Welcome to Clark University
A Teaching and Research Institution
Founded in 1887 as the first all-graduate institution in the United States, Clark is a private, liberal arts and research university committed to scholarship that addresses social imperatives in a global context. Centrally located in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark enrolls approximately 2,200 undergraduate and 900 graduate students. Undergraduates are offered a broad and deep liberal arts curriculum that enables them to address the complex scientific, social and business challenges facing our world through hands-on research, in-depth exploration and practical problem solving. Clark's focused areas of research excellence are backed by strong Ph.D. and master's degree programs that engage graduate students from around the world in relevant, challenging and innovative research that transforms communities.
Challenge Convention, Change Our World
Research is a central component of Clark's mission, and the University has a tradition of challenging convention in the quest for new knowledge. Clark has been home to
- Albert A. Michelson, the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Science;
- Robert Goddard, the father of the space age;
- psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who first developed the concept of adolescence;
- George H. Blakeslee, who established the field of international relations;
- Franz Boas, the father of American anthropology; and
- Wallace W. Atwood, who created Clark's Graduate School of Geography, now the oldest sustained graduate program of geography in the U.S.
Learn more about Clark's distinguished history.
Today, Clark continues this legacy of innovation with a research program that focuses on such areas as urban education, environmental studies, Holocaust and genocide studies, and international development and social change, generating findings and insights that directly benefit the communities we serve.
- When the United Nations sought a hub for its comprehensive effort to investigate the world's response to AIDS and to chart a new, long-term strategy for battling the disease, it chose Clark to lead its project management unit.
- When the National Science Foundation set out to examine the effects of suburbanization on coastal areas, it awarded a $1.5 million grant to Clark Graduate School of Geography faculty members Colin Polsky and R. Gil Pontius for their work studying 26 towns in the Ipswich and Parker River watersheds.
- When the Ford Foundation wanted to promote academic freedom and religious, cultural, and political pluralism on college and university campuses in the United States, it funded Clark, among 43 institutions nationwide, to launch the Difficult Dialogues program.
- When the American Diabetes Association looked for allies in the fight against diabetes, it chose to support the work of Noel D. Lazo, Clark assistant professor and Carlson Chair in Chemistry, who hopes to develop drugs that inhibit the formation of assemblies of amylin that are toxic to insulin-producing cells.
- When the U.S. Department of Education and Newsweek magazine singled out models of excellence in urban education, they pointed to Clark's partnership with a Worcester public secondary school, the University Park Campus School, calling it one of the highest-performing urban high schools in the nation.
As Clark scholars continue to challenge convention through intellectual innovation, their research also bridges the divide between knowledge and practice. Clark's research institutes and centers build on a foundation of interdisciplinary scholarship, with faculty and students working across boundaries to develop innovative solutions to a wide range of contemporary challenges. Learn more about research at Clark.
For additional information, we invite you to explore our Web site and visit Clark Voices for podcasts and videos of students and faculty.
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