Last month, the Alumni and Friends Engagement team welcomed alumni volunteers from both the GOLD and Alumni Councils back to Clark’s campus.
I’d been involved in alumni engagement efforts since I was a first-year student through the Student Alumni Relations Committee (SARC) and I joined the GOLD Council as a fifth-year MBA student, so this is the first year I am participating fully as an alumna. I decided to attend in-person, working remotely from my favorite view in the Goddard library before Council meetings began that afternoon.
Even though I’d last seen Clark not even a year ago, I was surprised to see so much had changed. Construction surrounded Goddard, renovations on the Michelson Theatre were complete, and a frame was up for the new Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design (MACD), a stark difference from the campus I left in May. This feeling continued as Council meetings progressed, through discussions of Clark’s plans to grow with its students and its community.
The weekend continued with a group dinner, more meetings, an alumni volunteer event, and opportunities to interact with current students. I really enjoyed getting to know and catching up with peers that had simply been boxes on a Zoom screen for the past year and a half and revisiting a place that had taught me so much.
I couldn’t leave Clark without a last meal at DaLat, where my friends and I were once regulars – celebrating birthdays, pushing off that week’s grocery shopping, or just because we felt like it. The visit reminded me of what I loved so much about Clark – not late nights in the Bistro or movie nights in the dorms – but the people I made those memories with. My greatest hope is that as Clark changes and grows, it continues to be a space where Clarkies find that same sense of happiness and belonging.