Editor’s letter

Well in hand

Jim Keogh, editor-in-chief, Clark magazine — Jim Keogh, editor-in-chief

It was especially hot and humid on the Clark campus, and getting hotter—the kind of day we beg for in the winter and complain about in the summer. August in Worcester is like that.

Melissa Hoffer, the chief climate officer for Massachusetts, was unbothered by the rising temperature when I met her by the library for a quick walk to the Shaich Family Alumni and Student Engagement Center. She’d graciously accepted our irresistible offer to make the drive to Clark to have her photo taken as accompaniment to an interview I’d done with her weeks earlier (you can read the story on page 46).

Hoffer was fully comfortable during the photo shoot in the consummate Clark setting—the view from the ASEC plaza to Jonas Clark Hall is one of our most striking—but she truly became animated during her conversation with Clark students Nate Kidd ’26, Aidan Humphreys ’26, and Jamie Young ’27, who told her about their research this past summer as fellows in the Human-Environment Regional Observatory program.

Image of the fall 2025 cover of Clark magazine. — On the cover: Ava Soch ’28 photographed by Steve King

Her curiosity and respect for their work were genuine, and at conversation’s end, our students readily agreed to speak to the Youth Climate Council, a statewide coalition of high school students who advise the governor on climate policy and actions. A hot day turned out to be a very good day.

Fast forward to late September, where in the basement photo studio of the Marketing and Communications building, Ava Soch ’28 had the whole world in her hands. You can see Ava’s fingers on the cover of this magazine, cradling a small glass globe. In the image, you’ll spot Africa, Europe, and the Middle East as it disappears around the horizon’s curve. Brazil peeks out from beneath her right thumb.

What you don’t see is Cranston, Rhode Island. That’s my hometown, and Ava’s, too. While this issue is dedicated to the citizens living in all corners of a changing planet, it’s also an homage to the places we know so well, that in our mind’s eye never change.

The world is a big place, until it feels small. We can’t let it slip from our grasp.