2016-2017 Academic Catalog 
    
    Dec 04, 2024  
2016-2017 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Departments and Offices



Academic Department and Program Listing

Legend

red leaf icon = Undergraduate concentration

green leaf icon = Undergraduate concentration and Ph.D. program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies

 

 Academic Support Services

LEEP Center

The LEEP Center staff provides guidance, resources and support necessary for students to identify and achieve their personal and professional goals. Located in Dana Commons until the new Alumni & Student Engagement Center opens Summer 2016, the Center is home to Academic Advising, Career Services, Community Engagement, LEEP Projects, Study Abroad, and the Writing Center.

The staff in the LEEP Center also serve as advisors who help students weave together all aspects of their undergraduate experience to help them prepare for a meaningful life beyond Clark. Students should make an appointment with the LEEP Center Advisor attached to their major, for information and advice relating to leadership and personal skills development; experiential and cocurricular learning opportunities; post-baccalaureate options and preparation and help with academic process and deadlines. Undecided, undeclared, and transfer students can meet with a LEEP Center Advisor on the exploration team.

 

Academic Advising

All matriculated students are assigned an Academic Advisor.  A student’s academic advisor assignment is viewable within CUWeb.  Undergraduate students are invited to meet with a staff member of Academic Advising  for academic advice or for assistance in deciding upon a major. Evaluation of transfer credit and College Board petitions for exception to any academic policy are coordinated through the Academic Advising center, as are all cases involving possible breaches of academic integrity.  Graduate student academic advising is controlled within each department and students should consult with their Academic Department for more information.

 

Student Accessibility Services

Student Accessibility Services is designed to provide equal access to and foster functional independence for students with documented disabilities. Both the Director of Student Accessibility Services and the Accessibility Services Advisor can provide formal academic accommodations and academic advising and guidance to students who have self-disclosed and submitted current documentation of disability to the office.

 

English as a Second Language: American Language and Culture Institute (ALCI)

If English is not your first language and you are having a difficult time with your classes as a result, you should contact ALCI. A variety of noncredit ESL classes are offered at up to five levels of instruction. Undergraduates who take the Verbal Expression placement test at Orientation may be required to take one or both of the following writing courses offered by ALCI: Pre-Academic Writing (ESL 0150, noncredit) and Expository Writing for Nonnative Speakers of English (ESL 0155, credit).

For more information about ALCI classes and/or programs, call ALCI at 508.793.7794.

 

Research Centers and Institutes

The Adam Institute for Urban Teaching and School Practice has a special charge to develop, support, and understand teaching that puts all students, especially those who are underprepared and underrepresented, on a path to college. In meeting this goal, the Institute strives to develop and understand powerful models of urban teacher preparation, teaching practice, and college-going learning cultures. This innovative work occurs primarily in collaboration with partner schools in Worcester’s Main South neighborhood, with Clark’s Hiatt Center for Urban Education an important research partner. The work encompasses Clark’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, which is a carefully constructed gradual immersion in practice in partner schools.

Clark Labs for Cartographic Technologies and Geographic Analysis, best known for its flagship product, the IDRISI GIS and Image Processing software, is dedicated to the research and development of geospatial technologies for effective and responsible decision making for environmental management, sustainable resource development, and equitable resource allocation. Clark Labs leverages its academic base to develop innovative and customized research tools, provide software solutions to organizations in need, and apply geospatial expertise to a range of real-world problems.

The George Perkins Marsh Institute conducts transformative research on relationships between humans and their surrounding natural, technological and socioeconomic environments. Among the hallmarks of the Institute is collaborative, systems-based research that challenges traditional disciplinary boundaries to address global challenges such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, urban sustainability, human development, and socio-technical transitions to sustainability. Focal areas of the Institute include earth system science, socio-ecological and sustainability science, and urban/economic systems.

The Higgins School of Humanities enhances the intellectual and cultural life of Clark University by fostering connections between the humanities disciplines (English, Foreign Languages, History, Philosophy, and Visual and Performing Arts). The School integrates co-curricular activities and classroom learning with faculty development, pedagogical innovation, and substantive research. Each semester, the Higgins School offers a thematic dialogue symposium in addition to lectures and readings from the African American Intellectual Culture Series, the Frontiers in the Humanities Series, the Higgins Faculty Series and the Modern Poetry Series. Other significant and ongoing initiatives include: research collaboratives on early modernist studies, the digital humanities, science fiction film and literature, the Difficult Dialogues program, and the Council on the Uncertain Human Future.

The Jacob Hiatt Center for Urban Education, This research center connects scholars, practitioners, and youth in the development of educational environments that advance our understanding of powerful learning and teaching in urban settings. The goal is to create spaces where research and practice co-develop in ways that exemplify new possibilities for community-building, knowledge creation, and impact through collaborative action. The work of the Center encompasses the worlds of schools, local neighborhoods and national/international networks, and expanding virtual and digital spaces.

The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise focuses on the creation and dissemination of new knowledge that can be put to use in addressing important public issues. The Institute supports Clark faculty in analyzing important issues in actual contexts, often in partnership with the practitioners charged with solving public problems. Because these problems cut across academic disciplinary boundaries, Mosakowski’s work does as well. Examples of the Institute’s work to bridge theory and practice include the annual Family Impact Seminars, where Clark faculty and students compile and present current research on family policy topics to Massachusetts state legislators and their staffs; the NOAA Fellows program, through which Clark students spend their summers engaged in projects with NOAA scientists and policy analysts around the U.S.; and the research projects in the field of urban education supported by the Institute’s Dr. Lee Gurel ‘48 Education Endowment.

The Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is an intellectually dynamic forum for education and scholarship about the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and other genocides around the world. Dedicated to teaching, research, and public service, the Center offers the only Ph.D. in Holocaust History and Genocide Studies in the country, training the next generation of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, scholars, teachers, museum directors and curators, and experts in nongovernmental organizations and government agencies.