Building on Clark’s successes
An interview with Bill Mosakowski ’76, incoming chair of Clark’s Board of Trustees
Edited by Kristin V. Rehder | Photo by Rob Carlin
Bill Mosakowski ’76, incoming chair of the board at Clark and donor, with his wife Jane Rossetti Mosakowski ’75, of the largest gift in Clark’s history ($10 million), sat down recently to talk about Clark and its dedication to working on issues that matter.
As president and CEO of Boston’s Public Consulting Group, this champion of improving government effectiveness through the rigorous application of cutting-edge research, believes Clark ’s Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise will be pivotal in addressing some of our greatest social challenges, including education reform.
Here is his take on the University that educated him. Learn more about the Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise
I had an incredible experience at Clark. The things I learned—the sensitivities and the perspectives—came at a great time in my life. Clark helped me learn to respect the things that other people hold dear and true —to understand more fully the needs and issues of people around the world. And meeting so many different people from a multitude of backgrounds prepared me especially well for working, first in government, next in health care, and then in starting a business.
I graduated from a public high school, and though I had done well, I had not prepared myself for success at a university level. I just didn ’t have the work habits I needed. I met a number of serious students at Clark, and they were able to reach out to somebody like me, an underclassman, who was struggling. Because of them, I developed the learning skills that would last throughout my college experience, and really for a lifetime.
Of course, one of the most important people I met at Clark was my wife, Jane. I noticed her from the first day she came to campus as a transfer student. She only said a few words to me over the course of her early months at Clark, but in the winter of 1974 we finally got to know each other better, and that was a wonderful beginning for our life together. We look back at those times with great warmth and affection.
Important questions, innovative answers
The thing that made the Clark faculty terrific, from my perspective, is that they came at their courses in a very rigorous way, and they challenged us to wrestle with their opinions and their perspectives, either to buy into them or challenge them. They were always open to having us express different points of view; they did not pretend to have all the answers.
When you learn that way, what you develop is a deep appreciation of raising questions. Much of the work that we ’re doing in my company right now is helping to raise and resolve important new questions in the public arena.
I focused on two fields at Clark: political science and education. Frankly, I hoped there might be opportunities for me to work in the public sector after graduation. And it so happened, that ’s how it played out — but as a business owner.
Over the past five years, I’ve been working directly with the education industry, helping to put in place administrative management to report data and capabilities so that education can operate more effectively. Through our products, we are identifying critical new management approaches in education and government administration areas.
I believe it is critical for K-12 education in this country to learn how to help students obtain the skills necessary for higher education while in public school, or to teach them the technical skills they need to be able to be competitively employed. I like being a partner with the public sector in helping to identify programmatic solutions to very old issues, whether in fields of child welfare, protective services, mental health, developmental disabilities or public health.
Building on success
Clark’s dedication to working on issues for and in the Worcester community in which it lives, and in our society in a larger context, is the primary reason that I made the largest gift I have ever made to an organization.
As an undergraduate at Clark, I felt the faculty did an impressive job of highlighting many issues and problems in federal policy and the administration of public programs. Critical questions were raised in these classes, but the identification of practical solutions was much harder to come by. I wanted to put new resources at Clark ’s disposal through the Mosakowski Institute so that faculty and students can more readily conduct research and propose solutions to important local and global concerns.
For example, we all know the success Clark has had in assisting the Worcester Public Schools to manage and operate the University Park Campus School (UPCS). UPCS scores among the highest on standardized testing in Massachusetts and has been ranked as one of the best schools in the country by Newsweek. I feel Clark now has an opportunity —an obligation, really—to conduct research and provide recommended strategies to help other schools attain these results, because our nation, as a whole, can and must improve the academic performance of economically disadvantaged students.
A compelling place
The Clark experience is a combination of many influences: its faculty, its administration, the city and the section of the city in which it lives, its history, and the dual role of being both a research university and a liberal arts college. Clark ’s students are very smart and very capable. Clark has a human scale about it. It’s not too big. It’s not too small. It fits. It fits in its community. It fits with its students. It fits for its faculty, who need a certain level of support, yet freedom to explore. There is nothing bureaucratic about Clark.
Clark does admirably with the resources entrusted to it, trying always to extract the maximum benefit out of what it does have. The institution uses wisely every dollar that it has been given. It invests funds extremely well and has done a tremendous job of increasing the endowment as a result of sound investment practices.
To me, all of those qualities are just compellingly appealing.
There is an urgent need for institutions the size of Clark to not only exist, but to thrive and to lead. That doesn ’t mean that institutions of other sizes and other capabilities should not exist. One may even have a more prominent position than another, but I think that our educational system needs the range. We need Clark especially because it provides a model for how to address some of the very critical, practical needs of our communities.
By its very nature, Clark can be closer to the environment around it. It feels things more intensely. Therefore, it can operate with greater agility, respond more quickly, and invent change more realistically. That ’s what makes Clark, in my mind, such a precious commodity.
Leading the University
As incoming chair of the board at Clark, I would like to see our trustees make sure that Clark positions itself well in the coming decade in terms of student outcomes. I want us to respond positively and coherently in terms of how we are improving the student experience at Clark from the first day our students arrive to the day they graduate and thereafter. Everything —from student life to academic learning, to research, to involvement in the community, to studying abroad, to special projects —should be guided by a set of principles and measures that will help our students achieve the very best possible Clark experience.
I will also be working with both the board and administration to improve our annual fundraising performance and the size of the endowment. The best colleges and universities cannot live by student tuition revenue alone. As our endowment grows, so does our ability to offer financial assistance to families who could not otherwise afford a private university education. And, with greater endowment, we can continue to attract and retain the brightest, most accomplished faculty and upgrade our facilities competitively.
In my eight years on the board, I have been blessed to sit beside alumni and true friends of the University who give their time, talent and treasure to the school. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. With some luck and assistance from all of them in the coming years, I will build on the leadership and strides made by the chairs for whom I served —Ron Shaich ’76, Barry Rogstad ’62, M.A. ’63, and Larry Landry ’71, M.B.A. ’75.
Clark has produced scores of extremely successful people who in many instances recognize the contribution that Clark has made to them, to their lives, to their families, and to their careers. If they have been successful and rewarded in life as I have been, and if there is the possibility for them to be able to make a contribution to Clark, I would hope that they do.
And I would also hope that everyone with a Clark connection would see Clark as I do, as a worthy investment. Each of us has an incredible opportunity to be part of an enhanced mission at a place we can be excited to support. Together, I think we can take Clark to the next level.
Kristin V. Rehder, a longtime education writer, is based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
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Clarknews Summer 2007
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Bill Mosacowski '76 and
Jane Rossetti Mosakowski '75
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Mosakowski family legacy
The Mosakowski family has a long legacy at Clark. Bill Mosakowski’s mother, Dorothy, began the family’s Clark connection in 1968 when she joined the University staff. Dorothy Mosakowski served the University for 30 years, nearly all of them as coordinator of Clark ’s Rare Books and Special Collections at the Goddard Library. She retired in 1998. In addition to Bill and Jane earning their degrees at Clark, Bill ’s brother Stephen graduated from the University in 1977. The Mosakowski family legacy continues today with Lauren Mosakowski ’07, Bill’s niece, who graduated this May with a double major in studio art and philosophy.
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