Challenge. Change.

Sometimes, finding your place takes a touch of magic.

It’s not uncommon for a first-year student to confide in Dean of Students Kamala Kiem when they’re having trouble finding community. In those moments, Kiem connects the student with peers in clubs and organizations that would make a good fit.

When the next academic year comes around and Kiem isn’t seeing that once-lonely student anymore, she knows the magic has kicked in.

“I remember them being this shy first-year student and then a year later they are an R.A. or out speaking on panels. Their whole personality has changed to be more extroverted,” Kiem says. “When they're in these leadership positions, they realize how powerful they are.”

On this episode of Challenge. Change., Kiem shares her best advice for stepping out of your comfort zone, where to turn when it feels hard to make friends, and how to magnify your Clark experience to set yourself up for a fulfilling and joyful life.

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.

As Clark conferred 1,376 degrees to the Class of 2024 on Monday, May 20, at the DCU Center in Downtown Worcester, student speakers recalled the compassion and community found among peers on campus.

"Being a part of a diverse community has taught me so much because it has allowed me to see the world through the lens of other people," graduate student speaker Gabe Spindel ’23, MBA ’24, told the thousands in the arena.

Undergraduate student speaker Laila El-Samra ’24 encouraged her peers to think about the impact they can have on others.

"Start small, maybe just one good deed a day," she said. "Together we possess the compassion, resilience, and determination needed to create a brighter future for ourselves and those around us."

Geography Professor Rinku Roy Chowdhury read a commencement address from Dr. Robert D. Bullard, “the father of environmental justice” and the Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Texas Southern University. 

“I am driven by, and I am happy to be able to pass the baton to, the up-and-coming generations of environmental justice advocates who will continue with the same resilience that so many involved in the journey have already shown," Bullard wrote.

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.

What makes a great sentence? It’s something English Professor Jeff Noh and his creative writing students could debate for hours.

“A sentence is often a temporary place you visit on your way to the next sentence,” says Noh. “Some writers certainly are obsessed with the sentence and think about it as an enormous, capacious kind of thing. I think it's more the case that we think of sentences in their relationship to other sentences.”

Sentences can be complex or simple. Unconventional or original. Succinct or meandering. On this episode of Challenge. Change., Noh, Kaleigh Gibbons ’24, and Juliana Hall ’24, among the first students to graduate with a new creative writing major, share their favorite sentences and break down what makes the structures special.

Do you have a favorite sentence? Please share it with Melissa Hanson at [email protected].

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

Below the surface of the soil, a diverse community of microbes — living organisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa — interact and play a significant role in breaking down organic matter and cycling nutrients. These microbial interactions can improve or, in some cases, impair the health and growth of plants.

Although they cannot be seen with the naked eye, microbes could help solve a vexing problem exacerbated by climate change: By 2050, scientists and policymakers fear, farmers may not be able to produce enough food to feed the world’s growing population.

“Even if we could feed the world right now, 20 years from now, we won't be able to — unless we make some significant changes,” says Chandra Jack, professor of biology.

By studying how microbe interactions affect plant traits, Jack hopes to contribute to the development of new, more sustainable ways to increase food production. Her research is funded by a $453,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and a $420,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Researchers want to use microbes to replace synthetic fertilizers,” Jack says. “But we know what they can do in the lab. We don’t know what they can do in the wild or in the field.”

Microbes can “fix” atmospheric nitrogen, turning it into a component found in chlorophyll, which plants need for photosynthesis.

Legumes have a close, symbiotic relationship with microbes, according to Jack. “The microbes will enter the plant tissue and form this mass on the roots. It’s called a nodule where the nitrogen fixation happens,” she explains.

Cereal crops such as wheat and barley do not have such a relationship with nodule-forming microbes. However, Jack is examining whether “free-living nitrogen fixers” — bacteria present in the surrounding soil — could “have a tighter association with the cereal crops so that the nitrogen can be applied to those plants without having to apply fertilizers.”

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

Tools help us save time, freeing up mental space so we can accomplish more. But, the assistance of technological tools can become problematic, suggests Professor Eduard Arriaga-Arango, chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Culture. We expect devices like Alexa and Siri to respond to our every command, which can replicate slavery.

“Slavery is a structure that considers human beings machines, or less than human,” says Arriaga, who cautions people to think intentionally about their use of technology. “We think we’re just inputting prompts, getting the results, and nothing more. But what are all the implications of that?”

As artificial intelligence enters the mainstream, Arriaga is part of a growing ethical discussion about the language we use with technological tools.

“Language has a set of values,” he says. “What values are behind the construction of these tools, which have been designed in a way that continues to perpetuate deficit elements from our society — racism and a patriarchal vision.”

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.

Sometimes app developers create sneaky strategies to keep you on your phone longer. Other times, they create tools meant to help consumers protect their data or accomplish tasks. These mechanisms are at the heart of research by computer science Professor Peter Story and Becker School of Design & Technology Professor Kat Andler.

The tools developers use to hook consumers are called dark patterns and can include tactics to keep a person playing a game longer, therefore seeing more advertisements and making the developers more money.

“It brings out the passion in people because if you feel like you have been manipulated, you’re going to be pretty upset about that,” says Andler, who prepares her students to recognize dark patterns and think up alternative designs. “You have to know what’s bad to avoid it in the future.”

Thankfully, there are light patterns, or nudges, a tool meant to assist the average person with helpful reminders.

“People live busy lives. They can’t be thinking carefully about every decision every day,” Story says. “The idea is for people with authority to help people make the decisions that are in their best interest.”

Story has studied nudges that encourage people to use protective technologies such as Apple Pay, a mobile payment system that is more secure than using a debit card.

“The protection motivation theory is one type of nudge that provides high-quality information about what you want protection from and what you can do,” Story explains. “I think there’s a lot of strong evidence that that works well.”

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

A moment of serendipity led Brian Woos ’16 to his career. During a student internship at a film company in New York, Woos walked into a room and saw a panel replete with buttons and wheels. Sitting at the panel was a colorist, finessing with shadows, highlights, and luminosity to ensure everything looked seamless on the big screen. 

At the time, Woos didn’t know the colorist role existed. Now, he’s the one sitting at the panel, carefully tweaking elements like brightness and texture. “One of the most underrated parts of the job is seeing the creative changes,” says Woos, who works as a colorist for PostWorks New York. “When you work on a movie or TV show, you see like 30 different versions of it before it comes out — alternate endings, beginnings, and middles.

“The colorist is at the delivery stage for the final visual effects,” he continues. “You color-grade in real-time, watching through a projector the way people are going to be seeing it in the theater.”

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

Sculpture Professor James Maurelle doesn’t work on one project and then move on to the next. His process flows freely. “I surround myself with materials and objects and work on them all at the same time. I’m like the eye of the hurricane. That's how I've developed over the years,” he says. “It's the closest thing to freedom that I've embodied in my entire life.”

Maurelle, Clark’s first full-time sculpture professor, explains why he’s passionate about using recycled objects and the magic of keeping child-like play in artistry. 

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

Award season is upon us, and three screen studies professors are sharing their favorite films of 2023 ahead of the Oscars. 

“The Killer,” “Bottoms,” and “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” were last year’s cinematic standouts for professors Hugh Manon, Jed Samer, and Soren Sorensen. The three are hosts of the Clark podcast “Recommended For You,” and bring their film expertise — and opinions — to this episode of Challenge. Change.

“I was coming into this call being like ‘Bottoms’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ are the same movie,” says Samer. “Maybe the truth of 2023 is that we are not going to the movies for the plot.”

“If you don't like ‘Bottoms,’ you might need to investigate whether you have a sense of humor. It's the same thing with ‘Mission Impossible,’” adds Manon. “If you don't like this, then maybe you don't like movies.”

The Oscars air on Sunday, March 10, at 7 p.m. EST on ABC. “Mission Impossible” has been nominated for Achievement in sound and Achievement in visual effects. 

Challenge. Change. is produced by Andrew Hart and Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Listen to episodes of RFU on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

High school students have been told time and time again that they need consistent good grades and a host of extracurriculars to stand out in the college application process. This mindset, however, can lead students to fixate on quantity over quality and miss out on experiences that help develop character and values.

This is why the Making Caring Common project wants to infuse messages about the common good into the college admissions process. Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, works with families, educators, and communities to develop children’s gratitude and sense of care for others.

Emily Roper-Doten, vice president for undergraduate admissions and financial assistance, and Brennan Barnard, the college admissions program advisor of Making Caring Common, discuss the role of compassion in college admissions. Barnard thinks a shift toward mastery over traditional grades could help. Mastry learning is a strategy at the Khan Lab School, where Barnard is the director of college counseling and alumni. 

Roper-Doten asks Barnard what he believes students lose when they solely focus on bulking out a resume. “They're thinking more about outcomes than they are process,” he says. “It’s dichotomous thinking rather than contemplating ‘who am I’ and ‘who could I be in a community?’”

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