Active and Involved

Growing up in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, Jessa Loomis knew quite a bit about Clark before she arrived here in Fall 2002 as a first year student. As an active volunteer, she chose Clark because of its reputation for involvement in the Worcester community. What she did not know was that she'd end up majoring in geography and, through her own research projects in geography, become involved in the community in ways she had not envisioned. These projects have entailed examining Highland Street as a gateway to the City for outsiders, investigating the perceptions of Worcester held by students at Clark and Holy Cross, and studying changes in housing quality in the Kilby-Gardner-Hammond neighborhood of Worcester as an Urban Development and Social Change (UDSC) Research Fellow in Summer 2005.

Traveling in South Africa.

Jessa has spent a May Term in Luxembourg and a semester in Namibia, where she took courses in development theory as well as in the history and politics of Namibia. After traveling extensively in Southern Africa at the end of her semester's studies, Jessa returned to her senior year at Clark, where she is completing a minor in history and a concentration in UDSC in addition to her geography major.

And what about those other forms of community involvement that drew her to Clark in the first place? Jessa is a mentor and curriculum coordinator for AKOG (All Kinds of Girls), she's a member of Gryphon and Pleiades, she is a mediator at the Worcester Community Action Council, and she is a leadership trainer with the Student Leadership Training Program.