Megan Mateer

Megan Mateer, inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 2010, encompasses the academic excellence, as well as the breadth and depth of liberal arts study, representative of the honor society, Phi Beta Kappa. She received a B.A. in Psychology in 2010 and is currently completing her fifth year in the M.B.A. program at Clark. As an undergraduate she realized the value in exploring a variety of intellectual avenues, taking courses in graphic design, gender studies and international development. Her diverse studies culminated in her pursuing a final project in psychology that explored women and eating disorders.

She also pursued her broad intellectual interests through study abroad at the University of Cape Town, with an international program that focuses on service. While there, she participated in a number of service and research projects. She assisted twelfth graders with homework, providing them with a mentor, and the overtaxed teachers with additional help. She also created two research projects, one to determine a more nutritional food to be sold by local women in the community and her capstone research, which involved creating educational programs to increase more effective education for HIV prevention. Her awareness of the importance of local cultural values in creating successful social programs—one of the crucial lessons learned through the international and cultural focus of her studies at Clark—formed the basis of both these projects.

In her M.B.A. program, she hopes to maintain that focus through an emphasis on corporate social responsibility, concentrating on public accounting.

Aaron Foster

Aaron Foster Bresley knew music was his forte when he entered Clark, but when he contemplated actually majoring in music composition, he worried that "no one does that." He decided to follow his passion, however, and his facility in music lead to one success after another: at Clark, he was the Musical Director of numerous campus musicals, including Curtains and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; was a Peer Learning Assistant, in which he was able to tutor students in musical concepts; and wrote various compositions, primarily for string quartets. Aaron's sensitivity to the way people would hear his music lead him to produce winning pieces. As an army brat, Aaron had natural awareness and interest in the way people think, especially people of different cultures, which he explored through his varied coursework in international relations, economics and French. This fall he is entering the California Institute of Arts to pursue his Master of Arts in music composition One day he may pursue his Ph.D. in music composition so that he can teach at the college level while he continues to write music, much in the way he feels his beloved professors in the Music Department at Clark imparted both their knowledge and talent to their students.

Alexis Lightner

Alexis Lightner has parlayed her impressive academic background in Communications and the Innovations and Entrepreneurship program to effect a real change in Clark's campus community. Earlier in her academic career at Clark, Alexis had held a prestigious internship in London where she wrote and published blog posts for ABC. Back at Clark, she has used her media and business savvy to further Clark's mission of fostering the campus community. With the goals of reducing waste on campus, creating employment opportunities for students, and providing college students with a place to purchase inexpensive essentials, Alexis created a winning proposal for a neighborhood thrift store, which she brought to fruition. After taking first place in the U-REKA: Clark's Big Idea contest, a campus-wide competition to benefit the Clark campus community, Alexis acquired the seed money for this project. The campus thrift store located on Main Street across from the campus square, has not only beautified a section of Main Street, but serves both Clark students and its neighbors, who make up about fifty-percent of the store's clientele. The Society of Professional Communicators recognized Alexis' achievements by awarding her the Elaine Cencak Memorial Scholarship Award. During the summer she had an internship with AFS USA, the non-profit study abroad organization, to help the organization develop its social media strategy, as well as a job with Intrinsic Consulting, a marketing firm. This fall, she is entering the fifth-year program in Masters of Science and Professional Communications to further her study.

Oana Chimina

Growing up in Romania where she had specialized in foreign languages-bilingual in high school, Oana Chimina had long had diverse intellectual interests in foreign languages, history, politics, and literature, which she pursued at Clark through her major in International Relations and French. Her serious engagement with her studies lead to notable experiences abroad and at Clark. As a sophomore, she spent a semester in France at the University of Burgundy, studying French literature and culture, and at Clark, she started the European Students Association, as well as worked as a research assistant for professors in political science, and wrote honors theses in both International Relations and French.Her skill in language and politics culminated in a significant project supported through a Harrington Public Affairs Fellowship, in which she examined the effectiveness of the National against Trafficking Persons in Romania in hindering human trafficking. In recognition of her many successes, she was admitted to the political science honor society and awarded the Sallie R. Holthausen Prize for Excellence in International Relations and the J. Fannin King Prize for Excellence in French. During the summer she had a consulting internship with the International Data Corporation and a second internship with the Social Science Research Council, in a program on security in post-conflict societies coordinated by the London School of Economics.  This fall she is attending Cambridge University in the UK where she is pursuing an M.Phil. in International Relations.