Laurie Ross '91, M.A. '95, dean of the college and professor of sustainability and social justice, remembers how important her study abroad experience in Costa Rica was in finding her passion and career.

Experiential learning can look like study abroad, an internship, serving as president of a campus club, or building a video game with teammates. The path from college to career looks different for each Clarkie, and The Clark Experience helps students harness their creativity and critical thinking skills to graduate with confidence and find success.

"I think it's really important for students to remember who they are, what they value, and feel confident that the liberal arts education they're getting at Clark, coupled with experiential learning, is a beautiful recipe for not just getting the first job, but also getting the jobs after that."

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

Clark's Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise aims to create a world where all young people are supported in developing the social and emotional skills they need to be successful in school and in life. To help reach that goal, the Institute has embarked on the Southbridge CARES project, an innovative, equity-focused initiative supporting students’ mental health in partnership with the Southbridge Public Schools in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

Part of the project is the MAAX (Maximizing Adolescent Academic eXcellence) social development curriculum, in which Clark students like Ariel Rodriguez '26 — known as MAAX mentors — lead lessons in ninth-grade wellness classes. On this episode of Challenge. Change., Rodriguez and Mosakowski Institute Director Nadia Ward discuss the complexities of youth mental health and the impact of having college role models working hands-on in high school classrooms.

"The students at Southbridge are really amazing, and all of the mentors connect with them in different ways," says Rodriguez, a political science major. "We try to be open with them and use our lived experiences to leverage what we talk about in class, especially for those students who might be stressed about their life after high school or just the day-to-day stresses that come with being a high schooler."

"I think the MAAX mentors are actually the secret sauce that makes the program really work," says Ward. "It's those exposure experiences that encourage young people to kind of dream about the possibility of college beyond high school."

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

When Matt Goldman '83, MBA '84, LHD '15, was a Clarkie, he had no idea that in a few years he'd co-found Blue Man Group with Chris Wink and Phil Stanton. Surrounding himself with good people, like Wink and Stanton, was one of the keys to taking an idea, making it real, and making it great.

Goldman shared that lesson and more during a visit to campus in November with Laura Camien, former vice president of marketing and communications for Blue Man Group and co-founder of The Spark File. Goldman and Camien are co-authoring a book, tentatively titled "Making Ideas Real."

"The book is largely about fostering the conditions where creativity and innovation in teams and individuals can thrive, and shifting those breakthroughs, those a-ha moments, epiphanies, whatever you wanna call them, from being random and occasional to intentional and frequent," says Goldman.

"Both of us are people who could take an idea and bring it to fruition. But neither of us considered that to be a creative act, and through our own routes learned that it is potentially the greatest creative act there is," says Camien.

On this episode of Challenge. Change., Goldman and Camien discuss building creative communities and share some of the innovative ideas that made Blue Man Group a success.

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

Clark Psychology Professor Michael Miller has a background in communication science, so as artificial intelligence like ChatGPT emerged and ballooned in popularity over the last few years, he wanted to examine AI's impact on the way we communicate.

"It was like finding a new type of microscope to study human communication. I could see so much deeper," Miller says of AI. One theory Miller is exploring is resonant geometry, a framework that explores how humans and AI co-create meaning by coordinating not just language, but emotion, attention, and timing. He has published a paper on his research with ChatGPT as a co-author.

"AI can look back at what it does. It can self-reflect. That's pretty powerful. I would also say there's a difference between what an algorithm can do and what a mind can do. Even an unsophisticated mind can be challenged in many ways," says Miller. "I would argue these AIs have minds ... You run a prompt through it, and many things could happen, unlike a tool, a calculator, for example, where you get the same thing each time."

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

When governments end social programs like cash transfers to economically disadvantaged people, what is the impact on their children, their grandchildren, and beyond? It’s a question Economics Professor Jon Denton-Schneider is trying to answer.

Denton-Schneider studies the historical causes and economic consequences of poverty and poor health, and he’s particularly interested in unexpected positive or negative occurrences that economists refer to as “shocks.”

One such shock — the introduction of the 1834 “New” Poor Law in England and Wales — caused generational impacts that could be observed in census data roughly 60 years later. Denton-Schneider and Jennifer Mayo, professor of economics at DePaul University, are working on a National Institutes of Health-funded project called “Rags to Rags,” which examines the effects of ending cash transfers in Victorian Britain.

"We saw very clearly that if you were in a county where there was a larger decline in poor relief after 1834, when you grew up, you would have worse outcomes," says Denton-Schneider. "If you were a girl around 1834, one of the clearest impacts we see is that in 1861, you have more children."

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

The mission of Clark University's School of Climate, Environment, and Society can be summarized in one word, according to Lou Leonard, the school's D.J.A. Spencer Dean, and that word is impact.

"For the last 10,000 years or so, the world has been in what many call the 'Goldilocks period' of climate: not too hot, not too cold ... The bottom line is we've left that period," says Leonard. "There is no magic key that's going to solve this problem. It is going to take the collective work of everyone, and every step that we take matters. Every quarter of a degree of warming that we don't experience saves lives."

As the world faces a polycrisis of climate, biodiversity loss, and social disruption, Leonard says Clark students will reach out into the community to learn hands-on how they can contribute to building a healthier planet.

"The nature of these problems is that they are a result of the intersection of politics, economics, culture, and technology," says Leonard. "The real world doesn't operate in disciplinary boxes. It operates in the messy middle where everything comes together, so that is part of the way students will learn."

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

Photographer and Visual and Performing Arts Professor Stephen DiRado fell in love with cameras at age 12 and remains infatuated five decades later.

"As a nervous kid, the camera had that same kind of heartbeat — that click, click, click, click, click — as opposed to the slow, methodical way of working with a paintbrush or with a pencil. It spoke to me on so many levels," says DiRado.

On this episode of Challenge. Change., DiRado recalls some of the first images he captured and shares a glimpse into how he constructs a photograph from behind the lens.

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.

A two-time and first-gen Clark alum, Danielle Morgan Acosta '05, MAT '06, knows what it's like to arrive at college and feel overwhelmed by all the opportunities ahead. Acosta, the dean of students, came to Clark all the way from California, and the self-identified introvert remembers leaning on her peer mentor and friends to help get settled on campus.

On this episode of Challenge. Change., Acosta shares a few tips to help incoming students step out of their comfort zone and find where they fit in — introvert or not.

"I think the best advice is to take a deep breath and try to be as much of a sponge as you can during your time in college," she says. "Unlike many other parts of your life, really everywhere you turn during college is a learning experience. That can be incredibly exciting, but also tough and difficult. Clark offers so many opportunities for new experiences and for students to dive deeper into the things that they really care about."

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.