Historical Timeline

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1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

1920 Clark College and University are united as Clark University.

WCUW (http://www.wcuw.org/), located on Main St. next to the Clark campus, is a community radio station launched in 1920 by Clark physics Professor Robert Goddard. At that time, WCUW was one of fewer than 20 radio stations in the country.
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1921 Wallace W. Atwood, professor of physical geography at Harvard, is inaugurated as the first president of the merged Clark University.

The School of Geography is founded as the first institution in the United States established for graduate study in this science. Since then, Clark's Graduate School of Geography has granted more doctoral degrees than any other geography program in the country.

Geography professor Ellen Churchill Semple becomes the first woman on Clark's faculty.

1924 Honorary Degrees Awarded

• Granville Stanley Hall, First President, Clark University (LL.D.)
  
• Edmund Clark Sanford, Second President, Clark University (LL.D.)

1925 A new professional journal, Economic Geography, is established. Economic Geography, the only journal in English that specializes in this field of study, is still published at Clark University. Clark professor Yuko Aoyama is the current editor.

1926 Clark physics professor Robert H. Goddard ushers in the Space Age with his launch of the first liquid-fuel rocket on March 16 in Auburn, Mass.

1926 Honorary Degrees Awarded

• H.R.H. Gustavus Adolphus, Crown Prince of Sweden (D.Sc.)
  
• William Henry Burnham, Professor of Pedagogy, Clark University (LL.D.)

1929 Honorary Degrees Awarded

• His Excellency Paul W. Claudel, Ambassador from France to the United States; Commencement Speaker, (Litt.D.)

Fun Facts

• 1920 Intercollegiate athletics, specifically basketball, baseball, track and tennis, are introduced on a trial basis. Today, Clark is a Division III member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, with 17 men's and women's varsity athletic teams. Currently, 65 percent of Clark undergraduates participate in intercollegiate, intramural, club, wellness and recreational athletic programs.
  
• 1920 On June 14, 1920, Francis Cecil Sumner becomes the first African American male to receive a Doctorate of Philosophy in Psychology in the United States. On June 11, 1920, G. Stanley Hall's last graduate student defended his doctoral dissertation "Psychoanalysis of Freud and Adler." Sumner's defense was approved and his thesis was accepted the same day.
  
• 1924 Alumni raise money to buy seven acres of land on the corner of Beaver Street and Park Avenue for an athletic field, currently the Russ Granger Athletic Field.
  
• 1926 Clark News is established as the student newspaper. In 1939, it became the Scarlet, which is currently published weekly during the academic year.