Walk to Defeat ALS
2026-05-30 11:15 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Join us for a powerful community event uniting families, friends, caregivers, and advocates in the fight against ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). This annual walk is a community fundraising event bringing people together to raise awareness, honor those we’ve lost, support those living with ALS today, and fuel critical research toward treatments and a cure.

The Walk to Defeat ALS is more than just a walk — it’s a day of hope, remembrance, and action. Participants of all ages and abilities come together to share stories, celebrate strength, and show those affected by ALS that they are not alone. Funds raised support patient care programs, advocacy efforts, and cutting-edge research that make a real impact locally and nationwide.

Whether you walk in honor, in memory, or in solidarity, every step helps move the fight forward.

Register today and join the Worcester community as we walk together to defeat ALS.

Commencement
2026-05-18 00:00 - 23:59 | DCU Center, 50 Foster St, Worcester, MA, 01608, United States
Join Clark in celebrating the Class of 2026.

Undergraduate Ceremony

Doors open at 8:30 a.m.

Processional begins at 9:45 a.m.

Ceremony begins at 10 a.m.

Graduate Ceremony

Doors open at 1:00 p.m.

Processional begins at 2:15 p.m.

Ceremony begins at 2:30 p.m.

Multicultural Graduation
2026-05-17 14:00 - 15:30 | Higgins University Center, Tilton Hall
This celebration honors the experiences and accomplishments of graduating multicultural students.

All Senior Week activities »

First-Gen Pinning Ceremony
2026-05-17 11:00 - 12:30 | Higgins University Center, Tilton Hall
Clark University is proud to honor the achievements of our first-generation* or first-generation 1.5** college students.

*An individual whose parents/guardians did not complete a bachelor’s degree. This does not include siblings.

**The student is not necessarily the first in their family to go to college as defined above, but typically navigates college like many other first-generation college students due to self-identifying as not having prior exposure to or knowledge of navigating higher institution; e.g., if your parent and/or guardian completed a bachelor’s degree outside of the U.S. or if you have only had close contact with people with minimal college experience.

All Senior Week activities »

Lavender Graduation
2026-05-16 13:30 - 15:00 | Higgins University Center, Tilton Hall
This special celebration honors LGBTQ+ students at Clark.

All Senior Week activities »

International Graduation Celebration
2026-05-12 16:00 - 18:00 | Higgins University Center, Tilton Hall
Graduating international students will come together as a global community to celebrate their accomplishments, reflect on their journey, and recognize the impact they’ve made at Clark. Enjoy food, music, photos, and time with friends, faculty, and staff as we celebrate this important milestone.

All Senior Week activities »

Paint and Plant
2026-04-23 14:00 - 16:00 | Center for Counseling and Personal Growth
Join the Center for Counseling and Personal Growth to decorate a pot and then fill it with foliage.

ClarkFEST
2026-04-22 13:30 - 16:30 | Higgins University Center, Tilton Hall
ClarkFEST highlights the academic and research excellence of Clark’s talented undergraduate students through work conducted under the mentorship of the University’s faculty and staff. Students will share their research, academic achievements, and creative works through posters, presentations, and interactive exhibits.

Plant-Centered Pages
2026-04-02 13:00 - 14:00 | Lurie Conference Room, Higgins University Center
In honor of Earth Month and Wellness Week, the School of Climate, Environment, and Society invites students to decorate journals with an environmental theme. The journals can be filled with personal goals for environmental wellness or whatever brings happiness.

At Risk Scholars and the Academic Job Market
2026-03-30 12:00 - 13:00
In displacement settings, immediate survival often takes precedence—but what role does intellectual identity play in helping scholars rebuild their careers and sense of belonging? Join the Integration and Belonging Hub for the second session of our new webinar series, Scholars in Exile – Rethinking Academic Humanitarianism.

REGISTER

Sponsored by the Integration and Belonging Hub at Clark University

Speakers

Dr. Alfred Babo: Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at Fairfield University, and Board Member at Scholars-at-Risk.

Burcu Yasemin Seyben: Award-winning Playwright and Theatre and General Education Scholar, College of Southern Idaho.

Dr. Mohammed Muharram: Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher of Postcolonial Studies, University of Bremen, Germany.

About the series: Scholars in Exile – Rethinking Academic Humanitarianism.

This three-part series explores how transnational knowledge production and academic identity intersect with inclusion and exclusion. Moving beyond labels, we examine how exiled intellectuals navigate the Global North and redefine what it means to be both a “refugee” and a high-level academic.

Each session brings together displaced scholars and transnational researchers to share insights on navigating host institutions, maintaining professional agency, and overcoming the unique stresses of displacement.

Practicing Right Relationship: Building Community in Uncertain Times
2026-03-19 12:00 - 13:00 | Dana Commons – Fireside Lounge
adrienne maree brown, author of “Emergent Strategy” and “Holding Change,” will join us virtually for a discussion and Q&A. You are invited to come together to watch and participate, or attend among others. Come watch and participate together or watch the online event.

Dean of the College Laurie Ross and Margaret Post, reasearch professor in the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice, will host the conversation.

New York Times bestselling author adrienne maree brown (she/they) is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation.

brown is the NYT-bestselling author/editor of several published texts, a ritual singer-songwriter, co-generator of the Lineages of Change Tarot Deck, and co-creator/host of How to Survive the End of the World podcast with Autumn Brown.

Robert Goddard Centennial: A Vision. A Reality. A Hope
2026-03-17 19:00 - 20:00 | Sackler Sciences Center, Johnson Auditorium – S120
Join Clark alumnus and former NASA project manager John Emond ’74 as he explores how Robert Goddard’s early experiments were met with skepticism — yet through persistence and vision, he laid the groundwork for modern rocketry and ultimately helped spark the creation of NASA.

Watch this event via Zoom livestream (name and email address required)

John Emond spent almost a decade working in social services before joining NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He then moved to NASA HQ, where he served as a policy analyst, senior policy analyst, commercial space center program manager, and technology transfer collaboration program manager.

visit clark’s goddard centennial site

Wallace W. Atwood Lecture: Mishuana Goeman, University at Buffalo
2026-03-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Clark University, Tilton Hall, Higgins University Center – 2nd Floor, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Mishuana Goeman, Professor and Chair of Indigenous Studies at the University at Buffalo and President of the American Studies Association, will deliver the annual Wallace W. Atwood Lecture

Treaty Art: The Visual Geographies of Expressive Citizenship

This talk explores the iconography of treaties in contemporary art practices in the context of one hundred years of the Indian Citizenship Act. The Act itself centers on the human and the closing of the co-constitutive power of the US and Canadian territorial sovereignty. The act attempts to domesticates Indians—and our lands– as citizens under the shroud of American Legal territorial sovereignty, moving Indigenous lands to the purview of the secretary of the Interior in the US and under the patriarchy of the Indian Act in Canada. In contrast to this moment, artists have long depicted an alternative vision of the relationship between belonging and land that exceeds settler borders and their colonial premises. I will examine examples of the reconfiguration of forms of territorial sovereignty through art practices that rethink land and relationships not only between landed points but also in relation to other humans and more-than-humans. How do contemporary art practices create not only a sense of belonging but also a sense of reciprocity and responsibility? How is a “sea to shining sea” affective regime of belonging disrupted by the visual impact of Indigenous artists who address colonization and forms of settler structures of belonging that are often gendered practices? What might we gain from examining public art and other built environments where the subtlety of assertion of treaty rights, existing before the 1924 act, is not so apparent to a North American public but is the iconography that creates a sense of belonging from those in reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Nations? How does expressive citizenship creatively refuse a hundred years of settler citizenship and disrupt colonial geographies based on patriarchal property logics?

Dr. Mishuana Goeman, daughter through the patrilineal line of enrolled Tonawanda Band of Seneca, Hawk Clan, is a Professor and Chair of Indigenous Studies at the University at Buffalo and President of the American Studies Association. Her monographs include Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (2013) and Settler Aesthetics: The Spectacle of Originary Moments in the New World (2023). She is also part of the feminist editorial collective for Keywords in Gender and Sexuality Studies (2021), which won the Choice Award in 2021, and now is part of a Podcast series of the same name. Digital Projects where she is a co-pi include Carrying Our Ancestors Home (COAH, 2019), Mukurtu California Native Hub (2020), and the Haudenosaunee Archival Research and Knowledge (Hark, 2023), Mapping Indigenous L.A (2015-2024).

CUSB Faculty Research Seminar
2026-03-11 12:30 - 13:30 | Carlson 203
“Resilience in Adversity: Adverse Events and the Evolution of Physician Referral Ties”

with Dr. Jisoo Park, Assistant Professor of Management, Clark University, School of Business.

Research Abstract: We examine how individuals make tie maintenance decisions following task failures in partnerships. Prior research suggests that individuals often weaken ties following such failures, viewing them as signals of poor partner quality. However, doing so may be premature because failures can stem from a combination of individual and contextual factors. We ask which individuals make discerning tie maintenance decisions after a failure, differentiating between failures that vary in the extent of contextual influence. We examine referral relationships among 6,526 Florida physician dyads from 2016 to 2020 that experienced a shared patient death following a medical procedure. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we find that attending physicians practicing within a single hospital reduce referrals to the operating physician partner indiscriminately following a patient death. In contrast, attending physicians practicing across multiple hospitals respond more selectively: they maintain partnerships after high-risk deaths (high contextual influence) but weaken ties following low-risk deaths (low contextual influence). Our findings highlight multi-organizational experience as a key mechanism shaping informed tie decay decisions.

Held in person in Carlson 203 and via Zoom!

https://clarku.zoom.us/j/95385175083?pwd=[REDACTED]

Meeting ID:953 8517 5083

Passcode:[REDACTED]

Faculty and Staff Webinar: Civil Discourse in Higher Education
2026-02-04 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual Event
This webinar, for faculty and staff only, will feature campus leaders and practitioners discussing strategies for fostering respectful dialogue, navigating disagreement, and strengthening a climate of open, constructive exchange.

Webinar presented by the Anti-Defamation League

Biology Research Open House
2026-01-21 14:00 - 16:00 | The Lasry Center for Bioscience
The Biology Open House will showcase faculty and student research and offer opportunities to tour labs in the Lasry Center for Bioscience. Additional activities will include raffles, stickers, snacks, and a scavenger hunt.

Canned Food Drive
2026-01-12 00:00 - 2026-02-28 23:59
Organized by the Division of Student Success, this food drive provides an opportunity for Clark students to help their fellow students, as well as the Worcester community.

Needed donations include unopened nonperishable goods such as:

Canned vegetables and fruits

Pasta, rice, and grains

Soup, beans, lentils

Peanut butter

Shelf-stable milk

Food can be dropped off in the following locations:

University Center lobby

Residential Life and Housing office (Wright Hall, lower level)

Campus Ambassadors desk in Academic Commons

Kneller Athletic Center desk

Shaich Family Alumni and Student Engagement Center, room 222

Drop-in Info Session: M.Ed./Ed.S. in School Psychology
2025-11-06 18:00 - 19:00 | Grace Conference Room, Higgins University Center
In recognition of National School Psychology Week, the Clark community is invited to learn more about the University’s M.Ed./Ed.S. in School Psychology program.

Come enjoy pizza and refreshments while hearing from Andrew Nickerson ’19, president of the Massachusetts School Psychologists Association, as he shares his journey from Clark to a rewarding career in school psychology.

Discover how Clark’s innovative program prepares graduates to deliver essential behavioral health services to diverse student populations — and learn about 50% Clark alumni scholarships available to eligible applicants.

CANCELLED: Creating Large-Scale Participatory Public Installations
2025-10-23 19:30 - 21:00 | Center for Media Arts, Computing, and Design, Worcester, MA, 01464, United States
Located along the Port Authority Bus Terminal at West 42nd Street and 8th Avenue in Times Square, this 72-foot, 5.5 million pixel, high-resolution LED display featured full multi-person interaction along its entire length via the NOIRFLUX interaction framework.

Regretfully, we have had to cancel this week’s lecture, “Creating Large Scale Participatory Public Installations,” by Clark alums Lorne Covington and Bill Saiff on Thursday, October 23 at 7:30pm. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope to see you at future events sponsored by our Interactive Arts Collaborative. More to come soon!

How do you create public art and experiences that respond to people—not just one person, but many, all at once? Artists, technologists, and Clark University alumni Lorne Covington ’81 and Bill Saiff ’81 of NOIRFLUX will share how they design large-scale interactive environments where curious—but non-specialist—audiences become participants. Their work blends readily available technologies with their own custom-built tools to create installations that can sense, respond to, and engage any number of people in real time.

In this talk, Covington and Saiff will describe how they use design methods that focus on the participants’ experiences to make intuitive, engaging, and rewarding installations. They will show examples across art, education, research, and entertainment, and will invite the audience to join in and interact with some of their work firsthand.

Covington and Saiff’s creative journey began in the late 1970s, experimenting with Clark’s PDP-11/70 computer in the Goddard Library basement. By the early 1980s they were already designing some of the world’s first interactive video systems and applications. While their professional careers took them down separate paths—Lorne as a filmmaker, technologist, and creative innovator, and Bill as a leader in user experience research and design—they remained collaborators, continually refining their shared vision of how people engage with technology. Since founding NOIRFLUX in 2011, they have combined Lorne’s expertise in interactive media and sensing technologies with Bill’s decades of UX leadership to create installations that transform spectators into collective participants through interaction, exploration, and play.

Admission is free and open to the public. This event is sponsored by the Interactive Arts Collaborative through the Arts + Technology Program and is hosted by the Alice Coonley Higgins Institute for Arts and Humanities, the Becker School of Design and Technology, and the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Clark University.

Navigating Open Access: From Discovery to Publication
2025-10-23 14:00 - 15:00 | Fuller Room (Goddard Library 422)
This library workshop introduces participants to the principles of Open Access (OA) publishing, exploring what it is, why it matters, and how to engage with it in their own research. Participants will define Open Access, learn strategies for finding and evaluating OA resources, consider both the risks and benefits of publishing openly and recognize how the library can support this endeavor. By the end of the session, participants will understand how OA scholarship continues to shape the future of academic publishing.

Open Access: A Clark Conversation
2025-10-22 16:00 - 17:00 | Clark University, Higgins Lounge, Dana Commons – 2nd Floor, 36 Maywood Street, Worcester, MA, 01603, United States
In celebration of International Open Access Week, join us for a panel discussion on the impacts of open access and how it affects scholarship at Clark. Faculty and librarians will share their perspectives on how open access shapes their research, teaching, and professional work, highlighting disciplinary concerns and the evolving academic publishing landscape.

Research Services Librarian Katie Wind will moderate the discussion, which will include panelists:

Professor Arshad Kudrolli, Physics

Professor James Murphy, Geography

Assistant Professor Javier Tabima Restrepo, Biology

Associate Provost and Dean of Research Jennifer Hanselman

Head of Collections and Systems Katherine Collins, Goddard Library

Light refreshments will be provided.

Mosakowski Institute Open House
2025-10-22 15:00 - 17:00 | Gates House, 24 Charlotte Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise invites the Clark community to an open house.

This special gathering is a chance to:

Learn more about the Institute’s mission and impact.

Explore our latest projects and innovations.

Celebrate the collaborative spirit that drives our work.

Enjoy light refreshments, live music, and good company as we open our doors to the campus community.

We look forward to seeing you in Gates House, on the corner of Charlotte and Clifton streets.

Art in the Heart of Main South Opening Reception
2025-10-18 13:00 - 17:00 | University Park, 965 Main Street, Worcester, MA, United States
Art in the Heart of Main South returns to University Park and the Clark campus for a third installation of original artwork. A partnership between Clark University and Art in the Park, this series was created specifically to make art accessible to the Main South community.

The opening reception will include free food from local vendors, music from Dan and the Royal Treatment along with DJ Cortes, tours of the eight new sculptures, family trick or treating (children are encouraged to wear their costumes!), and tabling by community partners.

The event is free and open to the public, and coincides with Clark’s Family and Friends Weekend.

Family and Friends Weekend
2025-10-17 00:00 - 2025-10-19 23:59 | Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA, 01610, United States
Join us on campus and in the city of Worcester for special events, signature programming, and the opportunity to create fun-filled memories.

On-site registration will take place in the Academic Commons, located on the first floor of Goddard Library, on Friday, October 17, from 6 to 8 p.m., and on Saturday, October 18, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

If you have any questions, please contact Clark’s Alumni & Friends Engagement team at alumni@clarku.edu or 800-793-6246.

learn more and register for Family and Friends Weekend

School of Business Faculty Research Seminar
2025-10-01 12:30 - 13:30 | Carlson 203
For the first fall faculty research seminar, Xiaodong Zhang, a visiting scholar, will be presenting his research on political career concerns and firm-level credit rationing. The seminar will take place in CH203 and via Zoom. All comments and feedback are welcome. His talk will be offered both in person and online. Please find the presentation topics below.

Zoom Meeting ID: 923 2657 7294Passcode: [REDACTED]

Title: Political Career Concerns and Firm-Level Credit Rationing: Evidence from Chinese Cities

Abstract: Efficient credit allocation is central to private-sector growth, yet political incentives often redirect financial resources. Using China’s cadre promotion system, we show that mayors eligible for promotion expand infrastructure investment through bank-financed debt, raising local government liabilities by 13% of GDP. This debt expansion crowds out private firms, reducing their credit access, investment, employment, and productivity. The distortion is weaker for state-owned and infrastructure-related firms, highlighting unequal access to finance. Our findings reveal how career concerns of local officials translate into financial repression, offering new evidence on the institutional origins of capital misallocation in developing economies.

Biology Seminar Series: Alex Bradshaw, Clark University
2025-09-18 12:00 - 13:00 | The Lasry Center for Bioscience
Alexander Bradshaw is a mycologist with experience in microbiology, including work with bacterial and fungal specimens. He values biodiversity in all forms but has a strong passion for Fungi. His past and current research has primarily focused on systematics and evolution of the genus of “Magic mushrooms” Psilocybe, which produce psychoactive compounds with high therapeutic potential for the treatment of myriad mental health issues. However, more broadly, Alex is interested in exploring the complexity and evolution of fungal secondary metabolites, which have been utilized by humans throughout history for food, medicine, and in reclaiming polluted environments. Embracing the breadth of biological and chemical diversity that Fungi exhibit is paramount to understanding their role in nature, how they shape the environment around them, and how they influence the organisms they interact with.

Another unexplored realm of mycology is the functional development of morphology, such as how a mushroom is produced. For his post-doctoral research, Alex is working in the lab of Dr. David Hibbett and Dr. Javier Tabima, where he is studying the systematics, functional genetics, and population structures of the gilled, and sometimes secotioid, polypore mushroom, Lentinus tigrinus.

School of Climate, Environment, and Society Kickoff
2025-09-15 09:00 - 20:00 | Campus Green and Red Square
Join us as we celebrate the launch of Clark University’s new school! Events will be held throughout the day, including a tree planting and remarks from President Fithian and Dean Lou Leonard.

Red Fair in Red Square
2025-08-26 17:00 - 19:00 | Red Square
Celebrate the start of the year, show your Clark pride, and help kick off our Tuesdays We Wear Red campaign. Take a picture with Jonas the Cougar, Sigmund Freud, or take a group shot with your friends or team. All red shirts will be 20% off at the Campus Store on August 26.

There will be exclusive Red Fair merch and red treats — you won’t want to miss out. So show off your Clark Red and get the year started right!

Commencement
2025-05-19 10:00 - 17:00
Family and friends are invited to join us in celebrating the Class of 2025 at two ceremonies:

10 a.m. – Bachelor’s degree recipients
3 p.m. – Master’s and doctoral degree recipients

Visit our Commencement site to learn more about the schedule and to read information for ceremony participants and visitors.

Multicultural Graduation Ceremony
2025-05-18 14:00 - 15:30 | Higgins University Center, Tilton Hall
Multicultural Graduation honors the experiences and accomplishments of graduating multicultural students.

Register to attend »
