{"id":276,"date":"2023-11-28T18:32:22","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T23:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/sustainability-social-justice\/doing-community-work-the-right-way-has-roots-at-clark\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T08:09:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T12:09:06","slug":"doing-community-work-the-right-way-has-roots-at-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/sustainability-social-justice\/doing-community-work-the-right-way-has-roots-at-clark\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing community work \u201cthe right way\u201d has roots at Clark"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Headshot
Melissa Walsh, M.A. \u201909<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Melissa Walsh \u201909 has connected early childhood educators with library resources, helped create professional development opportunities for home daycare providers, and run youth programs and summer camps. And that was all before entering the Community Development and Planning master\u2019s program at Clark.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked in the community for a few years and felt like I needed to get the technical training that comes with a degree in community development and planning,\u201d Walsh says. She spent two years commuting to Clark from Providence, where she held various positions guiding youth programs for the YMCA. \u201cI was able to still work part-time in the community and go to school, which was fantastic for me,\u201d she says. \u201cRoute 146 and I were good friends. I\u2019m surprised I didn\u2019t get more speeding tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walsh says she loved the mix of classroom theory and real-world experiences that characterized her discussions with faculty-practitioners and her fellow degree candidates in the program. \u201cI feel like there was a real sense of camaraderie, with the classroom being the safe space to come together and make sense of what was happening in your practitioner world,\u201d Walsh says.<\/p>\n

Honoring people\u2019s lived experience<\/strong><\/p>\n

After earning her degree, Walsh became the Director of Community Development at the YMCA of Greater Providence and then the Director of Community Engagement with The Neighborhood Developers in Chelsea, Massachusetts. \u201cMy experience and relationships got me in the door at the Y,\u201d Walsh says, \u201cbut it was my degree that allowed me to build skills through professional development and evolve the work I was doing. With The Neighborhood Developers, I did participatory planning processes in both Revere and Chelsea, which was fantastic. All of that work was only possible because I had my degree in community development and planning from Clark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walsh describes the CDP program as a thinking and training ground. \u201cThe professors are there because they believe in doing community development the right way,\u201d she says, \u201cand they\u2019re working to help students become practitioners who will do the same.\u201d Walsh believes the \u201cright way\u201d means building more resilient and equitable urban communities by confronting social and economic injustice. She embraces a people-first approach, which she traces back to her studies at Clark. \u201cWe were always mindful of a community\u2019s history,\u201d she says. \u201cThe program encouraged a way of honoring people\u2019s lived experiences, which often means working in a trauma-informed way. I think Clark\u2019s ahead of their time with that people-first approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Equipped to pivot her career<\/strong><\/p>\n

After focusing the bulk of her career on community engagement within the context of community development, Walsh is now deepening her technical skills as a senior consultant with Triad Associates. Her work involves advising municipalities on how to manage and implement their community development grant funds and supporting them on their reporting and plan submissions to HUD. \u201cThis is much more of a backroom position,\u201d she says, noting that it fits her current life as a mom with two young children. \u201cRunning public meetings is not really what I can do right now,\u201d she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

If you had talked with Walsh about the administrative side of community development when she was a student at Clark, she would have told you she\u2019d never do it. Thanks to the CDP program, she was nevertheless prepared. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting how careers evolve and what works for you at different points,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She recalls her days at Clark with great affection. \u201cIf I could be in the CDP program forever, I would,\u201d she says. \u201cThose spaces and those discussions were so amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melissa Walsh \u201909 has connected early childhood educators with library resources, helped create professional development opportunities for home daycare providers, and run youth programs and summer camps. And that was all before entering the Community Development and Planning master\u2019s program at Clark. \u201cI worked in the community for a few years and felt like I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ssj-alumni-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDoing community work \u201cthe right way\u201d has roots at Clark | Sustainability and Social Justice | Clark University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/sustainability-social-justice\/doing-community-work-the-right-way-has-roots-at-clark\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Doing community work \u201cthe right way\u201d has roots at Clark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Melissa Walsh \u201909 has connected early childhood educators with library resources, helped create professional development opportunities for home daycare providers, and run youth programs and summer camps. 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