Clark University - Clark News winter 2005
Newsbriefs (winter 2005)
The new biological sciences building opened in January for the start of the spring 2005 semester. The 50,000 square-foot building includes state-of-the-art research and flexible teaching laboratories, capability for significant shared equipment, classrooms and seminar rooms that incorporate technology, and offices near laboratories to promote collaboration and collegiality. A special event to celebrate the opening of the building will be held later this spring. The building will also be featured in an upcoming issue of Clarknews
Among the building's many environmentally conscious features is an energy-efficient mechanical system that consumes 40 percent less energy than comparable laboratory buildings. Water efficiency and special site design and materials are also part of the building's "green" design. Read more at www.clarku.edu/sciences/design.
Approximately $8 million of the $14 million fundraising goal for the biological sciences building has been raised. The total $22 million cost of the project includes the construction of the new building and the renovation of the 32,000 square-foot biophysics building, which will house physics and mathematics and computer science. The adjacent Sackler Sciences Center will house chemistry.
To learn more about giving opportunities to support the biological sciences building, contact Vice President for Advancement Debbie Bieri at 508-793-7200 or dbieri@clarku.edu.
More information about the sciences at Clark as well as photos of the new building are available at www.clarku.edu/sciences.
Wesaline Gadson has been named director of Academic Advancement. She joined the University in August 2004.
In this newly created position, Gadson leads the design and implementation of programming to promote the success of students from underrepresented groups who are admitted to Clark. She serves as an anchor for enhanced Universitywide initiatives to promote the academic success of these undergraduate students, with a particular focus on ALANA (African descent, Latino, Asian and Native American) and first-generation college students. She reports to the University's provost.
"Our new director of Academic Advancement position is an important and necessary step forward in promoting the success of our students and enhancing the campus experience," says President John Bassett. "Wes Gadson brings to Clark a great deal of relevant and varied experience, and a strong set of personal values. She is an ideal member of the Clark community and will make a big difference in the lives of the students with whom she works."
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Alumni and friends from across the country gathered in the Kneller Athletic Center on Oct. 22 to honor Tom Dolan '62, the University's recently retired senior vice president and current senior adviser to President Bassett.
The University's Board of Trustees hosted the special surprise party to honor Dolan's 42 years of dedicated service to Clark. Throughout his career at Clark, Dolan has served as assistant director and director of Admissions, director of Financial Aid, director of Alumni Affairs, director of the Clark Fund, vice president for development, vice president of Alumni Affairs and Planned Giving and, finally, senior vice president. His tireless work on behalf of the University has helped countless students. Alumni and friends who attended the celebration contributed $100,000 toward the Dolan Field House, which is named in honor of Tom and his wife Joan Dolan '60.
Robert Williams, senior research scientist at the Princeton Environmental Institute at Princeton University, delivered the first Albert, Norma and Howard '77 Geller Lecture on Nov. 10, 2004. The Geller Endowed Lecture Series, established in 2004 by Howard Geller '77 and his parents Albert and Norma, addresses current topics related to areas of energy, environment and sustainability. At least one lecture is presented each year by an expert in the field. Williams discussed "Crude Oil, Climate Change, Coal, Cane and Cars."
Chemist Donald Nelson was recently named to the Andrea B. and Peter D. '64 Klein Distinguished Professorship, which honors excellence in scholarship, teaching and service by Clark faculty members.
Nelson, who joined the Clark faculty in 1975, is a former chair of the Chemistry Department and an active member of the University community. He is a highly successful researcher, whose work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in leading scientific journals. Nelson is also committed to creating opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to participate in cutting-edge research. Within the last four years, he has published six papers with undergraduate students as co-authors.
"In awarding the Klein chair to professor Nelson, we are recognizing one of the University's outstanding and much admired teacher-scholars," says President John Bassett.
The Klein Professorship was established in 2000 by a generous gift from Clark Trustee Peter Klein '64 and his wife Andrea, who are longstanding supporters of the University. This endowed chair rotates among tenured faculty from all University departments, with each recipient holding the chair for four years. Nelson is the second recipient of the chair, following English professor Virginia Mason Vaughan.
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Sociology Department Chair Patricia Ewick recently received two awards from the American Sociological Association (ASA) for an article she co-authored with Susan Silbey titled "Narrating Social Structure: Stories of Resistance to Legal Authority." The article appeared in the May 2003 edition of the American Journal of Sociology.
Each year, the different sections of the ASA choose the best article published in the previous year. Ewick's article received the Best Article Prize from both the Political Sociology Section and the Sociology for Culture Section.
Ewick's research is based on 430 interviews with ordinary citizens about their experiences with the legal system. The article showcases examples of people who found themselves up against the power of legal authority and tried to avoid, minimize or otherwise neutralize the consequences.
Ewick's primary research is in the area of law. Her book "The Commonplace of Law: Stories from Everyday Life" is about the role of law in the lives of ordinary Americans. She has also written on feminist issues in regard to social science methodology and epistemology. Ewick is co-editor of Studies in Law, Politics and Society and associate editor of the Law & Society Review. She is currently conducting research on the intersections of legal culture and science.
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The 2004 Fall Fest of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities featured 24 scholarly projects undertaken by undergraduates during the summer. This year's event included student work in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, foreign languages and literatures, geography, and government and international relations. It also included work from the International Studies Stream Summer Research Program, the Anton Fellowship Program, the Traina Scholars Program and the Urban Development and Social Change Summer Research Fellowships. For a complete listing of Fall Fest presentations, visit www.clarku.edu/fallfest>.
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Ryan Frazier '06, Trevor Jones '05 and Christopher Lippitt '06 were named John O'Connor '78 Human Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) fellows, in recognition and support of their outstanding research on the environment. The fellowships are named for the late John O'Connor '78, a Clark trustee and prominent environmentalist and community activist in Massachusetts.
Students in Clark's HERO program engage in a 12-month intensive research experience. This year's fellows are using remote sensing and geographic information science technology to examine how humans have changed the landscape in Massachusetts. The experience culminates in students presenting their research at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed publications. Geographer Gil Pontius, the HERO co-supervisor, says the O'Connor awards will allow HERO fellows to continue their tradition of winning awards from professional organizations outside of Clark. Lippitt, for example, won the Remote Sensing Specialty Group Student Paper Competition III: Experiments and Error at the 2004 centennial meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) with his paper "A Method to Distinguish Real Landscape Change from Map Error during Map Comparison."
In addition, Jones, who is advised by geographer John Rogan, will present a poster at the spring 2005 AAG meeting to be held in Denver. His poster will examine trends in forest-cover damage in relation to timber harvesting in Massachusetts.
"The O'Connor funds will forever have a profound influence on the careers of these maturing scientists," Pontius says.
LaDona Lanphere joined the Alumni Affairs Office this fall as assistant director.
Lanphere joins Clark from Alfred University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and gained significant experience in alumni programming. As a student, Lanphere worked in Alfred's Alumni Relations Office for three years, assisting with three reunions and three homecomings. She also played a leadership role in planning and managing Alfred's reunion in 2003. This experience solidified Lanphere's decision to pursue a career in alumni relations and advancement.
"I love working with the alumni and building relationships," she says.
At Clark, Lanphere maintains the alumni Web site, works closely with the Regional Alumni Communities and plans and attends regional events.
"LaDona has proven to be a truly wonderful addition to the Clark alumni community," says Alumni Affairs Director Bill Bennett M.P.A. '97. "In just the few months she has been here, she has already had a tremendous impact on our Regional Alumni Communities, regional events and the Alumni Online Community."
Rachel Carey '06 received this year's Thomas J. '56 and Barbara J. Lindblom '56 Anton Endowded Prize, which honors students who have greatly contributed to Clark's surrounding community.
For the past two years, Carey has been a proven community leader in environmental education in Worcester's Main South neighborhood. As the Worcester Water Watch education program coordinator, she worked with school principals and teachers to provide students with a well-rounded environmental education. She also organized a weekly teaching schedule for Clark student volunteers and created a multigenerational approach to environmental education in University Park and the larger Main South area. Some of these efforts included an Education Day on Jan. 15, 2004, which included 25 classroom presentations, a special elementary-school assembly and education for more than 800 students. In the fall 2004 semester, Carey and her fellow students conducted presentations in 12 elementary schools, compared to nine last year, and at least 12 volunteers visited classrooms once every other week for environmental education.
"Rachel is a great example of the best kind of Clark student," says Jack Foley, executive assistant to the president.
The Thomas J. '56 and Barbara J. Lindblom '56 Anton Endowed Prize Fund was established to annually recognize a Clark student who has made an outstanding contribution to the University Park Partnership neighborhood revitalization effort.
Thomas Ponniah, a doctoral candidate at Clark, was awarded a Harvard Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for spring 2004 by Harvard University's Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. The Certificate of Distinction is awarded based on evaluations by students.
Ponniah taught Social Studies 10, a course on modern social theory, at Harvard during the 2003-04 academic year. He continues to teach there this year. He was also a teaching assistant at Clark from 1999 to 2003 and won a Clark Teaching Assistant Award in his first year in the position.
Ponniah has been an active member of the Clark community during his graduate studies. He has done significant research on globalization, development theory and social movements. He co-edited with IDCE Director William Fisher "Another World is Possible: Popular Alternatives to Globalization at the World Social Forum" and is one of the co-authors, with geographer Richard Peet and other students, of "Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO." The former book was translated into French and Japanese within its first year of publication.
Clark is currently undergoing an accreditation review with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), a process that happens every 10 years and includes public comment.
Clark has been accredited by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education since 1929 and was last reviewed comprehensively in 1995. The University has been conducting a comprehensive self-study over the last year-and-a-half and will have an evaluation visit on Nov. 13–16, 2005, by a team representing NEASC's Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. The public is also invited to submit comments about Clark to the Commission. Written, signed comments must be received by Nov. 16, 2005, and must include the author's name, address and telephone number. Submit comments to:
Public Comment on Clark University
Com mission on Institutions of Higher Education
New England Association of Schools and Colleges
209 Burlington Rd.
Bedford, MA 01730-1433
E-mail: cihe@neasc.org
Comments must address substantive matters related to the quality of the University, and they will not be confidential. The Commission cannot guarantee that comments received after Nov. 16, 2005, will be considered.
The Commission is one of eight accrediting commissions in the United States that provide institutional accreditation on a regional basis. Accreditation is voluntary and applies to the institution as a whole. The Commission is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and accredits approximately 200 institutions in the six-state New England region.
Gijs de Vries, counterterrorism coordinator for the European Union, came to Clark this fall to give his only public address in the United States during 2004.
De Vries visited Clark on Oct. 17 to deliver the lecture "Counter-Terrorism Action and Human Rights Protection." The event was part of the free public lecture series sponsored each year by the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and was funded by the Crown Family Foundation.
De Vries was named counter-terrorism coordinator following the March 2004 terrorist bombing in Madrid. He also works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He was a member of the European Parliament from 1984 to 1998 and leader of the Parliament's Liberal and Democratic Group from 1994 to 1998. Deeply committed to democracy, the democratic process and politics, he has held several government positions, including deputy minister of the interior for the Netherlands from 1998 to 2002.
Clark's International Development, Community and Environment Department and the George Perkins Marsh Institute, in partnership with the Worcester Youth Center, Regional Environmental Council and Family Health Center, recently received an $887,000 grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOHS) for an action research project called "Strengthening Vulnerable Communities in the Worcester Built Environment."
The award comes under the NIEHS/NIOSH program "Environmental Justice: Partnerships for Communication," which funds projects committed to enhancing minority participation in research studies and to facilitating communication among environmental health researchers, community health-care providers and community members.
The four-year project involves working closely with residents of Worcester's Main South and Piedmont neighborhoods to better understand their exposure to environmental, economic and sociopolitical stress. The collaborators will design action plans based on research, implement activities and evaluate their impact. Young people from the Worcester Youth Center will be trained alongside Clark undergraduate and graduate students to conduct household surveys, focus groups and environmental sampling.
The project's principal investigators are IDCE professors Timothy Downs and Laurie Ross. They will work closely with Adolfo Arrastia, director of the Worcester Youth Center, Suzanne Patton, director of the Family Health Center, and Peggy Middaugh, director of the Regional Environmental Council.
Career services in the 21st century at a liberal-arts college is all about connecting students to information and resources—the greatest of which are Clark alumni. With that in mind, Career Counselor Sharon Hanna and I worked with Alumni Affairs Director Bill Bennett M.P.A. '97 and Assistant Director LaDona Lanphere to plan a special Washington, D.C. networking event for alumni and current students. It was a bright, warm day in Washington, D.C., as we walked to the American University—Tenley Campus for this event that would allow students to meet alumni working in the Washington, D.C. area.
The event began around noon with the group of alumni, several juniors attending Washington, D.C. internship programs and five seniors selected to participate. Alumni and students introduced themselves and described their respective careers and areas of study, which helped the students decide whom they wanted to meet. The room quickly became filled with the sound of intense discussion. It was wonderful to feel the energy in the room as the students became immersed in the possibilities of what life after Clark could offer. In just a short time, their confidence and connections were growing.
Before long it was 2 p.m. and time for the Clark contingent to head back to Worcester. On the train ride home, I spoke with the students about their experiences. Matt Olsen '05 wanted to know when we planned to have an event like this again. Students were enthusiastic and encouraged by the advice offered by fellow Clarkies. Several of the alumni and students have since e-mailed me to share more ideas and/or echo their renewed vigor for their job searches.
I certainly hope that we are able to offer similar student-alumni networking events around the country in the near future. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you would like to assist us in hosting a similar event in your area.
Hilles Hughes
Director of Career Services
hhughes@clarku.edu
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Clarknews Winter 2005
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Wes Gadson, director of Academic Advancement.
Photo by Robert Carlin |
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LaDona Lanphere, assistant director of Alumni Affairs
Photo by Robert Carlin |
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Rachel Carey '06 with President Bassett.
Photo by Jane Salerno |
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Gijs de Vries, counter-terrorism coordinator for the European Union, speaking at Clark.
Photo by Robert Carlin |
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