(From top) Professor Samuel Van Valkenburg was a mainstay of the Graduate School of Geography.

Paul Siple, Ph.D. ’39, is credited with developing the wind chill factor.

of 377 journals in economics globally.

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Clark geographers confront the world’s pressing concerns With a storied history as its foundation, and the urgency of accelerated global change as its fuel, today’s Graduate School of Geography empowers action on critical challenges that demand a consequential response. The School’s research and teaching span the full range of geography’s impressive breadth as a discipline, concentrated in four clusters of focus but with tremendous and intensive collaboration among faculty and students across those areas. Their impact is felt all the way from the streets of Worcester to the Arctic seas.

Geographic Information Science and Remote Sensing Earth System Science ESS faculty at Clark study the complex, interrelated physical and biological components of the earth’s land surface, atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, and oceans, with a particular emphasis on observing, understanding, and predicting global environmental

advanced earth observation and spatial analytical technologies to address crucial issues concerning socioeconomic development and environmental science and policy. Key techniques and elements include remote sensing, spatial analysis, decision science, image processing, dynamic modeling, time series analysis, geostatistics, and the global positioning system.

changes.

AREAS OF STRENGTH: Conservation GIScience, land change mapping and

AREAS OF STRENGTH: Terrestrial ecosystems and global change;

software/system development; and remote sensing of the cryosphere, forest

climate and global environmental change; polar climate change; forest ecology; terrestrial and marine biogeochemistry; landscape and disturbance ecology; surface water and cold-region hydrology; and the communication of climate science to inform policy.

CORE FACULTY: Abby Frazier, Karen Frey, Dominik Kulakowski, and Christopher Williams Clark’s ESS faculty play important roles in linking climate science to policy. For instance, Frey, a leader and institution builder in international Arctic and polar science, is a lead chapter author for multiple editions of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Report Card, which documents the sustained transformation to a warmer, less frozen, and biologically changed Arctic; and Frazier was selected to lead the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report that assists the nation in understanding, assessing, predicting, and responding to the human-induced and natural processes of global climate change.

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GIScience and remote sensing geographers at Clark apply the world’s most

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modeling; image time series analysis; image classification; spatial decision support; ecosystems, and agricultural systems. A distinguishing element of GIScience work at Clark is the close working relationship between Graduate School of Geography faculty and students and Clark Labs, a University research center founded by longtime GSG faculty member Ron Eastman.

CORE FACULTY: Lyndon Estes, Robert Gilmore Pontius Jr., John Rogan, and Florencia Sangermano Much work in GIScience and remote sensing at Clark analyzes human uses and transformations of environments’ relationships and their implications in the context of climate change. For example, Estes’ Agricultural Impacts Research Group, which has been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, uses New Earth Observation technologies and modeling techniques to study changing agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa. The research addresses urgent questions regarding how to feed a growing population with the minimum environmental impact in the context of a changing climate. Rogan and Sangermano have long empowered student researchers to use high-resolution imagery and other remote-sensing technologies to help protect wildlife, ranging from elephants in Africa to bison in Montana to sea life in Patagonia.

Human-Environment/NatureSociety Geography

Urban-Economic Geography

Human-environment and nature-society geographers at Clark draw

and methodological approaches — from economic sociology to political

from social theory, political economy, ecological sciences, land system science, development studies, decision science, and law, policy, and ethics to examine relationships between human societies and environments, one of geography’s defining themes as a discipline.

AREAS OF STRENGTH: Environmental policy and practice; political ecology; natural resource and extractive industries; human dimensions of global environmental change; environmental and climate justice; environmental movements and conflicts; international development and the environment; food systems and agriculture; sustainability, land use, and environmental change; and vulnerability, resilience, and hazards.

CORE FACULTY: Anthony Bebbington, James McCarthy, and Rinku

Urban-economic geographers at Clark draw on a diverse range of theoretical geography — to examine the processes that drive change, conflict, innovation, and uneven development across the world.

AREAS OF STRENGTH: Urban, industrial, and regional development; international development and political economy; innovation and entrepreneurship; social movements, legal geographies, and place-making processes; critical race and social theories; urban politics; globalization and its uneven consequences; critical mobilities; and sustainability and technological change.

CORE FACULTY: Yuko Aoyama, Asha Best, Mark Davidson, Deborah Martin, and Jim Murphy A notable strength of much research in the GSG is that it crosses these clusters. For example, Best, whose research focuses on mobility, Black

Roy Chowdhury

geographies, critical race theory, and urban informality, and Estes, whose work

Clark faculty demonstrate the ecological and social significance

Foundation that will train geographers to use geospatial analysis tools to

alike of changing human-environment relationships. For example, Roy Chowdhury and collaborators have documented the emergence of a distinctive ecological landscape type across substantively different eco-climates in the suburban United States, a finding with implications for understanding climate change and local land use policy impacts. Meanwhile, McCarthy and several of his Ph.D. students are analyzing the politicaleconomic and environmental and labor justice implications of the tremendous growth of renewable energy production in multiple countries.

is in GIScience, recently collaborated to secure a grant from the Urban Studies analyze data relevant to anti-racist approaches to spatial justice.

Likewise, Rogan, whose research is in the areas of GIScience and landscape ecology, and Martin, whose research focus is in urban geography, have collaborated in recent years on the Graduate School of Geography’s longrunning Human-Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) program. Over the past 23 years, the HERO program, which Rogan kept going through the pandemic, has involved scores of Clark students studying and formulating policy recommendations regarding a range of issues related to urban forestry, heat islands, and climate change in Worcester and other Massachusetts cities.

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Clark’s bold future starts with you At Clark, we believe that one person can have a transformative impact.

We see this every day. The dynamic professor who energizes the classroom. The staff person who tends to the details of a campus operation. The undergraduate whose independent research project brings new understanding to a field of study.

Now imagine the cumulative impact if, rather than one person, many act to make a difference at Clark.

This is why The Clark Fund is so important. Your contribution, alongside the gifts of your fellow Clarkies, empowers us to invest in key areas of the institution, from classroom learning to student support to our engagement with our neighborhood, our city, and our world.

Clark has been creating a strategic framework that lays the roadmap for the University’s future growth in

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academic and research excellence, enhanced campus experience, greater diversity, equity, and inclusion, impactful outward engagement, and broader institutional capacity.

Ways to Give • Use the envelope in this magazine to mail a check made payable to Clark University.

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

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

For more information on ways to give, including through securities or IRA transfer, please visit our website: www.clarku.edu/the-clark-fund.

alumni news INSIDE

Alumni Council looks ahead | Meeting an ambassador | Our professors remembered

What interests me most about this career are the relationships.

– Robert Oliver, M.A./IDSC ’00

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alumni news

Clark’s vision for its future includes you I’m sure you’ve seen the stories. Small, liberal arts colleges and universities are permanently closing their doors because they’ve been unable to remain fiscally solvent in an increasingly competitive market.

Clark is not entirely immune from the forces that have battered institutions of higher learning across the country. The pandemic and politics have shrunk enrollment from overseas, and there are fewer prospective students domestically due to shrinking birthrates and other factors.

But despite these market dynamics, Clark remains strong. The University had good enrollment in 2020 and 2021 and has remained fiscally sound.

In fact, in a 2020 NBC report that evaluated the financial fitness of schools across the country, Clark didn’t show any discernible “stress” when measured across four categories.

As alumni, we should not take this for granted. Keeping an institution of higher learning true to its principles and academic standards, as well as financially stable, does not come easily. It takes committed leadership, a strong vision for the future, and a healthy endowment.

The Alumni Council recently had the privilege of hearing from President David Fithian ’87 and other members of his leadership team. The vision that they laid out smartly brought together the best of what has made Clark distinctive with exciting new plans for unique educational experiences and spaces, tailored to what students of today want and, more importantly, need. ‘ Keeping an As president of the Alumni Council, I institution of higher want to inspire as many of you as possible learning true to its to be part of this future. Some of this can be accomplished through programming principles and academic standards that brings students and alumni together, and we are working with the Office of takes committed Alumni and Friends Engagement to leadership, a strong increase those opportunities. Please watch vision for the future, your email and social media accounts for news of these and other alumni events. and a healthy But I’d be remiss if I didn’t also encourendowment.’ age all of you to consider making Clark part of your giving plan for the future.

Even a modest donation can help a gifted student benefit from the kind of Clark experience that for so many of us launched careers as well as lifelong passions and relationships. The institutional leadership is there — let’s do our part to keep Clark strong and healthy for the future.

MARY OWENS ’86

President, Clark Alumni Council

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ALUMNI COUNCIL MISSION STATEMENT The Clark University Alumni Council connects or reconnects Clarkies with the University. We promote activities and share news that will deepen their affinity with a community that launched passions, careers, and relationships. Through our interactions, we also drive positive and lasting change that redefines what it means to be a Clarkie, and excites and inspires graduates to participate, to give, and to be champions of the Clark experience.

class notes

’72 STEPHANIE BRENDYN COURSEY BAILEY has published “Remember, Recapture, Reclaim, Restore, and Preserve: Principles for Living,” a book about values that come from “Small Community, USA” but are easily translatable to “Anywhere, USA.” By reflecting on our common values and seeing the chaos today, she writes, we are compelled to do better. The book is a reflective companion to “Through My Father’s Eye,” a documentary Stephanie co-produced about her father, James Coursey Sr., which is available to view on YouTube. Stephanie is a lifetime public servant and supporter of community health excellence, and has been honored for leadership, service, professionalism, innovation, compassion, contributions, and initiatives. She was featured in “Journey to Leadership: Profiles of Women Leaders in Public Health,” a book by Carole Woltring and Carole Barlas.

1957

BARBARA SCHULTZ LANDER is looking forward to attending her 65th Clark reunion in June. Her family has a long history at Clark — not only did Barbara meet her husband, Ernest Lander, in Professor Killian’s 8 a.m. sociology class, but her father, Irving Schultz, cousins Julian Schultz and Ruthie Mongilio, niece Traci Lander, and brother-in-law Robert Lander (Ernest’s twin) are all Clark graduates. Barbara recalls that “the twin brothers from Caribou, Maine, helped win the rope pull for their classmates.” She and Ernest married on June 10, 1956.

After graduating from Clark, Barbara earned a master of education degree from Salem State University, and taught art for 20 years in the Salem (Massachusetts) School System. She writes, “After retiring from the classroom in 1990, I went into teaching English as a Second Language for over 25 years and finally retired at 83. I have written several ESL curriculum books and continue to create as a multimedia artist.” After Ernest’s death in 2000, Barbara established the Ernest Lander Economic Student Scholarship at Clark, now the Ernest and Robert Lander Scholarship.

1958

STEVE SIEGEL has been featured in a documentary video by Dorot, a Jewish organization that reaches out to seniors and connects them with activities to improve their quality of life. He was interviewed about his life and experiences and made particular mention of his time at Clark.

1964

THOMAS LEE, M.S. ’64, has published “The Warning: A Novel for the Nuclear Age.” The book tells the story of a young monk and two nuns who engage in civil disobedience against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and pay the price — and society does as well. Tom spent almost 35 years on the biology faculty of St. Anselm College, retiring in 2002. He earned his doctorate in botany/plant biology from the University of Connecticut.

Clarkies (left to right) LARRY FECHTER ’67, YAACOV RONE ’60, and MARTIN GARMENT ’65 were thrilled to meet at President David Fithian’s LA and Beyond event in March 2021, and got together to catch up in Palm Springs, California.

1972

STAN MINER has hosted several mini-reunions of 13 Clarkies on Zoom throughout the COVID pandemic, including with eight of his fellow former residents of Wright Hall’s third floor (Bernie Silver, Marc Rosett, Dan Green, Rich Harris, Stu Ketaineck, Bob Jacobson, Charlie Brooks, and Roger Schwarz — all Class of 1972).

Also joining the calls were Barry Herman ’72, Debra Sinick ’72, Elyse Eisner ’73, and Liz (Warner) Ketaineck ’74. During the first get-togethers, the friends shared a lot of humorous Clark nostalgia, but later sessions moved into topics like the 2020 election, family developments, COVID policies in their nine different states, and how Clark was dealing with the pandemic.

VIRGINIA SAPIRO is retiring after 46 years as a political science scholar and professor. During her final year of teaching, she wrote “The Retirement Letters,” a blog reflecting on her career (which includes some mentions of her time at Clark). Virginia served as a member of Clark’s Board of Trustees before she was named a dean at Boston University.

1976

WILLIAM T. WARD retired from EMC Corp. (Hopkinton, Massachusetts) in March of 2016, after a 39-year career in the information technology field — the roots of which can be traced back to an Introduction to Computer Science course taught by Al Larson during the fall of William’s junior year at Clark. He writes,

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class notes

’82

a key pandemic element — the first of its kind. This simulation was created after extensive research with health care executives in the United States and Europe. Mailman’s original simulation, which highlighted the complexities of modern hospital management, was developed 11 years ago and did not include a crisis element, deep recession, public service campaign, or opportunities for community initiatives to change health outcomes. “We have witnessed the devastating impact of the COVID-19 crisis on health care systems across the globe. Going forward, all hospital executives and providers need to be adept at navigating an unsettled marketplace through a host of legal, regulatory and clinical challenges,” John writes.

1978 SEAN MCDONALD is an honorary alumnus of Oglala Lakota College, a public tribal land-grant community college in Kyle, South Dakota. He is pictured at the Hail to the Sunrise statue on the Mohawk Trail in Charlemont, Massachusetts.

“That’s when graduation and the real world started to feel closer than the beginning of college life and I got panicky about carving out some sort of career path from a mathematics degree at a liberal arts college (no hope, or even thought, of going to graduate school with five younger siblings!).” William fondly remembers spending many hours in the “dungeon” computer lab in the basement of Goddard Library. He began his career as a night shift computer operator at Malden Mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Eventually he moved to the Rhode Island area, spending 10 years at Hasbro and 16 at EMC. “I successfully staved off addiction issues in my mid-20s — with lots of help — and have now been married for 32 years with two grown children, the oldest of whom graduated from Clark in 2012, earned a master of arts in teaching in 2013, and is a public school teacher at Claremont Academy, right in the Clark neighborhood!”

1977

JOHN S. WINKLEMAN is director of the Health System Simulation and the Consulting Practice at the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, John and his team developed and launched a brand-new simulation with

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DAVID PIJAWKA, M.A. ’78, PH.D. ’83, professor emeritus of sustainable planning in Arizona State University’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, received the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arizona Association for Environmental Education (AAEE). This award is AAEE’s highest honor, presented to those who have spent more than two decades in the environmental education field, have contributed significantly to the field in Arizona, and have been involved in both mentorship and service. For more than 30 years, David has been a key figure in advancing sustainability initiatives within ASU; he created and taught one of the university’s largest courses, Sustainable Cities, now with more than 1,000 students per year. He also helped lead the development of the undergraduate and master of urban and environmental planning programs and assisted in the establishment of the urban planning Ph.D. program.

1981

VINCE SCARLATA, MBA ’81, has retired as executive vice president for a global high-tech firm. He has published several children’s books and is a volunteer CEO for a local nonprofit that provides assistance for people in need in the community. He was given the Hometown Hero humanitarian award for his volunteer work in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1982

JOHN MORRILL continues to advance clean energy and climate action in a new senior position with Fairfax County, Virginia, after 20 years with neighboring Arlington County. Also, in early 2021 he was elected chairman of the Board of Governors of the Virginia Energy Efficiency Council, an organization dedicated to advancing energy efficiency throughout Virginia.

1984

PETER LANGMAN is an internationally recognized expert on the psychology of school shooters and other mass attackers. He recently published his third book on the subject, “Warning Signs: Identifying School Shooters Before They Strike,” drawing on lessons learned from dozens of thwarted plots and deadly attacks. The book, which presents research-based practical guidance on anticipating and preventing mass attacks, is for all members of a school community, including school personnel, mental health professionals, law enforcement officers, parents, and students. Peter’s research has been cited in congressional testimony on Capitol Hill. After the Sandy Hook attack, the CEO of the American Psychological Association presented his recommendations on school safety to then-President Obama. Peter is the director of research and school safety training at Drift Net Securities.

1988

KEN JANJIGIAN published “A Cerebral Offer” in November 2020. The novel tells the story of Harry, who is trying to keep his beloved indie theater afloat while his frustrated girlfriend implores him to let it go along with his other neuroses. Harry’s fate suddenly changes with the arrival of an old bohemian friend and an exotic woman who tempt him with a chance to save the theater and his life. Ken is also the author of “Gone West,” a collection of novellas also set in San Francisco, and the novel “Defending Infinity.” He is an assistant dean at American University focusing on international education and teaches American film and culture studies. Originally from Boston, Ken taught English in Italy before eventually settling in the D.C. area.

1989

MARA BISHOP has published “Shamanism for Every Day: 365 Journeys.” Mara — a shamanic practitioner, intuitive consultant, teacher, author, and activist — offers readers profound yet simple tools for weaving spirituality and healing into their busy lives. She has a thriving private practice, working with clients from the U.S. and abroad. Mara devotes significant time to training new practitioners in her Personal Evolution Counseling method, an integrated approach to spiritual healing, personal growth, and emotional well-being. A leader in the Shamanism Without Borders program and a founding member of the Society for Shamanic Practice, Mara is the only Harner Certified Shamanic Counselor in North Carolina. She lives in Durham with a beloved family of people, animals, and plants and invites Clarkies to reach out at WholeSpirit.com.

’00

’92 HEATHER HAYES was named by College of the Holy Cross President Vincent D. Rougeau as vice president and chief of staff. In this role, Heather serves as a key partner in the president’s executive leadership team and helps develop and implement the strategic goals of the college. Previously, Heather served as associate dean of strategic and student affairs at Boston College Law School, after beginning her work there as the assistant dean for career services. Her background includes work in large law firms, both as a lawyer and in lawyer recruitment and professional development. She was a litigation associate with the law firm of Cooley Manion Jones, led lateral recruiting efforts for Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault, and was director of legal recruitment for WilmerHale. Heather earned a J.D. from Boston College. She resides in the Berkshires with her husband, Nate, and daughter, Abby Nickerson.

1990

DR. CATHRYN LAVERY was appointed chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Security at Pace University for the Westchester and NYC campuses in August 2020. She contributed to the upcoming Springer Publication, “Practical Considerations for Preventing Police Suicide: Operation S.O.S. (Stop Officer Suicide)”; and is co-editor and contributor to the forthcoming “Socio-Political Risk Management: Assessing and Managing Global Insecurity,” which is the fourth volume in the series Developments in Managing and Exploiting Risk. Cathryn is co-president and consultant/trainer for Integrated Justice Solutions, LLC in New York.

1992

DR. SHAN LU, MHA ’92, is a tenured professor and director of the Laboratory of Nucleic Acid Vaccines in the Department of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Worcester HIV Vaccine, a biotech company, has won approval from

the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to advance its clinical work, which is based on Shan’s discoveries. His lab at UMass has received more than $50 million in funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases over the past 20 years to oversee the development and manufacturing of the vaccine. “In order to stem the global tide of AIDS, finding an effective preventive HIV vaccine is our best hope of breaking the transmission cycle,” he said. “This brings promising new research into an HIV vaccine one step closer.”

STEFANO TIJERINA recently published “Opportunism and Goodwill: Canadian Business Expansion in Colombia, 1867–1979” (University of Toronto Press). He is a lecturer in management in the Maine Business School at the University of Maine. “I am very interested in sharing and presenting my findings on international economic development with the Clark University community down the road,” he writes.

’04

LAUREN M. (HERSH) STARKE and her husband, Kevin, welcomed a baby girl, Madilynn Jean Starke, on Aug. 6, 2021, at 7:48 a.m.

2000

AMYLEA MURPHY has published “Fine,” a young adult novel about a girl’s search for answers to why her straight-A cheerleader sister suddenly vanished. In the book, which is available on Amazon, Amylea explores themes of authenticity, mental health, and relationships. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been at Clark,” she writes, “but I have wonderful memories of my time there.” A cancer survivor, Amylea lives in Southern California with her husband and three children. She invites her fellow Clarkies to visit amyleamurphy.com and connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

2003

RICH FIELDS has had a busy professional year, first making partner at the law firm King & Spalding and then being recruited away to lead the Board Effectiveness Practice at Russell Reynolds. Rich challenges the conventions of existing boards and leadership teams to improve performance and ultimately their contributions to their many stakeholders and helps organizations adopt or enhance existing governance profiles and find and attract high-quality board members and executive leaders. He welcomes every opportunity to work with other Clarkies, or just to grab coffee or lunch around Post Office Square in Boston.

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class notes

BISHNU MAYA PARIYAR, M.A. ’07, authored an essay that is featured in “The Writer’s Mindset: A Rhetorical Guide to Reading, Writing, and Arguing,” a textbook featuring an anthology of readings on a range of topics, from diversity and culture to environmental issues and personal growth. In her essay, “Peace Corps’ Influence Changed My Fate,” she shares her life struggles: of being born Dalit, the lowest of the societal castes in Nepal; of excelling in school, despite bullying; and of being invited to attend the Manakamana Higher Secondary School in Gorkha, where she became the first girl from her community to graduate high school. Before she came to Clark to earn her master’s in international development and social change, Bishnu founded the Association for Dalit Women’s Advancement of Nepal (ADWAN), which addresses the root causes of gender- and caste-based discrimination and poverty by organizing women into empowerment groups. “ADWAN’s programs have had a positive impact on more than 50,000 marginalized women and their more than 20,000 children in rural Nepal,” writes Bishnu, who remains ADWAN’s founding president and patron. (Above) In 2019, Bishnu met with Randy Berry, U.S. Ambassador to Nepal.

2007

KARLO LOPEZ, PH.D. ’07, was recently named the interim associate dean for the School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering at California State University, Bakersfield, where he is an associate professor of biochemistry. He writes, “Professionally, I have continued the research I started at Clark with Professor Frederick Greenaway, and I am also in the process of writing a book chapter on the effect COVID-19 has had on academic integrity and educational ethics. I was invited to submit the book chapter by fellow Clarkie Kelly Elkins, with whom I serve on the Committee on Ethics, a national committee of the American Chemical Society. I am grateful to Clark and the Clark community for providing a solid foundation whereupon I have built my career.

Cheers from the Central Valley of California!”

2013

CHRIS BREWER founded River City Logistics Inc. in 2018 following a successful start in the logistics and

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transportation services industry. From a one-person shop to a nationwide freight logistics firm with more than 50 transportation professionals, the company offers full-service transport, freight, and carrier services.

2015

GBETONMASSE SOMASSE, PH.D. ’15, has been promoted to associate teaching professor in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. An economist and applied econometrician, he has helped develop or redesign seven economics courses at WPI while advising multiple student project teams each year.

Gbetonmasse’s research focuses on public policy, development, and impact evaluation, with an interest in education, technology, environment, inequality, and Africa. He also co-directs WPI’s Cape Town Project Center in South Africa. Gbetonmasse earned his doctorate in economics at Clark after more than seven years of professional work in the financial and development sectors in Africa.

’02 DUNCAN REMAGE-HEALEY ’02, MPA ’03, has joined King Boston as director of advancement and external affairs. In this role, he will cultivate and drive funding to support King Boston’s work, which honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King’s philosophies, highlighting the social justice work they did in Boston in the 1950s and 1960s. For nearly two decades, Duncan has held integral roles at nonprofits, concentrating on leadership, management, operations, and fundraising in the arts, human services, education, biological research, and public interest sectors. He was most recently the managing director at Somerville, Massachusetts-based Parenting Journey after working in leadership positions in both operations and advancement at the organization. Prior to that, he held leadership positions at Boston Arts Academy and Habitat for Humanity Greater Boston. Duncan and his wife, Sarah, live in Waltham with their three daughters.

’21

MATT WRUBEL ’09, RAMIN EDMOND, JUSTIN WONG ’09, MBA ’10, TIM MULVEHILL ’07, CORY LEONARD ’08, and MICAH PRESCOTT ’08 gathered to celebrate Cory’s bachelor party. They are shown at the Flume Gorge in Lincoln, New Hampshire.

PARKER FREEDMAN is now affiliated with The Bulfinch Group, a wealth management firm headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts, with offices throughout New England. Parker majored in economics and minored in management at Clark, where he was a student-athlete during his first two years (basketball), then became the president of the Investments Club during his junior and senior years.

He currently resides in Quincy, Massachusetts, and enjoys running during his free time. You can also catch Parker reading comic books, watching movies, and enjoying quality family time.

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 If you’d like 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.

You also can submit your class note online at clarku.edu/alumni/submit-a-class-note.

Or, if you prefer snail mail: DONOVAN SMITH ’17, MPA ’18, and KATHLEEN (GREER) SMITH ’17, MAT ’18, were married on Aug. 31, 2021, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Clarkies in attendance included (front, left to right) Victoria Whitney ’16, Danielle White ’17, Nicole Lew ’17, Kathleen and Donovan, Nora Turok ’17, Katie Luczai ’17, Corinne Oulette ’19; (middle row, left to right) Jacob Dinerman ’16, Taylor McAllister ’18, Michaela Tucci ’17; (back row, left to right) Shannon Glass-Smythe ’16, Michael Levine ’17, Edward Aroko ’17, Edmund McCluskey ’17, Josh Feinberg ’16, J. Tyler Terriault ’16, Eam Feinberg (née Thanaphorn Suk-in) ’16, Joseph Atkinson ’17, and Vladislav Kiveliyk ’17.

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

Winter/Spring 2022

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in memoriam

John Baker John Baker, longtime professor of biology, a noted researcher, and a beloved mentor to countless students for more than two decades, passed away on June 4, 2021.

Baker arrived at Clark in 1995 alongside his wife, Susan Foster, with whom he established the Foster-Baker Lab, which conducted internationally renowned evolutionary studies of the threespine stickleback fish. He brought students on research expeditions to Alaska and Canada, giving them valuable hands-on experience in the field and tireless and supportive guidance on their academic and professional journeys. His kindness and quick wit were an uplifting presence in in the classroom, lab, and beyond.

The depth of the affection and admiration for Professor Baker and Susan Foster, who died last January (see Clark magazine, Spring 2021), was evident in a March 2021 tribute to the two that was attended by former students and colleagues via Zoom.

“Distinguished scientists, successful grant-getters, publishers, editors, both deeply committed to students — through their leadership and example, they took Clark to another level in bringing the student experience to the forefront in a research university,” former President David Angel said during the tribute. “We found our mojo in the sciences through the joy, passion, and commitment that Susan and John inspired in all of us.”

William Cresko, Ph.D. ’00, and Christin Hulslander, Ph.D. ’03, thanked Baker not only for his and Foster’s mentorship but also for showing that married scientists can be partners in both life and the lab. Cresko and Hulslander, who are married, are members of the biology faculty at the University of Oregon.

Through their mentorship and example, Foster and Baker taught their students to be accurate and observant, to learn from nature, and to be open and accepting of diverse people and ideas, Cresko said.

Many former students expressed gratitude for being able to get to know their professors away from the lab. Trips to the couple’s Petersham, Massachusetts, home were common, as were stints as dinner guests (and chef ’s assistants), housesitters, or gardeners.

Rural Petersham was a popular research area for Baker’s students.

He often brought them into the forest to teach the principles of land management and conservation.

The Foster-Baker Fund for Biology Research was established to provide support for undergraduate research in biology, particularly for students from populations underrepresented in STEM fields.

Visit alumni.clarku.edu/foster-baker.

ROBERT J. STEVENISH, P ‘86, L.H.D. ‘19 Robert J. Stevenish, P ’86, L.H.D. ’19, a longtime

a trustee alongside his son, Robert Stevenish II

member of the Board of Trustees whose deep

’86. A gift from father and son in 2005 established

business acumen and endless commitment to

the Stevenish Career Management Center at the

Clark helped inform critical University strategies,

then Graduate School of Management to provide

passed away on January 26, 2022.

career planning resources. He served in

The retired president and chief operating

numerous leadership capacities on the board

officer of Modell’s Sporting Goods in New York

and as co-chair of the successful Campaign

City, Stevenish also had served as CEO of

Clark fundraising campaign

Trilegiant Corporation and as a senior executive

He was awarded an honorary degree in 2019.

at other major retailers such as Montgomery

The citation read in part, “The skills and instincts

students eager to make their mark on the global

Ward and JC Penney, where he spent 27 years in

you’ve honed in corporate boardrooms help

stage.”

senior management positions.

ensure that Clark sets the strategies and

He began his tenure on the Board of Trustees in 2003, a span that included a decade serving as

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Robert Stevenish leaves his wife, Isabella, son,

marshals the resources necessary to provide a

Robert Stevenish II, daughter, Kristine Sullivan,

world-class education for generations of

and his grandchildren.

John Blydenburgh John Blydenburgh, professor emeritus of political science at Clark, passed away on Tuesday, August 17, 2021.

In high school he was recruited by the Brooklyn Dodgers farm team, but instead joined the U.S. Air Force, serving for three years. The GI bill sponsored his study of political science at SUNY Binghamton; he later earned his doctorate at the University of Rochester. His pioneering work with survey research led him to a teaching position at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University and then to ABC News, where he worked as a polling consultant from 1969 through the 2008 presidential election. He managed ABC’s Election Projections Desk from 1980 to 1988.

He joined the faculty of Clark’s Government and International Relations Department in 1975, teaching classes in game theory and survey research until his retirement in 2003. During his time at Clark, Blydenburgh founded and served as director of the Public Affairs Research Center at Clark University. He also created and directed the Clark Poll, a quarterly public opinion poll focusing on public issues in Massachusetts, from 1977 to 1981. He was interviewed frequently by the media, especially around major elections.

During his career, Blydenburgh received a Fulbright Scholarship to Wellington University in New Zealand, and spent a sabbatical at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.

He is survived by two daughters, two grandchildren, and a sister.

Bobby M. Wilson, Ph.D.’74 Bobby M. Wilson, Ph.D. ’74, an alumnus of Clark’s Graduate School of Geography, passed away on August 25, 2021. He was a faculty member in the Department of Geography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 1974 to 2002, when he moved to the university’s flagship campus in Tuscaloosa. He remained on the faculty there, including service as chair of the Department of Geography, until his retirement.

Wilson’s work was foundational to the field of Black geographies. His first journal article, “Symposium: Black perspectives on Geography” — published in Antipode while he was a graduate student at Clark — detailed some of the first explicit articulations of anti-racist geography within the discipline. He went on to a long career as a leading scholar, mentor, and institution-builder in the fields of Marxist, urban, Black, and anti-racist and anti-capitalist geographies, much of it in concrete engagement with the Black civil rights movement.

Wilson was among the first in geography to develop and articulate theoretical understandings of racial capitalism, largely through his two books on Birmingham: “America’s Johannesburg: Industrialization and Racial Transformation in Birmingham” and “Race and Place in Birmingham: The Civil Rights and Neighborhood Movements.”

Dr. Wilson won the American Association of Geographers Presidential Award in 2012 and an AAG Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.

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in memoriam

Helene Zoë Ostrow, M.A. ’75

Saul Cohen

Helene Zoë Ostrow, 102, died peacefully of natural causes in her Worcester home of 78 years in the company of her eighth child and only daughter, Tonia.

She graduated from Hunter College with a degree in journalism, interned at The New York Times, and became the director of public relations for Helena Rubenstein. She met John Ostrow — literally in the lake at Lake George, New York — and after a long-distance courtship, the couple settled in Worcester.

Her career reads like the history of Worcester civic society in the mid-20th century. In the early 1960s, she led a committee of the League of Women Voters that examined the question, “Should the US recognize the People’s Republic of China?,” and took part in a study mission to that then-emerging nation.

Reflective of a nascent feminist movement, she returned to school, earned a master’s degree in sociology at Clark University, and helped to found the Great Brook Valley Day Care Center.

Ostrow later became the first executive director of Worcester’s CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), working to convince skeptical judges of the need for children to have their own representation in family law proceedings.

She is survived by seven of her children, 19 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Fred Rhodes ’56 Several alumni wrote in to note the passing of Frederick L. Rhodes ’56, a standout Clark athlete who worked many years for Congressman Joseph Early, including as his chief of staff in Washington, D.C. Before that, Rhodes took over coaching duties for Clark’s freshman/junior varsity basketball team in 1958.

“We were not a group of recruited high school players, and many on the team had never previously played organized ball,” recalled Barry Epstein ’62. “Through Fred, we learned the essence of teamwork, grit, and commitment.”

“Our freshman year at Clark and the experience and friendships we made on the basketball court were among the highlights of my college days,” noted Maury Donsky ’62. “Coach Rhodes, Barry, and the rest of the team had a lot to do with it.”

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Saul Cohen, professor and director of the Graduate School of Geography from 1965 to 1978, died on June 9, 2021, in Larchmont, New York. A prominent political geographer who went on to serve as president of Queens College, Cohen was lauded for upgrading the GSG’s academic standards and increasing minority enrollment.

The New York Times, in its obituary of Cohen, noted that he received a “C” in his first formal course in geography, during a Harvard University summer program after his high school graduation — but he went on to earn three degrees from Harvard and became a leading expert in political and human geography. He was the executive director of the Association of American Geographers immediately before joining the Clark faculty.

As part of his revitalization of the Graduate School of Geography in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Cohen established teacher-preparation programs, including programs for experienced teachers. He obtained funding from the U.S. Office of Education for teacher training programs, and secured a National Science Foundation departmental development grant designed to produce “centers of excellence.”

Clark was a linchpin of one of Cohen’s other programmatic ideas: a consortium of doctorategranting geography departments recruiting faculty or prospective faculty of historically Black colleges and universities to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees.

During his tenure as GSG director, Cohen anticipated the future of geography and began to develop new strengths in the areas of environmental cognition, international development (particularly in Africa), and environmental hazards management. The school’s faculty doubled and the number of graduate students substantially increased. The traditional environmental focus of the program was rejuvenated by new concepts and techniques, and as the environmental movement grew, the number of geography undergraduate majors rose to more than 100.

The school also doubled its annual output of doctorates in the 1970s.

Maurry Tamarkin

Roger Kasperson

Maurry Tamarkin, 83, professor emeritus of finance, passed away on July 12, 2021, after suffering a cardiac arrest while making a “spectacular diving catch” during a pickup softball game.

His daughter, Molly, shared the news in a Facebook post. “While we’re still in shock and devastated,” she wrote, “we’re comforted knowing that’s exactly the way he would have wanted to go: swiftly, without pain, while making a fabulous catch.”

Tamarkin retired in 2011 after 30 years on the Clark faculty. Along with teaching courses in corporate finance, international finance, and stock and bond valuation, he researched risk attitudes and risk management. He published a number of articles on his favorite topic, sports betting, and authored several book chapters. Voted “Professor of the Year” three times by students in the thenGraduate School of Management, he also served as the GSOM acting dean from 1996 to 1998.

But his greatest impact was often outside the classroom, where his grace, compassion, and quick wit earned him the respect and affection of the many students he mentored, befriended, and hosted in his home.

Tamarkin was “energetic, humorous, and considerate,” recalled Ran Liu, MSF ’09.

“Maurry Tamarkin was one of my favorite professors at Clark GSOM,” shared Heather L’Heureux, MBA ’02. “He was a truly genuine person with a passion for teaching.”

He is survived by his wife, Julie, four children, and seven grandchildren.

Memorial donations may be made to the Maurry Tamarkin Finance Fellowship Fund at the Clark University School of Management, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA 01610. The Fund was established by his nephew, David Reis, to recognize Tamarkin’s impact at Clark.

Roger Kasperson, professor emeritus of geography, passed away peacefully on April 10, 2021, at his home in Washington, D.C. Kasperson, who earned a bachelor’s degree in geography from Clark in 1959, went on to receive his master’s and doctorate at the University of Chicago before returning to Clark as a faculty member in geography and government in 1968. In addition to being a full professor at Clark, he served at various points as acting director of the Graduate School of Geography, dean of the college, provost and vice president for academic affairs, and director of the George Perkins Marsh Institute.

At Clark, Kasperson co-founded the Center for Technology, Environment, and Development, serving as its director from 1978 to 1981. The Center comprised experts ranging from physics, geography, philosophy, and psychology, exemplifying the impact of interdisciplinary research. Upon his retirement from Clark University in 2002, he was appointed research professor and distinguished scientist in the George Perkins Marsh Institute, an appointment he retained until his death.

In a message to his colleagues, George Perkins Marsh Institute Director Robert Johnston described Kasperson as a “giant” in the fields of risk analysis and communication, global environmental change, sustainability science, vulnerability, and resilience. Kasperson, who authored or co-edited 24 books and monographs and more than 150 articles, was one of the first geographers to be elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He also was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Perhaps most notably, he was the executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute from 2000 to 2004. Under his leadership, the Institute turned its attention toward research on environmental and social-environmental issues.

According to Nick Pidgeon of Cardiff University in Wales, Kasperson was “the leading light in our field of risk communication” for more than 30 years. Ortwin Renn of Germany’s International Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies said Kasperson was the model of “a dedicated, sincere, and value-based scholar in the risk field.”

At Clark, Roger met his first wife, Jeanne, who was research librarian and then research associate professor in the George Perkins Marsh Institute. The Jeanne X. Kasperson Research Library at Clark offers one of the most extensive collections in North America on environmental risk and hazards, environment and development, and the human dimensions of global environmental change.

Kasperson is survived by his wife of 15 years, Bonnie Ram, two children, two grandchildren and a sister.

Gifts can be made in Dr. Kasperson’s name at alumni.clarku.edu/RogerKaspersonMemorialGifts. Donations can be directed to the Jeanne X. Kasperson Library.

Winter/Spring 2022

51

in memoriam

PAS SING S

GENE J. BARBERET ’41 Storrs-Mansfield, Conn., 1/11/2021

R. MIHRAN MOORADIAN, M.A. ’58 Troy, N.Y., 7/12/2021

WILLIAM J. KENNEDY, M.A. ’69 Rehoboth, Del., 6/11/2021

DAVID L. YOUNG, MPA ’79 Clearwater, Fla., 3/28/2021

ALBERT B. SOUTHWICK ’41, M.A. ’49 Leicester, Mass., 4/16/2021

EDWARD W. COOK ’59 New Britain, Conn., 1/22/2021

PAUL H. GRANGER ’70 South Berwick, Maine, 7/14/2021

KATHERINE LEE (MINOR) CARRINGTON ’82 Germantown, Md., 11/30/2020

SHIRLEY M. (MILMAN) LERNER ’46 West Yarmouth, Mass., 3/15/2021

ROGER E. KASPERSON ’59, P ’92 Washington, D.C., 4/10/2021

ROBERT W. BARR ’71 Hilton Head, S.C., 2/27/2021

RICHARD H. DESROCHES ’47 Plymouth, Mass., 3/9/2021

THEODORE M. NIKITAS ’59, P ’86 Leominster, Mass., 5/12/2021

ARTHUR E. LAVOIE ’71 Limerick, Maine, 3/24/2021

MARIE J. (JAMESON) LENNAN ’47 Worcester, Mass., 7/23/2021

PAUL D. MCMASTER, PH.D. ’61 Auburn, Mass., 6/9/2021

RICHARD B. ECKHAUS ’72 Alameda, Calif., 7/11/2021

LOUIS P. CARINI ’49, M.A. ’51, PH.D. ’55 Hartland, Vt., 3/19/2021

RICHARD W. PIERSON, M.A. ’61 Northborough, Mass., 1/19/2021

RICHARD J. BRAVMAN ’74 Cape Cod, Mass., 9/6/2021

CATHERINE I. (SANDY) NICKERSON ’49 West Boylston, Mass., 4/18/2021

MARK M. SHERMAN ’62 Chatham, Mass., 10/8/2021

ROBERT H. MAUTNER ’74 Boca Raton, Fla., 8/29/2021

KAY ANN (CARSWELL) TROTTER ’49 Princeton, N.J., 5/16/2021

CLIFTON E. WHITNEY ’62 Green Cove Springs, Fla., 9/1/2021

THOMAS S. O’CONNOR, MBA ’74 Millbury, Mass., 2/11/2021

LAWRENCE S. O’CONNOR ’50 Framingham, Mass., 7/7/2021

RONALD G. WHITTLE, M.A. ’62 Belfast, Maine, 8/17/2021

BOBBY M. WILSON, PH.D. ’74 Birmingham, Ala., 8/25/2021

RENA S. (KANT) FINCH ’51 Northfield, Mass., 9/13/2021

ELISABETH W. LAWSON ’63 Binghamton, N.Y., 1/28/2021

LUCY W. BENSON, LL.D. ’75 Amherst, Mass., 7/17/2021

NORMAN B. MARSHALL, M.A. ’52 Buffalo Grove, Ill., 4/19/2021

DEAN L. ANDERSON ’64 Shrewsbury, Mass., 7/11/2021

JEFFREY C. MASARJIAN ’75 Whately, Mass., 10/10/2021

LOUISE H. (HIGHTAIN) HAROOTUNIAN ’53 Buford, Ga., 1/14/2021

MARION T. (TEMPLE) HELLQUIST ’64 Plano, Texas, 8/10/2021

HELENE ZOË OSTROW, M.A. ’75 Worcester, Mass., 3/23/2021

THEODORE S. PIKORA, M.A. ’64 Somersworth, N.H., 6/13/2021

YOLANDA E. YRISARRY ’75 Longwood, Fla., 5/1/2021

DONALD P. DAVISON ’65 Grafton, Mass., 6/5/2021

LESLIE A. JAIVEN ’76 Newington, Conn., 6/25/2021

WILLIAM K. MCALLISTER ’65 Huntsville, Ala., 4/18/2021

DONNA E. (HUX) KEMP ’76 Savannah, Ga., 9/22/2021

JOHN H. NICHOLSON ’65 Auburn, Mass., 5/27/2021

JAMES J. TRACY ’76 North Smithfield, R.I., 1/15/2021

ROBERT J. MEZEY ’67 Miami, Fla., 7/29/2021

YOUNG D. WANG, M.A. ’76 Greenville, Del., 7/29/2021

THEODORE PAPPAS ’67 Shrewsbury, Mass., 1/20/2021

MARTIN A. BANIA ’77, MBA ’84 Webster, Mass., 2/10/2021

JOSEPH PORACSKY ’67 Lawrence, Ore., 4/8/2021

NORMAN A. GARFINKLE ’78 Newark, N.J., 2/23/2021

ERIC E. CASLOW ’68 New York, N.Y., 2/16/2021

ELLEN E. (AZOFF) MIGDAL ’78 Akron, Ohio, 8/13/2021

PAUL GUNNAR ERICSON ’68 Fairfield, Pa., 10/9/2021

ROBERT A. MONK ’79 West Boylston, Mass., 1/9/2021

JOHN L. JULIAN ’69 Wallingford, Conn., 3/21/2021

KATHLEEN M. KELLEY RIVARD ’79 Shrewsbury, Mass., 8/2/2021

WAYNE E. PATTERSON ’53 Lincoln, Mass., 8/9/2021 PATRICIA F. (FITZSIMMONS) CARINI, M.A. ’55 Hartland, Vt., 3/13/2021 WILLIAM C. SIGALIS ’55 Shrewsbury, Mass., 7/22/2021 BARBARA W. (WARE) HOLMES ’56 Shrewsbury, Mass., 5/25/2021 EUGENE E. LOUBIER ’57 Reading, Mass., 8/4/2021 JOAN (WARFIELD) MANHART ’57 Green Valley, Ariz., 2/6/2021 NORMAN R. PROLMAN ’57 Framingham, Mass., 1/30/2021 NORMAN STEINBERG ’57 Boynton Beach, Fla., 1/8/2021 IRWIN H. MESS ’58 Chevy Chase, Md., 12/10/2020

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RICHARD A. BOURRE ’83 Bellingham, Mass., 8/7/2021 JAMES M. GAFFNEY ’83 Worcester, Mass., 4/23/2021 EUNICE L. JONES ’84, MBA ’92 North Brookfield, Mass., 9/26/2021 ERIC J. JOHANSEN ’85 Holden, Mass., 1/16/2021 PETER N. ROTANDO, MPA ’85 West Boylston, Mass., 3/21/2021 ADAM C. EIDELBERG ’86 New York, N.Y., 9/16/2021 ROBERT STEVENISH, P ’86, L.H.D. ’19 Boca Raton, Fla., 1/25/2022 VIRGINIA M. CHOJNICKI ’89 Worcester, Mass., 9/11/2021 DUNCAN K. MACLEAN ’89 Worcester, Mass., 8/28/2021 SAUL B. COHEN, D.SC. ’91, L.H.D. ’04 New York, N.Y., 6/9/2021 JEFFREY C. MITCHELL, M.A. ’91, PH.D. ’96 Albuquerque, N.M., 8/7/2021 BRIAN J. MULLIN, MPA ’98 Westborough, Mass., 9/19/2021 CARA E. SEVIGNY ’03, M.A.ED. ’04 Nashua, N.H., 3/13/2021 RYAN C. WINKLEMAN ’03 Santa Monica, Calif., 8/2/2021 VARTAN GREGORIAN, L.H.D. ’08 New York, N.Y., 4/15/2021 ZACHARY A. SCHNITZER ’12 New York, N.Y., 7/31/2021 REBECCA L. HADIK ’16 Woolwich, Maine, 1/29/2021

Madeleine’s gift continues the adventure

At home, Madeleine Grinkis encouraged her three children to exert their independence and learn to make wise decisions as they progressed through their lives — advice she continued to share with the students who sought her counsel across her 23-year career as administrator in the Graduate School of Geography, beginning in the mid-70s.

Madeleine, who passed away last July, held a special fondness for the GSG international students who balanced their academic responsibilities with the challenges of adapting to an unfamiliar culture far from home. With tremendous compassion and understanding, she helped them navigate their way through Clark, and life, offering unfailing support during stressful times and cheering their successes as they moved through the program.

“I think dealing with people from all over the world was an eye-opening experience for her,” says Madeleine’s

daughter, Carmen Grinkis ’85. “She very much wanted to help international students gain a foothold, and she provided them the kindness and acceptance, and also the structure and consistency, to do it. This was a great adventure for her — and a responsibility that she took very seriously.”

Madeleine continues to support GSG graduate students through the Madeleine Grinkis Endowed Fund for Geography Student Stipends, which she created with two planned gifts made to Clark: a charitable gift annuity and a beneficiary designation on a life insurance policy. Her Fund will provide financial support for future generations of Geography graduate students, continuing forever Madeleine’s generous legacy of providing attention and affection for students arriving on Clark’s doorstep, filled with questions and ready to learn.

To learn how you can leave a legacy for Clark 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.

clarku.edu/planned-giving Winter/Spring 2022

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Nobel-winning work on hunger drives Clark alumnus

F

By Aviva Luttrell

OR ROBERT OLIVER, M.A./IDSC ’00, the secret to having an impact has always been to remain humble. It’s an approach to life and career that has helped him lead successful campaigns against worldwide food insecurity at the United Nations World Food Programme, whose important work was recognized with the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

“I think whether it was Ethiopia, Guinea, or any place I’ve served, I’ve tried to come in with ease and not push any hidden agendas. Along the way, people open up, and you build trust,” Oliver says. “What interests me most about this career are those relationships.”

Oliver today directs global efforts for the Joint Resilience Project — a collaboration between the World Food Programme, UNICEF, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help marginalized people in conflictstricken areas strengthen their livelihoods. By working with vulnerable households — particularly those led by females — the project is helping create more resilient communities with greater gender equity and improved social cohesion.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Oliver has lived and worked for the past three years, the project is especially critical. Despite having some of the most fertile land in the world, the DRC is experiencing the worst hunger crisis on Earth — fueled by armed conflict, large-scale population displacements, and disease.

“There’s a great need for resources to help those people who are indigent, who are victims of armed conflict and natural disasters. To top it all off, we recently had Ebola,” he explains, noting that he was part of two Ebola response initiatives. “In both instances, it was key for

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WFP to distribute food to Ebola victims and their contacts under incredibly challenging circumstances.”

Oliver and his team make an impact by focusing on four pillars of food insecurity — availability, access, utilization, and stability.

The Nobel Peace Prize honored the World Food Programme’s efforts to combat hunger and to prevent its use as a weapon of war and conflict.

“We all play a part collectively,” Oliver says.

“It’s recognition of what the agency has done for so long.”

Oliver began working for WFP two decades ago as a Mickey Leland Hunger Fellow, managed by the Congressional Hunger Center based in Washington, D.C. From there, he set out to Ethiopia, where he gained field experience with the school meals unit.

Subsequent assignments took him across the globe to Guinea, Mali, El Salvador, and Zambia, among other stops — but it was in Worcester where he got his start combating food insecurity.

As a Clark graduate student studying international development and social change, Oliver took a part-time job at the Worcester County Food Bank. There, he met Rep. Jim McGovern, who helped ignite his passion for change on a global scale.

“You can really sense his energy, and as I got to know him, I realized that he was not only interested in the constituents in Worcester County, but he was interested at the national and international levels,” Oliver recalls.

At Clark, a librarian connected him with an alum who worked at the World Food Programme’s headquarters in Rome.

Oliver made a trip to Rome and McGovern arranged for him to meet with officials at USAID and FAO there. McGovern’s reference was a key factor in helping him land the Leland fellowship.

Since then, he’s been able to make a difference across the globe by fostering productive dialogues with government and civic leaders, who can become change-making partners. “I’ve been lucky — that approach has gained me direct contact to a number of ministers in almost every place I’ve worked.”

In El Salvador, Oliver leveraged a personal relationship he’d formed with the owner of a supermarket chain to launch a voucher program that allowed the families of coffee farmers whose crops were devastated by disease to shop at small grocery stories. More recently, when Mali accused Guinea of not taking the right border precautions to screen people during the Ebola epidemic, Oliver organized a summit between authorities in the Guinean Ministry of Health and the Malian Minister of Transportation to arrive at an acceptable resolution.

“A lot of these issues that I see internationally are the same issues happening in the United States,” he says. “The work experience I had back home is still very relevant to what I do today.”

clark currents INSIDE

From race to art | A goal of zero | The Greatest pays a visit | Worcester‘s gain

Clark’s Olympian PHOTO BY STEVEN KING

Winter/Spring 2022

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sports

Olympian Atu Ambala ’25 makes a splash at Clark

A

By Zoe Wright ’21, MSC ’22

TUHAIRE “ATU” AMBALA ’25 has been in and out of pools for as long as he can remember.

He was introduced to the water at just 18 months as a treatment for his asthma. By the age of 6 he was training competitively.

By last summer, the young boy who was first dipped into the pool to assist his breathing had morphed into a world-class swimmer at the pinnacle of his sport: He competed for his home country of Uganda in the men’s 100meter freestyle event at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Now Ambala is excited to be churning the waters at Clark University, where he’s a key member of the men’s swim team.

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“I came to Clark for the opportunity to both continue swimming and to pursue an education,” he says. “The first thing that I encountered upon my arrival on campus was 20 or so people welcoming me onto the team.

It’s nice to have people who are looking out for you from the get-go.”

Even before committing to Clark, Ambala was busy making connections with the University community. Through a group chat with other international swimmers who are Clark alumni, he learned the value of the Clark experience.

“Our goal was to show Atu and his family the strength of our community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni who are truly invested in each other,” says longtime swimming and diving coach Paul Phillips. “It was not an easy process for Clark to become a viable option for Atu and his family. But they were committed, and the support of our community truly showed the best of Clark.

“Seeing Atu’s demeanor around the pool every day, the way he interacts with everyone,

and the passion he expresses during competition … all of these characteristics I know he displayed before he came to Clark, but I truly believe having teammates behind him every day has added an element.”

Ambala has become a fixture at the University, providing leadership both in and out of the pool.

“He shows up every day and is always willing to work hard with everyone at practice. More importantly, he brings great motivation to our group this year,” says team co-captain Chris Whittington ’23. “This sport has an individual component that makes it very easy to become self-absorbed. But Atu is always invested in other swimmers’ times and improvements, and is such a supportive teammate and friend.”

Aided by Coach Phillips, Ambala pursued some hefty goals for this season and beyond.

His ultimate ambition for the next four years?

To become a national champion.

He’s already tasted what it’s like to compete at the highest levels and among elite company.

In high school, Ambala was awarded a

scholarship to train at a world-renowned facility in Phuket, Thailand, which gave him the opportunity to compete on a global stage. He represented Uganda at the 2018 African Swimming Championships in Algeria, the 2019 African Games in Morocco, and the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, South Korea.

Along the way, Ambala overcame numerous obstacles, including a multi-hour commute to and from practice and a lack of resources. The swimming facilities in Uganda are not comparable to those of developed countries, according to Atu’s father, Chris Ambala, who says the largest pool in the country is just 25 meters long. Most facilities also lack amenities like lane ropes, water filtration systems, starting blocks, and backstroke flags.

“Swimming in Africa receives little government support, particularly at the intermediate stage,” Chris Ambala told ClarkNow in July. “We had to save up in order to fund his trips to regional and continental championships in Kenya, Uganda, Angola, Mauritius, South Africa, Egypt, and Algeria.”

COVID-related challenges, including his own diagnosis with the virus, made Ambala’s appearance in the Olympics even more of a feat. When the pandemic first hit, the lockdown forced Ambala out of the pool for nearly five months. He traveled to Kenya to spend time with family and begin dry-land training. He was able to resume practices intermittently last August, but the ever-changing COVID-19 situation caused the pool to close constantly.

“My training certainly had some hiccups, and it would have been easy to lose hope or motivation in those moments,” he says. While his 100-meter freestyle time of 54.23 seconds wasn’t enough to advance him to later rounds of Olympic competition, Ambala remains grateful for the experience.

“Just being there, touching the wall, seeing the rings, giving it all in competition, that’s what it’s really about,” he says. “I had been praying so much to get to that point, and it was amazing to be given the opportunity to see all of my hard work and faith come together.

Going into my race, I knew that my training had some bumps. I knew that maybe I wasn’t the fastest, but I was still willing to give 100 percent.”

Early in his Clark career, Ambala, who is studying economics and computer science,

“ JUST BEING THERE, SEEING THE RINGS, GIVING IT ALL IN COMPETITION, THAT’S WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT.” began breaking school records, starting with a new best time of 54.56 seconds in the 100-yard individual medley against Bridgewater State.

Phillips predicts many more Clark records will fall before Ambala climbs out of the pool for the final time.

“Atu is outstanding in all four competitive strokes at an array of distances,” Phillips says.

“When compared to almost every Clark swimmer before him, he has the opportunity to achieve at or very near the top of our all-time lists in nearly every single event.”

Ambala notes tangible differences between his previous training regimens and the dynamics of Clark’s team. “Much of my training in the past has been very individualized,” he explains. “Here, every member of the team has different goals, but we work toward them every day as a group. They’re more than just my teammates. They have become something like my family.”

Despite his success, Ambala remains humble about his accomplishments. He draws on the proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” to describe his experience, noting the ongoing encouragement and motivation he shares with his teammates and coaches.

“It also takes a village to create an athlete,” he says with a smile, “and I am the poster boy for this fact.”

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Clark University faculty recently published scholarly works on subjects ranging from race to art (and the intersection of both) to problems with China’s police tactics.

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Asian American Literature in Transition, 1996–2020 EDITED BY BETSY HUANG (ENGLISH) AND VICTOR ROMÁN MENDOZA

This volume examines the concerns of Asian American literature from 1996 to the present, with special emphasis on reckoning with structures of violence, tracking modes of intimacy, tracing the proliferation of genres within Asian American literature, and surveying projects that speculate on future states of Asian America in domestic and global contexts.

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Policing China: Street-Level Cops in the Shadow of Protest

BY SUZANNE SCOGGINS (POLITICAL SCIENCE)

Scoggins delves into the paradox of China’s self-projection of a strong security state while having a weak police bureaucracy. Assessing the problems that beset the police, Scoggins finds that the central government and the Ministry of Public Security have prioritized “stability maintenance” to the detriment of nearly every other aspect of policing.

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EDITED BY WIM KLOOSTER (HISTORY)

This rich documentary history sheds light on the complicated period of 1780/81, when Peru was rocked by Túpac Amaru’s revolt, through 1826, when independence fighters defeated the last Spanish forces in mainland America. Primary documents reveal the struggles of both rebels and loyalists.

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Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design

BY KRISTINA WILSON (ART HISTORY)

In this first-ever investigation of how race and gender shaped the presentation and marketing of Modernist decor in postwar America, Wilson offers a powerful look at the codes of race, gender, and identity that influenced — and were influenced by — Modern design and shaped its presentation to consumers.

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Movers and Makers: Uncertainty, Resilience and Migrant Creativity in Worlds of Flux

BY PARMINDER BHACHU (SOCIOLOGY)

In these times of extreme change, Bhachu supplies a view of the migrants who navigate fragility and uncertainty to create with daring, often against great odds. She uses their dramatic life stories to uncover what makes for creativity and resilience in times of disequilibrium.

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Let’s Talk Race: A Guide for White People

BY FERN JOHNSON (ENGLISH) AND

Spanish American Independence Movements: A History in Documents

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MARLENE FINE

Written by specialists in race relations who are the parents of two adopted African American sons, the book provides unique insights and practical guidance, richly illustrated with personal examples, anecdotes, research findings, and prompts for personal reflection and conversations about race.

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‘ Homelessness is solvable if we choose to solve it’

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By Jim Keogh

IKE MANY A CLARKIE, RIAN WATT ’14 graduated with the goal of doing good in the world. He just didn’t know how, or where.

He bartended for a time, wrote freelance pieces about baseball for publications like The Athletic and Sporting News, and worked as a human capital consultant for Deloitte. But it was through his next job, as senior analyst for Abt Associates working on major homelessness projects, and in his volunteer efforts with young people experiencing homelessness, that Watt found his path and his passion.

“Homelessness is a moral issue for a society that allows it to persist, but it’s also something obviously solvable if we choose to solve it,” he says.

Inspired by that ambition, Watt today works as strategy lead for international and large-scale change at Community Solutions, which aims to “create a lasting end to homelessness that leaves no one behind.” The organization’s Built for Zero initiative enlists local partners in municipalities across the country, building teams to design and implement systems that allow them to achieve “functional zero” — the dynamic milestone where communities maintain a measurable and equitable end to homelessness for a population.

Watt joined Community Solutions out of a self-professed impatience with “five-year plans and ten-year strategies” to combat homelessness.

“When you spend time with someone who is experiencing homelessness, when you share meals with them, you realize that you need a solution for them that day,” he says. To date, the organization has helped 14 small and midsize U.S. cities, including Bakersfield, California; Abilene, Texas; and Chattanooga, Tennessee — as well as several communities in Australia and Canada — successfully end homelessness for a population in directed, structured, and sustainable ways. (Watt has done extensive work, remotely, with partners in Australia.)

Their efforts have not gone unrecognized. Last year, the MacArthur Foundation awarded Community Solutions a $100 million grant to accelerate their efforts to end homelessness in the U.S. and around the world.

This dramatic infusion of funding, Watt says, is the prestigious foundation’s endorsement of the Built for Zero approach, and is allowing Community Solutions to increase staff in those communities and apply resources toward finding housing solutions for people with unique needs.

Money is only a piece of the solution, he says. Dismantling the barriers to ending homelessness requires collective will, from the federal to the local levels, driven by an agreed-upon goal that “homelessness should be rare, and if it occurs it should be brief, and should only be a onetime thing.”

“Where it becomes difficult is setting aside organizational blinders, setting aside fears about losing funding and what it will take in terms of resources to approach this,” he says. “The will is there but it’s latent in a lot of communities. Part of our role is to activate people’s innate sense that this is something that doesn’t need to persist.”

Too often, he says, the official response has been to take actions, such as police sweeps of homeless populations, that do nothing to resolve the underlying issue and only remove the problem from public view.

The pandemic has added another layer to the challenge. The physical and mental health problems many homeless individuals experience, combined with a lack of access to proper nutrition and medical and preventive care, has made homelessness essentially a comorbidity for the virus, he says. When COVID-19 made its presence known, some communities responded adroitly by relocating homeless individuals from shared spaces, like shelters, into their own hotel rooms. But the resources to make the next significant step — moving people from rooms into permanent housing — have been lacking.

“Our homelessness crisis and our housing affordability crisis are essentially the same crisis,” Watt says. In parts of the country where the cost of living is modest, homelessness is typically not an issue, he explains. The problem is amplified in coastal cities where housing is expensive and the construction of new housing is often hamstrung by land-use regulations and other bureaucratic hurdles.

In Seattle, where Watt lives, he’s seen firsthand the toll of out-of-reach housing costs. He recalls that while volunteering, he met a young man who worked full-time on a city maintenance crew yet who struggled to cobble together the money to rent even a modest apartment.

Eventually, the man was given access to a housing subsidy and found a placement, but “that experience of homelessness will be with him the rest of his life,” Watt says. “There are so many like him, scrambling to do everything they can but still failed by a system that doesn’t require us as a society to make sure everyone has a roof over their head.”

Through Built for Zero, Watt and his Community Solutions colleagues are working to ensure the narrative surrounding homelessness can become one of turning past failures into future successes, one roof at a time.

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The Greatest pays a visit The release of a new Ken Burns documentary is always cause for excitement among lovers of history who appreciate his detailed approach to social, political, and cultural movements and the people who embody them. But the broadcast in the fall of Burns’ “Muhammad Ali,” an eight-hour biography of the legendary boxer, resonated a little more deeply for some Clark alumni.

In the fall of 1968, the student-run Speakers Board brought Ali to Clark, where he spoke to an audience that packed into Atwood Hall. This was an especially fraught time for the athlete, who had been stripped of his heavyweight title and faced a possible prison term for refusing to be drafted into the military, citing his opposition to the Vietnam War. He spoke at colleges and other venues to earn money during his four-year exile from boxing.

Robert Echter ’69 was one of a small group of students who had lunch with Ali at Little Commons (now Little Center) before escorting him to Atwood.

“He had this persona of being bombastic, but not with us,” Echter remembers. “He was a very sober, thoughtful guy who also happened to be a sports hero. It was a thrill to be there.”

Echter doesn’t recall the specifics of Ali’s Atwood talk, only that he was open and forthright about his situation, and, as was characteristic of the boxer, entertaining at the podium. After the presentation, students clamored to speak with him and get his autograph.

“He was an icon, and these were extraordinary times,” Echter says, noting the students’ own opposition to the war.

“One of the beauties of Clark was how we could engender a sense of community around something like this.”

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Clark students escort Muhammad Ali to his speaking engagement in Atwood Hall.

Among those in the Clark audience was Rick Kaletsky ’70, a fan of Ali’s who’d first connected with him as a junior high student when he placed a collect call to the boxer, then known as Cassius Clay, in Louisville, Kentucky. Cassius accepted the charges and the two had a friendly chat.

The experience galvanized Kaletsky, who developed a lifelong kinship with Ali. He wrote a book, “Ali and Me: Through the Ropes,” and opened a museum in the basement of his Connecticut home devoted to the fighter’s career. He even attended an invitation-only 70th birthday party for Ali in Louisville.

Kaletsky recalls that Ali “handled himself well in front of a tough academic crowd” that day in Atwood, and even invited a volunteer from the audience to help demonstrate his patented “Ali Shuffle.”

Later, when Ali met with a student group, Kaletsky approached him with a put-upyour-dukes stance. Ali smiled, took a gulp of air, and “mockingly blew me over.”

Kaletsky, playing along, sank to the floor, and the champion departed Clark undefeated.

Jim Keogh

clarkwork

Jack Foley was champion for Clark-Main South partnership Over a 45-year Clark career, Jack Foley accrued enough trophies, citations, framed photos, books, and binders — jammed with everything from Board of Trustees meeting minutes to Clark’s strategy for battling COVID-19 — to flatten the tires on a moving van. But before he left campus for retirement last July, it was a napkin that he most wished he could take with him.

It was the fall of 1994 when Foley and Clark President Richard Traina sat across from each other at a table in Tarragon’s Restaurant and on a napkin sketched out ideas about how Clark, in partnership with the community, could help reverse the steady decline of the Main South area.

From those scrawled lunchtime notes emerged the vision for the University Park Neighborhood Restoration Partnership, a nationally acclaimed model of collaboration between Clark, the Main South Community Development Corporation, and the city of Worcester that has yielded affordable housing, youth development and education opportunities, and small-business creation, helping transform a struggling neighborhood into a more vibrant place to live, learn, and work.

“I wish I had that napkin,” says Foley, who as vice president for government and community relations was both a strategic leader and spiritual force behind Clark’s commitment to Main South. “It should be framed somewhere.”

Of all these efforts, Foley is proudest of the Clark-Worcester collaboration that resulted in the opening in 1997 of the University Park Campus School, a Worcester public school closely aligned with and assisted by Clark’s Adam Institute. UPCS provides the kind of high-end educational opportunities that were once deemed out of reach to Main South students, and is empowered by the pact Clark has made with the neighborhood residents: UPCS students and neighborhood residents who have lived in the area for five years and are accepted to Clark attend tuition-free.

President Barack Obama hailed the ongoing

success of UPCS in a 2011 pitch to revamp national education standards.

“It’s one of the best things Clark has ever done,” says Foley. “I have heard so many stories of kids whose lives have been changed forever

by UPCS, whether they came to Clark or attended another college.”

Foley arrived at Clark in 1976 and spent eight years managing University food service, including four years as director. He employeed hundreds of students he employed in the kitchen and dining halls, among them future Clark professors, trustees, and well-known figures in business, science, and the arts.

The 1980s and 1990s were a precarious time for Main South. The closing of local factories had resulted in the loss of thousands of good jobs for local residents. Gang activity was on the rise. Vacant properties had become targets of arson. There were discussions about Clark either leaving Worcester or putting up walls around the campus. When Foley transitioned into the job of University business manager, Traina eventually added “director of community relations” to his title, making him the catalyst and evangelist for new possibilities in a neighborhood that many had given up on.

“Our partnership with Main South didn’t just bring change to the neighborhood, it changed the values of Clark University,” he insists. “Students now come to Clark expecting to engage with the community.”

Across his final memorable year, Foley often joked that he was gathering details for a book he’ll write about his time at Clark. Given the span and significance of his accomplishments, he’ll need more than a napkin.

Read the full story at clarku.edu/foley

Davis Baird reflects on his time as provost As he stepped down from 11 years as Clark’s provost, Davis Baird reflected on a Clark career that’s required him to be both thoughtful and nimble, judicious and bold, delicate and forceful, always with a mind toward what ultimately will produce the best learning experience for students and the optimal teaching and research environment for faculty — even during a pandemic.

“Clark grows on you. There’s really no other way to put it,” he said. “When I arrived at Clark, I’d already had a great career at the University of South Carolina, which is a wonderful institution, but it doesn’t inspire the loyalty and love that Clark does.

“It took me a couple of years to really figure out the quality of specialness that exists here. I think the smallness and intimacy are part of it, but it’s also the fact that Clark has never had it easy financially, and that helps inspire the faculty to truly work together to make the place succeed. That shared sense of this being a joint project matters immensely.”

Baird is not retiring completely. The former chair of philosophy at South Carolina for 13 years, he will be joining Clark’s Philosophy Department on a limited basis after completing a year’s sabbatical.

Read the full story at clarku.edu/baird

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New senior leaders join Clark Clark University President David Fithian has announced appointees to his leadership team.

Joseph M. Corazzini

Margo R. Foreman

Kendall Isaac

Vice President for Government and Community Affairs

Vice President and Chief Officer of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Vice President and General Counsel

Joseph M. Corazzini joined Clark last November as vice president for government and community affairs, coming to the University from the Framingham Public Schools, where he served as assistant superintendent of equity, diversity, and community development and director of community resource development.

As a member of the University’s senior leadership team, Corazzini oversees all government and community relations at Clark as well as outward engagement at the local, state, and federal levels. He will be responsible for sustaining the University’s active partnerships in Worcester and the Main South neighborhood and will work to improve the quality of life for all who live and work here.

Corazzini previously served as associate director of community organizing for the United Way of Central Massachusetts’ Main South Promise Neighborhood program, associate director of the Worcester Education Collaborative, and as program director with Dynamy, an internship-based gap year program based in Worcester. He earned both his bachelor’s in history and master’s in nonprofit management from Worcester State University.

Margo R. Foreman, MPH, joined Clark as vice president and chief officer of diversity, equity, and inclusion in October 2021. Previously, she served as interim vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Iowa State University.

Foreman directs Clark’s wide-ranging programs and initiatives in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and provides guidance for institutional priorities and strategic planning to strengthen the University’s community, culture, and climate. She partners with community members to develop programming, expand community dialogue, enhance training, and advise on curriculum development, and also co-chairs the University Diversity Action Council.

Foreman is an active member of the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education and the American Association for Access, Equity, and Diversity, which presented her with the 2021 President’s Award for Excellence and Service.

Foreman is working toward her doctorate in education leadership in higher education from the American College of Education. She earned her master’s of public health from Indiana University and bachelor’s in social behavior science from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

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Kendall Isaac, J.D., Ed.D., was named Clark University’s first general counsel in October 2021. In addition to serving as Clark’s chief legal officer, he is vice president, secretary of the University, and assistant secretary of the Board of Trustees. He has been serving as vice president, general counsel, and assistant to the president for special initiatives at Dickinson College.

As a member of the senior leadership team, Isaac is close adviser to the administration on a wide range of matters, including University policies, contracts and procurement; compliance with laws and regulations; human resources and diversity, equity, and inclusion; risk management; and University governance.

Prior to moving into higher education administration, Isaac taught employmentrelated law and alternative dispute resolution as an assistant law professor at Appalachian School of Law. He began his legal career in private law practice as an associate attorney, then became owner/principal of his own firm.

Isaac earned his Juris Doctor degree at Capital University Law School and an Ed.D. in curriculum and leadership from Columbus State University. He completed his undergraduate studies at The Ohio State University with a bachelor’s in rhetorical communications.

Kamala C. Kiem

Sebastián Royo

Associate Provost and Dean of Students

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Kamala C. Kiem joined Clark as associate provost and dean of students in January.

She brings more than 20 years of experience in student affairs, including as associate dean of students and director of student engagement at Fairfield University, with earlier positions at Smith College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

At Clark, Kiem will oversee efforts to build and maintain a vibrant, rich, engaging campus environment for students. She will be responsible for all aspects of the student experience, including residential life and housing, new student orientation, health services, student activities, personal counseling, wellness, identity-based supports, and student conduct.

Kiem earned her bachelor’s degree at Florida International University, master’s in student affairs administration at Michigan State University, and master’s in social justice education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is pursuing her doctorate in higher education (expected in December 2022) at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Sebastián Royo assumed the role of provost and vice president for academic affairs in July 2021, coming to Clark from Suffolk University, where he served as vice president of international affairs.

The chief academic officer of Clark University, Royo oversees all undergraduate and graduate academic programs, as well as athletics, student affairs, sponsored research, University libraries, and the registrar’s office.

Throughout his 23 years at Suffolk, he earned high praise for his work in nearly all aspects of the university while holding a variety of positions.

He is widely published, with 10 books and more than two dozen academic journal articles under his name. His research interests have focused on globalization and competitiveness, democratic transitions, the role of institutions on economic policy and business performance, and varieties of capitalism.

Royo holds a law degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid as well as a master’s in international relations, an MBA, and a Ph.D. in political science, all from Boston University.

Abby Frazier to lead key chapter of National Climate Assessment Abby Frazier, assistant professor of geography, has been selected to lead the Hawai’i and U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment. Established through a 1989 presidential initiative, the congressionally mandated report works as part of the U.S. Global Change Research Program to assist the nation in understanding, assessing, predicting, and responding to the human-induced and natural processes of global climate change.

Frazier currently has several other projects in the islands, including a $1.33 million National Science Foundation grant to install a new network of over 80 climate stations across Hawaii in an attempt to better understand the complex weather climate of the islands. These climate stations, located in some of the most remote parts of the state, will allow researchers to forecast a number of serious weather events that will be shared through the Hawai’i Climate Data Portal, in addition to the National Mesonet Program supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Frazier is also a co-principal investigator of the Pacific Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (Pacific RISA) program. Funded by a $6.36 million NOAA grant, the program works to provide information to Pacific Island communities on building resilience to the effects of climate change.

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Worcester’s gain

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By Erica Pellegrino ’21, MSC ’22

HEN THE WORCESTER CITY COUNCIL’S newest members were sworn into office in January, among those raising their hands were two Clark alumni who reflect a city seeking fresh voices to help guide it through a period of tremendous growth and change.

The election of Thu Nguyen ’14 and Etel Haxhiaj ’04, M.A. ’08, on November 2 also represents a historic first in Worcester politics: Nguyen is the first nonbinary and Southeast Asian American candidate elected to the council, and Haxjiah is the first Albanian American and Muslim elected in the city.

Both arrived in the United States as refugees. Haxhiaj fled Albania with her parents during a time of political upheaval in 2001 and has been in Worcester ever since.

The single mother of two boys and director of public education and advocacy at the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance is committed to building a community that provides families strong economic, child care, and educational opportunities.

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Nguyen came to Worcester as a toddler when their family immigrated to the United States from Vietnam.

A youth worker at the Southeast Asia Coalition, Nguyen is devoted to empowering citizens in a way that strengthens local communities and has done substantial volunteer and service work toward that end.

Clark alumni have a long and storied history of involvement in city politics, and those who have earned a place at the municipal table know it is no small feat to win a Worcester election as a newcomer. Nguyen and Haxhiaj accomplished this through indefatigable grassroots campaigning and a message that resonated with voters.

“From an early age I learned that it was crucial for me to center my life around work that promotes a vision of equal access to opportunities, liberation, and joy,” says Nguyen, who studied sociology and studio art at Clark. “I want a political reimagination shift in Worcester and throughout our nation — one that means we must think as artists, as writers, as storytellers; one that calls us to become humans who analyze our society and create something that not only resonates with people and brings them hope, but also helps them become part of a movement.”

Haxhiaj, who as an Anton Fellow at Clark investigated and reported on the trafficking of women and girls in her native Albania, is adamant about helping shape a Worcester that attends to the needs of its increasingly diverse population.

“I think of this as a chance to bring meaningful and transformative change as well as to open doors for others,” she says. “I am excited for the opportunity to work collaboratively with all members of the City Council and the city manager to accomplish various missions.

One task I’m particularly looking forward to joining them on is allocating 20 percent of the American Rescue Plan Act COVID-19 Recovery funds to build and preserve housing that is affordable for families, young college grads, seniors, and essential workers.”

Both she and Nguyen are ready to make their mark — Clarkie style — and do the crucial work to continue building a better Worcester.

Visit clarku.edu/election-history to read a Q&A with Thu Nguyen and Etel Haxhiaj.

G i f t s t h at c h a n G e l i v e s

“ I am able to get an education far better than anything I ever imagined for myself, and I am appreciative of that every single day.”

In her first year of college, Shannon Dean ’23 transferred to Clark from a much larger university and discovered smaller more personal classes, attentive and welcoming professors, and a “sense of genuine kindness and consideration” within the campus community.

Shannon has benefited tremendously from the Farron V. and Gary S. Roboff Scholarship Fund to help pay for her education. The political science major from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is now eyeing a law career that will allow her to serve the overlooked and underrepresented.

“If I am even half as kind, half as brave, and half as empathetic as the Clarkies around me,” Shannon says, “then I know I’ll have done my job as a human being.”

M a k e y o u r G i f t t o d ay at alumni.clarku.edu/gift

Or use the envelope inside this issue of Clark magazine.

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Worcester, MA Permit No.1886

University Advancement 950 Main Street Worcester MA 01610-1477

REUNION WEEKEND 2022 | MAY 19–22 | CLARKU.EDU/REUNION

CLARK UNIVERSITY WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

U N I V E R S I T Y

Clark’s iconic pea pod poster — both the original and updated versions — is now available at the Campus Store located in the Shaich Family Alumni and Student Engagement Center. For all your Clark apparel and merchandise, visit the store Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.–4:30 p.m., or go online at campusstore.clarku.edu.

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