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State of the University
John Bassett
February 7, 2008
Last year I did not use my normal opening for the State of the University address, that is, taking credit for successes by the Red Sox and Patriots or comparing my annual review with that of President Bush, whose State of the Union talk always comes at about the same time. I said Clark's splendid year did not require such icing on the cake. Well, this winter I certainly have remarkable successes to report, along with several remaining challenges. I unfortunately have no Super Bowl victory for you but still it seems to me that two World Series and three Super Bowls, all since Kay and I arrived in the Commonwealth in 2000, are better than par for the course. Make of that what you will.
Last year I did spend most of my time reviewing Clark's progress in a dozen areas of emphasis we established in 2000. They remain important benchmarks. Rather than repeating last year's talk with mere updates, however, this time I want to focus on some remarkable academic projects on campus that I will also emphasize in a letter to alumni going out next week. These projects reflect the central mission and values of Clark University as a teaching and research institution of which students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends can be very proud.
First there are certain kinds of information that you expect to hear at this time-performance statistics and the names of new colleagues-so I will begin with those and then turn to some engaging stories about work being done by students and faculty at Clark.
How many students applied for the class that entered in Fall 2007? Harold Wingood reported a total of 5201, which compares with 3322 in 2000 and 4726 in 2006. That bodes well for the future. This year's total, Harold tells me, will be about the same as last year's but it has passed last year's total and may be up by about one per cent. We admitted 56 per cent of those who applied, which compares with 70 per cent in 2000 and nearly 80 per cent several years earlier. Our yield this year continued at the discouraging rate of 20 per cent, although we know that this rather flat yield percentage is based on a higher quality admit pool than a decade ago.
So this fall 574 first-year students entered Clark along with 64 new transfer students, which put us more or less at our budgeted figure. Most encouragingly, the tuition per student paid was well above budget and that allowed for the supplementary raise provided to faculty and staff this fall. Clark has become a more attractive college for strong students. New presidential and other merit scholars this fall totaled 80, along with eleven Global Scholars, and they are an outstanding group.
Also very encouraging is a rising retention rate, due both to higher quality entering classes and to programs run by the deans and some wonderful staff members, programs that address student needs. The first-year retention rate has risen from 84.4 per cent to 88 per cent between 2000 and 2007, and that is actually a huge jump. In a couple of years the six-year graduation rate will also show similar results. Right now that figure is 75.5 per cent for the class that entered in 2001 (as of 2007), compared with 67.3 per cent for the class that entered in 1997 (as of 2003), and it will continue to rise as we know from the change in retention rates.
The total number of undergraduate students last fall was 2,159 compared with 1,878 in fall 2000. This growth has resulted from effective recruiting by Harold Wingood and his staff plus effective work by the deans and provost plus great work by all of you when students visit campus. That has made a big difference. You will also recognize that Clark is approaching a capacity figure of about 2,200 that we have believed was the point where facilities and staff would be stretched and where we would either have to develop a plan for growth to about 2,700 or a plan for non-growth that still allowed for revenue enhancement. We are at the time for that discussion.
Clark also has 947 graduate students, including 201 doctoral students. The Graduate School of Management, by the way, has celebrated its 25th anniversary and has the highest full-time enrollment ever. At Clark there are now 150 tenured or tenure-track faculty members, 23 other full-time faculty members, and 81 part-time faculty, many teaching one course in their specialty. We also have a remarkable number of 16 searches ongoing this year for new faculty members. If they are all successful, 50% of the faculty will be new since my arrival. There are 604 full-time and 37 part-time staff members. The budget for 2007-2008 is $95 million. That compares with a budget of $65 million in 2000-2001. The endowment has grown from about $150 million in 2001 to about $300 million now. Jim Collins tells me that as of December 31 it was $297 million. We can thank a wonderful Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees, the leadership of Jim Collins, and of course our donors. Nonetheless tuition still covers too high a per cent of our revenue budget. I hope that before long, through the generosity of our supporters, that number can be reduced.
Clark last fall welcomed nine new tenure-track faculty members. Donald Crampton joined the Department of Chemistry as a biochemist and plant scientist who has done work on enzymes and proteins. Karen Frey is a new Geographer with a PhD from UCLA who does work on global change and geochemistry with much of her research in Siberia and the Arctic and has grants to take Clark students off to those cold places. Also in Geography is Dominik Kulakowski with a degree from Colorado. He studies forest ecosystems and ecology, and the effect of disturbances like windstorms. In IDCE is Liza Grandia from UC-Berkeley, with a background in anthropology. She has done much of her research in Guatemala and Belize. Also in IDCE is Ken MacLean, whose degree is from Michigan. Ken also has his degree in anthropology and has done research mostly in Vietnam and Burma focusing on displaced persons and on what he calls peasant-bureaucrats. Also in IDCE, Jennie Stephens moved onto the tenure track this year. Jennie's degree is in environmental science and engineering from Cal Tech. She has worked a lot on climate change and carbon capture, also on science and ethics. Let me acknowledge now the leadership Jennie provided on January 31 in Clark's participation in the national teach-in on sustainability and climate change.
New in the Department of History is Ousmane Power-Greene, who did his doctoral work at UMass-Amherst and specializes in African-American history and the Atlantic world. New in the Department of English is Steve Levin, whose degree is from Emory and who specializes in post-colonial literature and 20th century literature. New in V&PA is a colleague in screen studies, Stephanie Larrieux, who did her work at Brown and focuses on both American and Caribbean film.
But I also want to make sure everyone knows about two other wonderful additions to our academic team. The new Director of the Mosakowski Institute is Jim Gomes. Jim has two graduate degrees from Harvard. The last fourteen years he was the President of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. Last month the League had a dinner in Boston to honor Jim for his service, and I tell you not only did his ears burn all evening but this was an event co-sponsored by Michael Dukakis and John Kerry and graced by the Governor's presence, and the crowd was in the hundreds. As Bill Mosakowski said, "Not everyone can enjoy his own Irish wake before he dies."
Joining Jim in the Institute as Distinguished Professor is Richard Freeland, not only a distinguished historian of 20th century America and of higher education but also President Emeritus of Northeastern University, a man who made as much difference at that institution as any president has made anywhere in a ten-year term.
Clark has also this past year welcomed many new staff colleagues. I know you will forgive me when I miss a few names. New in Information Technology are at least five persons: Dan Meyer, who is helping a lot of us with the emergency planning system; Colonel Boothe, a systems analyst; John Vaporis, overseeing media services; Jason Giangrande; and Ray Daniel.
New in University Advancement are Oscar Wallace, Lisa Hernandez, Dahlia Moxam, and over in Alumni Affairs Felipe Claudio and Garrett Abrahamson (Didn't I just give him a diploma?). In Admissions are Jessica Courtney, an Assistant Director, and Shaina Katz. In Athletics Mickey Cahoon is the new volleyball and tennis coach, and let me take this opportunity to thank our wonderful coaching staff for the contribution they make to the education and maturing of the young men and women who graduate from Clark.
New to Business and Financial Services are Matthew Motyka (Matt is really new), the Associate Controller, and Caitlin Minkiewicz. In the Dean of Students Office we have Bridget Joiner. In Residence Life, Jessica Donovan is a new area coordinator. Rebecca Mayer is a new program coordinator. The new Office Manager in IDCE is Jacqueline Murphy, and the Research Manager is Anne Hendrixson. Eric DeMerulenaere is the new Clinical Educator in the Education Department.
Kathleen Palm is the new Clinical Coordinator in Psychology. Amanda Popp is working in Admissions in the Management School. Shannon Boudreau is handling stockroom duties in Chemistry. Maureen Hession is new in Philosophy. Moataz Hannout is a new lab specialist in Physics. Christina Connolly is new in IDRISI. And we have several new colleagues in Physical Plant: Scott Hellstrom, Maria Moyet, James Wessell, Magda Corniel, Lucila Colon-Perez, and Nicole Courchaine. Finally I want to introduce two splendid new members of our University Police force. Bishoy Ibrahim and Lauren Misale have very recently joined our campus security team. Clark police do a wonderful job here, working well with students and staff.
Our newest facility is the splendid Blackstone Hall, a residence facility with apartment style living for about 208 juniors and seniors. Those lucky enough to be there love it. Meanwhile Paul Bottis's wonderful staff was busy on several other fronts this past year making the University's facilities better. They often are supported by a strong IT team put together by Pennie Turgeon. Clark also has implemented an Emergency Plan and an Emergency Notification System. I ask all of you, your colleagues, and your students to register this week or next week. I appreciate the hard work put into this planning by Jim Collins, Paul Coute, Pennie Turgeon, Dan Mazer, and many others.
The Board of Trustees, as you know, has approved construction of a new Academic Commons at Goddard Library and along with it renovations of the library itself. It is an exciting project and one crucial for Cark's continual commitment to excellence. The Commons will include about 11,000 square feet of new space on the ground floor for student and faculty learning with both electronic and print information at their fingertips. It will replace the wind tunnel, and the new entrance will be off the quadrangle instead of around by the Kneller. Construction will begin in May with completion in 2009. The project will run around $15 million, and so Andy McGadney and his staff and I have been running around the country raising a sizable chunk of that cost.
Remember also that by 2009 Clark plans to complete the playing field at the Boys and Girls Club. There remain a few bureaucratic hurdles to jump over before shovels go in the ground, but the field will be built. I am sure that over the next seven years there will be other capital projects, but first we need to establish clear program and funding priorities. Faculty, staff, and trustees are engaged in that process right now.
The past month has been quite a time on the Clark campus. One week we hosted a superb President's Lecture by David Orr on climate sustainability issues and also a campaign appearance by Chelsea Clinton. Then the next week, because of Dick and Polly Traina's wonderful endowment for the arts, Clark was host to the ACTORS from the LONDON STAGE, working with students and performing The Taming of the Shrew. But we also hosted in this very hall a campaign rally led by Governor Patrick for Senator Obama. Then this week Senator Hillary Clinton herself led a campaign rally in the Kneller Center. The campus has been buzzing, and at moments it seemed like Clark was the center of the world. Today I want to officer my deepest gratitude to the Clark staff for their excellent work to make these events so wonderful: Steve Goulet and his officers, Judy Jaeger and her splendid Communications staff, Paul Bottis and Physical Plant, Jack Foley's office and Jen, and Linda Moulton. Clark really does handle big events well because of people like this. And look at the visibility-New York Times, CNN, David Letterman Show, and more.
During all these events, I could not help but be reminded that Clark University is a very stimulating learning environment. Last fall Nobel Prize winner John Holdren kept an audience spellbound in a President's Lecture on environmental challenges, and the next day a symposium on sustainability science and the potential of GIS (Geographic Information Sciences) had the most amazing collection of world-class scholars on Clark's campus probably since G. Stanley Hall's shindig of 1909-four National Academy of Science members from Clark's own School of Geography, presidents of the Academy and the American Association of Geographers, the developer of the biggest GIS system, and others. It was a "Wow" symposium, and students were very much a part of it.
Meanwhile Clark students and faculty were reading and discussing The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman's remarkable book on Hmong refugees in America, a book that took us into medical bureaucracies, immigration challenges, foreign policy, and much more. Hundreds then heard Anne Fadiman when she was here in November. Whether it is President's Lecturers, other speakers, entrepreneurs in residence hosted by the Graduate School of Management, or student-initiated colloquiums, or governors and senators and candidates, the Clark campus buzzes with intellectual controversy. Over the next few years, I promise you, it will get even better.
There has been nothing more stimulating than the Difficult Dialogues series. We owe its success to the Ford Foundation, the team that put it together, but mostly to the leadership of Sarah Buie. Whether the issue is gay marriage, abortion, greenhouse gases, poverty, war and peace, or health care-America needs to find ways for fellow citizens with deep disagreements to dialogue with each other. The Difficult Dialogues series is showing leadership in doing just that.
Clark faculty members also continue to publish major books and articles and to receive large grants. Among the books published this year is Debbie Merrill's Mothers-in-Law and Daughters-in-Law: Understanding the Relationship and What Makes Them Friends or Foes. Those of you who are daughters-in-law or mothers-in-law will find it very insightful. Brian Cook's new book is called Democracy and Administration: Woodrow Wilson's Ideas and the Challenges of Public Management. Hot off the press is Fern Johnson's book Imaging in Advertising: Verbal and Visual Codes of Commerce. It has some very thoughtful insights on advertising. Michael Bamberg has published two books, Selves and Identities in Narrative and Discourse and Narrative - State of the Art. Psychologists have probed as deeply in the narrative the last ten years as literature professors have. Wendy Grolnick has a new book called Pressured Parents, Stressed-Out Kids. It explores an increasingly common problem in our world. Gino DiIorio meanwhile had his new play premiere in New York City last month. It is called Are You the Wife of Michael Cleary?
Clark faculty members and staff also won a number of awards. Kate Shepard, also a teacher at UPCS, won the "American Stars of Teaching Award" for Massachusetts. Harvey Gould won an award for his work in undergraduate teaching of computational science. John Rainey of the SBDC won a Star Performer Award. And there were others.
Now let me move on now to some of those things that will be in my Alumni Letter next week. I begin by reminding you that Clark's motto and tag line is "challenge convention and change our world." Clark challenges convention and changes our world through our research and through the students educated here who then go out into the world. More than anything else this mission convinced me to leave Cleveland and come here eight years ago. We also believe certain signatures characterize the learning experience at Clark: inquiry-based learning that begins with problems and questions in the outside world, a philosophy of making a difference in our communities here and abroad, and an internationally and culturally diverse learning environment. More and more we will seek to combine a rigorous liberal arts education with some real-world skills that prepare our graduates actually to make a difference and change that world.
One thing that excites me about Clark is that we do not separate our research and teaching missions. Large projects making a difference in the world involve undergraduate as well as graduate students and faculty. Recently some very large grants have come our way, which I see as third-party validation of Clark's excellence from the outside. Some are related to health care. As Clark provides a fine education for pre-med and pre-health students, it is becoming a major player in research on the social and economic dimensions of health care. Clark is now a partner with the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Harvard University, in the large National Children's Study of the National Institute of Child Health. It is studying children's health issues longitudinally from a pre-natal stage to age 21. Clark's expertise lies in our highly regarded GIS faculty members, that is in the geographic and demographic dimensions of the project.
Meanwhile the joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS has just announced that Clark University will be the host institution for a collaborative global project entitled aids2031, which is to question conventional wisdom about AIDS, stimulate new research, encourage public dialogue, and set an agenda for the future. The project will be coordinated by the IDCE Department and the Marsh Institute with Professors Bill Fisher and Heidi Larson providing leadership.
As you know, Clark-through its unique Jacob Hiatt Center for Urban Education-has become a recognized leader in K-12 education reform, a true national challenge. Many of you saw the front-page Boston Globe story in November on University Park Campus School, a model for what is possible with at-risk populations in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood. Clark has recently been asked to consult on similar projects in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and the Boston area. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been funding an institute at Clark and UPCS to work with principals and superintendents from around America on how to make their schools better. We are thrilled, moreover, that the philanthropic vision of Jack Adam, the now retired founding CEO of Hanover Insurance and a graduate of South High School in the 1930s, has made possible the replication of UPCS in the Claremont Academy on Woodland Street. It, too, is a neighborhood public school through which we can prove that UPCS can be scaled up to a larger graduating class. As I tell alumni and friends of Clark, most of the best things at Clark combine academic excellence and philanthropy-the Hiatt and Adam gifts for Education, the Strassler Center, endowed chairs and scholarships, gifts for our new buildings, and so much more.
Clark continues to provide leadership also in the area of environmental science and policy. As you know, I have signed on to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment to work towards carbon neutrality. Meanwhile Geography Professors Colin Polsky and Gil Pontius have received a $1.4M grant from the National Science Foundation to study water use issues in the process of suburban sprawl. Like almost all research projects at Clark, it is giving students a chance to work on an initiative that should have real-world consequences. Just recently, moreover, Ron Eastman has received funding of $1.25M from the Google and Moore Foundations to develop communication systems for climate-related emergencies. Dale Hattis and Rob Goble in the Marsh Institute have been funded by the EPA to do studies of risk analysis related to chemical hazards.
Ever since the days of G. Stanley Hall, Psychology has been a center of excellence here. Some relatively new faculty members are promising a future at least as bright as the past. James Cordova has a number of students involved in a $1M+ project funded by NIH to study family well-being and marital challenges in urban areas. His colleagues Esteban Cardemil and Wendy Grolnick have been funded by the W. T. Grant Foundation to study challenges for adolescents from low-income families. While these stories seem to symbolize success only for Clark research programs, they all involve students and are tied to plans to implement real-world solutions.
The science departments every year involve undergraduate students in remarkable programs. Susan Foster and John Baker in Biology, funded by the Keck Foundation, have developed a new curriculum in ecology, evolution, and behavior building on their work with the stickleback fish. It has allowed students like Anna Mazzarella an opportunity to do cutting-edge work not only here but also at Stanford and in Alaska. Anna is also an art major who assisted Cade Overton with photographs from the Lasry Biosciences Building that were used on the University holiday card in December. David Hibbett and Tim Lyerla have also received large grants that involve students and in David's case have high-school-outreach dimensions.
The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise is off the ground under the creative leadership, as I said, of Jim Gomes with Richard Freeland as his major partner in crime. The Institute, established through that generous gift from Bill and Jane Mosakowski, will not only complete research of consequence addressing challenges in the public sector but also have a significant impact on education at Clark. It is very much a part of challenging convention and changing our world for the better.
Clark seniors go on to the best graduate schools and excellent jobs. A Clark education should prepare them for both a life and a career. New programs like "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" are adding new opportunities for students to do that. Kay and I continue to find work at Clark the most rewarding of our lives, and we have you-the faculty and staff of the University, along with the thousands of students who have been here since the year 2000, and the alumni and trustees who support Clark, to thank for that experience. Like the rest of the Clark team, Kay and I are committed both to academic excellence and to making a positive difference. We know they are interwoven not separate commitments. We look forward to this next year of 2008 as one when Clark itself will get even better and better. Thank you again for the pride you take in your work at Clark and for your enthusiasm to make ththe University the best that it can be
John Bassett
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