Students leave the Jefferson Academic Center during the first day of classes.
Everyone has a story to tell, but the story of the Clark University Class of 2025 is just a little, well, damper than most. On Move-In Day, August 19, many of the 519 first-year students and their families were greeted with a torrential downpour that turned sidewalks into streams and steps into waterfalls, throughout the morning. Then there was the tornado warning.
On Sunday, August 22, Tropical Storm Henri brought additional moisture to Worcester, driving welcome-back events and activities indoors for new and returning undergraduates. Among them were 243 transfer students, including 195 from Becker College, many of whom will be among the first cohort of the Becker School of Design & Technology at Clark.
During Orientation, new Clark students got a feel for the University’s academics through a Common Academic Experience — a screening of the award-winning documentary, “Coded Bias,” followed by a discussion with Clark faculty members. The film, which can be viewed on Netflix, chronicles the efforts of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini to push for U.S. legislation against the racial bias in algorithms that are central to facial recognition technology.
A conversation with the director of “Coded Bias,” Shalini Kantayya, will take place on September 15 from 5 to 6 p.m.