Clark University names David Fithian as 10th President

WORCESTER, Mass., Jan. 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Clark University Board of Trustees today announced David B. Fithian, Ph.D., has been unanimously elected as Clark's 10^th President.

Fithian, a 1987 graduate of Clark, currently serves as Executive Vice President at the University of Chicago. He begins his duties on July 1, succeeding David P. Angel, who retires in June after serving as Clark's President for 10 years.

Fithian described the opportunity to become president of his alma mater as "singular," crediting Clark for inspiring him to pursue a life in higher education and expressing a desire to help the University and its current students achieve even greater success and recognition.

"I'm drawn to pursuing big ideas, to embracing challenges, and to facing tough questions. I have a sense that many at Clark today are thinking big as well," Fithian said. "I look forward to developing a shared understanding across the University about where we want to go and how best to get there."

Ross Gillman, Chair of the University's Board of Trustees, called Fithian "an innovative, strategic leader, and a tremendous team builder, with the breadth and scope of experience and vision that make him uniquely qualified to lead Clark."

Fithian joins Clark amid its recent enrollment successes that have overcome national trends and followed bold investments in integrated experiential learning. Clark recently launched the LEEP Student Success Network, opened the Shaich Family Student and Alumni Engagement Center, amplified its work in diversity and inclusion, and will soon conclude Campaign Clark, the most successful comprehensive campaign in its history. Clark's University Park Partnership is recognized as a national model for transforming struggling neighborhoods into communities of vitality and promise.

Fithian has been a central figure at the University of Chicago, with roles spanning financial strategy, campus master-planning, major capital developments, oversight of the University's public programs for the arts, executive recruitment, and designing the University's campaign, which exceeded its $5 billion goal. Before joining Chicago, he served for 12 years at Harvard University, holding key positions in student academics and well-being, and faculty governance.

In addition to his B.A. degree in sociology and English from Clark, he earned his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Yale. 

Fithian is married to Michael R. Rodriguez, Ph.D.

About Clark University
Founded in 1887, Clark University is a liberal arts-based research university that prepares its students to meet tomorrow's most daunting challenges and embrace its greatest opportunities. Through 33 undergraduate majors, nearly 30 advanced degree programs, and nationally recognized community partnerships, Clark fuses rigorous scholarship with authentic world and workplace experiences that empower our learning community to pursue lives and careers of meaning and consequence. Clark's academic departments and institutes develop solutions to complex global problems across the disciplines, and the University addresses the behavioral health of adolescents and young adults through the Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise. clarku.edu

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