The story
Founding and early history
On January 17, 1887, successful American businessman Jonas Gilman Clark announced his intention to found and endow a university in the city of Worcester, filing a petition in the Massachusetts Legislature requesting a charter for Clark University. An Act of Incorporation was duly enacted by the legislature and signed by the governor on March 31 of that same year. Clark University was to incorporate the best features of universities in continental Europe and America, particularly Cornell University and Johns Hopkins.
Clark was a friend of Leland Stanford and was inspired by the plans for Stanford University, as well as Cornell and Johns Hopkins. Clark founded the university with an endowment of one million dollars, and later added another million dollars because he feared the university might someday face a lack of funds. Opening on October 2, 1889, Clark was the first all-graduate university in the United States, with departments in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology.
G. Stanley Hall was appointed the first president of Clark University in 1888. He had been a professor of psychology and pedagogy at Johns Hopkins University, which had been founded just a few years prior and was quickly becoming a model of the modern research university. Hall spent seven months in Europe visiting other universities and recruiting faculty. He became the founder of the American Psychological Association and earned the first PhD in psychology in the United States at Harvard. Clark has played a prominent role in the development of psychology as a distinguished discipline in the United States ever since. Franz Boas, founder of American cultural anthropology and adviser for the first PhD in anthropology which was granted at Clark in 1891, taught at Clark from 1888 until 1892 when he resigned in a dispute with President Hall over academic freedom and joined the faculty of Columbia University. Albert A. Michelson, the first American to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics, best known for his involvement in the Michelson–Morley experiment, which measured the speed of light, was a professor from 1889 to 1892 before becoming head of the physics department at the University of Chicago.
Jonas G. Clark died in 1900, leaving gifts to the university and campus library, but reserving half of his estate for the foundation of an undergraduate college. This had been strongly opposed by President Hall in years past, but Clark College opened in 1902, managed independently of Clark University. Clark College and Clark University had different presidents until Hall's retirement in 1920. Clark University began admitting women after Clark's death, and the first female PhD in psychology was awarded in 1908. Early PhD students in psychology were ethnically diverse, with several early graduates being Japanese. In 1920, Francis Sumner became the first African American to earn a PhD in psychology.
In 1900, Clark University was one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities, an organization of universities with the most prestigious profiles in research and graduate education, alongside two other New England universities, Harvard and Yale. Clark withdrew its membership in 1999, citing changes to its mission.
Clark Lectures
In 1909, as a celebration of Clark's 20th anniversary as an institution, President Hall invited a number of leading thinkers to the university. Among them was Sigmund Freud who, accompanied by Carl Jung, delivered his five lectures on themes such as trauma and sexual repression. The ideas that Freud presented at Clark were criticized in the U.S and his visit to Clark was Freud's only visit to the United States. with skeptical beliefs, such as those of Hall, who believed that Freud's theory of psychoanalysis could impact the human moral compass. Clark granted Freud an honorary degree, which hangs in the Sigmund Freud House in Vienna, Austria. It was one of the few official distinctions Freud received during his lifetime.
Later history
In the 1920s Robert Goddard, a pioneer of rocketry, considered one of the founders of space and missile technology, was chairman of the Physics Department. The Robert H. Goddard Library is named for him.
The Graduate School of Management (GSOM) was founded in 1982. In 1997, Clark announced the first PhD program in Holocaust Studies in the United States. This after the university convinced Debórah Dwork to leave Yale University and become Clark's first professor of Holocaust studies in the prior year.
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2000s
The Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise was established in fall 2007 due to a founding gift from two Clark alumni, William '76 and Jane '75 Mosakowski.
In March 2009, Clark University convened a first-of-its-kind National Conference on Liberal Education and Effective Practice, co-sponsored by Clark's Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
In April 2009, then-President John Bassett denied Clark University Students for Palestinian Rights, a student group, permission to bring Norman Finkelstein to speak about the "Gaza Massacre" (2008–2009 Gaza War) because Finkelstein "would invite controversy and not dialogue or understanding". He also cited a conflict in scheduling regarding a conference on Holocaust and Genocide Studies presented by the university in the same month. However, following protests, which included a public protest in the center of campus, a petition campaign and outreach by alumni, students and faculty, Basset reversed his decision and allowed Finkelstein to speak on April 27, the last day of classes for the semester. Finkelstein spoke to around 400 students, faculty and community members in Atwood Hall.
In April 2010, Clark University received the largest gift in its 123-year history, a $14.2 million offering from the late head of Hanover Insurance, one of the nation's biggest property and casualty insurers. The gift from John Adam is intended to strengthen Clark's graduate programs in education, promote college-readiness among minority students and bolster its research profile related to urban education. This donation created the Adams Education Fund, which will enhance Clark's nationally recognized model for urban secondary education and reform, teacher-training, and community education partnerships.
On July 1, 2010, former provost David Angel became the ninth president of Clark, succeeding John Bassett, who went on to become president of Heritage University, located on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Toppenish, Washington.
In summer 2012, Clark University underwent more renovations. The city of Worcester allowed the university to close Downing Street to unite the campus. The area was landscaped to become a pedestrian plaza. Johnson and Sanford halls were united to become the Johnson Sanford Center featuring new social, study, and multimedia spaces. The project included addition of an outdoor roof terrace and an elevator to all levels. The university has recently begun a project called LEEP to connect students and the world of academia to practical experience.
Summer 2016 saw the completion of a new Alumni and Student Engagement Center building, extending the campus across Main Street. The facility is a mixed-use building containing administrative offices, lecture halls, meeting rooms, and some retail space, and features a modern architectural look and a rooftop solar array.
On July 1, 2020, David Fithian '87 became the tenth president of Clark, succeeding David Angel, who retired. Fithian is the first alumnus to serve as president. He was previously executive vice president of the University of Chicago and, before that, associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.
In 2022, graduate students at the university organized as Clark University Graduate Workers United, a chapter of Teamsters Local 170. An NLRB-overseen election resulted in a 100–7 vote in favor of unionization, after which the union and university entered into negotiations. On October 3, 2022, the graduate workers' union began an indefinite strike over wages, benefits, and working conditions that continued until that Friday, October 7, when the union and the university announced a tentative agreement on a contract. On the following Wednesday, October 13, the union unanimously ratified the contract, which took effect immediately. The contract expired on September 1, 2025, and CUGWU held a strike authorization vote on September 2, 2025.
In 2024, undergraduate student workers at Clark also began a campaign to unionize with Teamsters Local 170. The group publicly announced their intent to unionize through an Instagram post on January 17, 2025. and Teamsters Local 170 filed for an election on their behalf with the NLRB on February 14, 2025. The proposed unit included all undergraduate student workers and graduate workers not covered under the existing contract, a total of 620 employees. However, Teamsters Local 170 withdrew their election petition on February 28, 2025, citing concerns about Clark's stated intent to challenge the NLRB's Columbia 2016 decision, which protects the right of student workers at private universities to unionize. On March 5, Clark University Undergraduate Workers United and Teamsters Local 170 called for the university to sign a card check neutrality agreement, which would allow the group to unionize without a formal NLRB election. On March 13, 2025, the group began an indefinite strike for card check neutrality that continued until March 23, 2025, when Clark University Undergraduate Workers United organizers released a statement announcing their decision to end the strike but continuing to call for card check neutrality.
In response to growing concerns over the budget and enrollment trends, Clark announced its plans to cut faculty positions by 30% from 2025 to 2028 as part of a larger restructuring of the university, which also includes programming cuts. Citing financial sustainability and improvement of job prospects as objectives, interim provost John Magee led the elimination of programs in ancient civilization, French and francophone studies, comparative literature, and a major in studio art, as well as the pausing or restructuring of multiple graduate courses. Student critics linked the cuts to the university's prioritization of the recently opened Becker School of Design and Technology's video game programs.
From Wikipedia’s article on Clark University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5