2021-2022 Academic Catalog 
    
    Mar 19, 2024  
2021-2022 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Facilities



Campus Libraries

The Robert Hutchings Goddard Library is named for the Clark physicist who invented the rocket technology that made space travel possible.  The Library, with the Academic Commons, is at the heart of the University. The library is staffed by 18 librarians and professional staff as well as over 30 student employees. The building is also home to the University Archives and Special Collections, Information Technology Services HelpDesk and Academic Technology staff, Jazzman’s Café, Clark Ride, and the Writing Center.  

The library building is a landmark of brutalist architecture originally constructed in 1969 and renovated in 2009 to include a café, computer labs, and group study areas. The library is open 98 hours per week and the Academic Commons is open 147 hours per week.

Goddard Library offers four digitally-equipped group study rooms, individual seating space on all floors, a dedicated quiet study room, 3 computer labs with networked printing, and an electronic classroom supporting a long established library instruction program that supports over 100 classes and 1500 students per year. Research assistance is provided in person, or through email, chat, and video conferencing.

Clark Library collections include more than 600,000 print and full-text electronic books, over 8,000 print and full-text electronic journals, and over 500,000 print and digital media items, including maps, photographs, music, works of visual art, and video. 

As a member of the Worcester Academic and Research Collaborative (ARC), Clark offers students borrowing privileges at eight academic libraries with a combined local collection of more than 3.8 million volumes.

The Guy Burnham Map and Aerial Photography Library, founded in 1921, is a cartographic information center. The collection, global in scope, contains 250,000 maps and 7,500 aerial photographs, as well as atlases, journals, globes, map reference materials and tourist information. The collection is accessible by reqest through the Goddard Library website.

The Jeanne X. Kasperson Research Library offers one of the most extensive research collections in North America on environmental risks and hazards, environment and development, and the human dimensions of global environmental change. It also has significant holdings on international development, sustainability, water resources and energy policy.  The collection includes books, monographs, journals, newsletters, government documents and technical reports. The library also maintains an expansive internal database of grey literature in its areas of specialization and houses an archive of resources related to Worcester’s refugee communities. The Kasperson Library is part of Clark University’s George Perkins Marsh Institute.

The Rose Library, located on the bottom floor of Cohen-Lasry House, includes a broad range of materials on Holocaust and Genocide including: History, Sociology, Photography, Literature, Psychology, Religion, and Political Science. Doctoral level research depends upon comprehensive library holdings, and at Rose Library, the Strassler Center faculty and students enjoy a first - class library with over 9,000 titles and growing. Originally conceived as a library for Holocaust research, with the Center’s mandate expanded to genocide studies, the range of titles has broadened.  It continues to grow, with acquisitions from other genocides. The newest addition to this collection is access to the 55,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide through the Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. The Diana Bartley Book Collection, including thousands of books contributed over more than a decade, forms the spine of the Rose Library. It also includes books from the Barry D. Hoffman Collection. We gratefully acknowledge them both, generous friends and inveterate book collectors.

The Traina Center for the Arts houses the Visual and Performing Arts Resource Library that maintains the department’s collection of Blu-Ray, DVD, audio CD, and archival film and slide items. The library also features individual and group media viewing stations, computers, scanners, and other A/V equipment. Use of all collection material and technology is restricted to inside the Resource Library, unless otherwise indicated. A valid Clark ID must be presented to access material.

Information Technology

Clark provides a robust computing infrastructure and environment. Clark’s high-speed data network connects all campus buildings including residence halls; wireless connectivity is available in residence halls, academic and outdoor spaces. Most classrooms are equipped with multimedia audio-visual systems and there are multiple small-group collaboration/study spaces for student use on campus. Computer labs and a high-performance computing cluster provide access to specialized software used in courses and certain disciplines. Microsoft Office 365 and a Zoom license is available for all faculty, staff, and students providing productivity collaboration, and cloud storage tools.

Clark students, faculty and staff routinely utilize the Clark computing and networking environment in their day-to-day activities. The University’s intranet portal (known as ClarkYOU) serves as a gateway to content, communications and web services for the Clark community and provides access to faculty, staff and student resources, including online registration, as well as many other campus services. Faculty and students utilize Clark’s online course management system (Moodle) to extend the classroom beyond traditional walls. Select campus events are webcast and archived for playback on demand.

Faculty and staff are provided with networked computers. Most students bring a personal computer to campus. The University has Help Desk assistance available for all members of the community. Help Desk services are available year-round, with extended hours during the academic year.

Science Facilities

Clark’s science facilities include the Cathy ‘83 and Marc ‘81 Lasry Center for Bioscience, as well as the Arthur M. Sackler Sciences Center, which links chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science. The Lasry Center for Bioscience is a 50,000-square-foot building that houses teaching laboratories, lecture halls, faculty offices and research laboratories used by faculty and students in biology, biochemistry and molecular biology, and physical geography programs. Completed in 2005, the Lasry Center received Gold certification by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.
The Sackler Sciences Center and affiliated buildings include many newly renovated research, teaching and office spaces used by faculty and their students in biochemistry and molecular biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science.

All the science facilities feature:
     • Research laboratories for faculty and their undergraduate and graduate students
     • Flexible teaching laboratories well-equipped with state-of-the-art technology
        and which accommodate a variety of instructional approaches
     • Classrooms and seminar rooms that incorporate modern technology and facilitate
        interactions among students and between faculty and students
     • Common use spaces that promote collaboration and collegiality

The science facilities house a centralized science library and computer facilities, including a parallel computing cluster. Additionally, the science research and teaching laboratories house a variety of shared-use state-of-the-art equipment including an electron spin resonance spectrometer, four high-field nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers, multiple spectrophotometers, a Walz PAM-2500 fluorometer, an AriaMx real-time PCR machine, a Dolomite µEncapsulator system, a Fuji FLA4000 imager, multiple gel documentation systems, a 50 tesla pulsed magnetic field, a 6 GHz oscilloscope, a SQUID magnetometer, a scanning tunneling microscope, a Varian Medical Systems micro-focus x-ray CT machine, a x-ray powder diffractometer, a gel permeation chromatograph, a thermogravimetric analyzer, and a multiplexing-capable impedance spectrometer. A helium liquefier recycles and provides cryogenic helium for low temperature experiments and NMR spectrometers. The Fairchild Imaging Facility houses scanning electron microscopes and an atomic force microscope. The equipment is routinely used in research conducted by collaborative laboratory groups including faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students.

Visual and Performing Arts Facilities

The Traina Center for the Arts, which opened in August of 2002, is a facility for the visual and performing arts. The complex consists of a completely remodeled late-19th-century brick school building of Richardsonian design with a newly built hall for lectures, recitals and screenings.  Much of the department’s activity is based here.  Studios for painting, drawing and graphic design, together with a print-making studio, photography darkroom, exhibition gallery, visual resource library, George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation multimedia center and modern classrooms, create an integrated environment for the study, creation, display and performance of many diverse forms of art.  A new, fully equipped sculpture studio opened at a new location, 918 Main Street, in Fall 2019.

Razzo Hall is also located in the Traina Center for the Arts.  It is a fine recital hall, which hosts numerous musical performances by students, faculty and professional ensembles.  Razzo is also used for lectures, film screenings, symposia and class sessions.   

The Little Center, the home of the Theater program, is devoted to the creation of theatrical performances.  It houses the Michelson Theatre, a black-box theater, an experimental theater, a costume shop, a design workshop, and a practice studio and classrooms. During the 2120-2022 academic year, Little Center will be renovated, with its grand reopening scheduled for Fall 2022.

The Music program is based in Estabrook Hall.  Music classrooms, including the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation Center for Music, as well as practice rooms, faculty offices, a keyboard lab, and a fully equipped recording studio are all housed in Estabrook Hall. In addition, senior studios for advanced studio art students are located here as well.

Athletic Facilities

The Kneller Athletic Center includes the Hurst Courts, a recently revamped gymnasium with three full-size courts for basketball and volleyball; a six-lane 25-yard swimming pool with one- and three-meter diving boards; four racquetball courts and two squash courts; a weight room; a training room with facilities for rehabilitation; a dance room; locker rooms, offices and a conference room.

The James and Ada Bickman Fitness Center, received an expansive addition in the summer of 2013 and provides students with a cardiovascular area, strength and free-weight area and a multipurpose room.

Outdoor athletics compete at the Dolan Field House Complex, which features a newly installed synthetic surface for intercollegiate soccer and lacrosse.

In addition there is a sport-turf field for field hockey, and baseball, as well as six lighted Plexi-Pave-surfaced tennis courts. The fields, which are also used for intramural and recreational sports, include the 29,850 square-foot Dolan Field House, which provides indoor practice space, a training room, and locker rooms for visiting and home teams. The field house is also used for intramural and recreational use. Furthermore, Clark has another synthetic field just under a mile away that is lined for soccer, lacrosse, softball and circled with a four lane track. The field is primarily used for varsity practice, intramurals and clubs.

O’Brien Field is the home to the varsity softball team, while the Donahue Rowing Center, one of the largest rowing facilities on the East Coast, is the home for the women’s rowing program. The teams practice and compete on Lake Quinsigamond, located approximately 10 minutes from campus and considered one of the best waterways for crew competition in the country. The lake has been the site of the New England Championships, the NEWMAC Championships and the Eastern Sprints Regatta.