Continuing the Legacy of the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation
In this season of gratitude, I am grateful for our incredible community of engineers: students, faculty, staff, and partners whose daily pursuit is improving people’s lives. This month, we highlight and express our gratitude to one of those partners: the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation, which sunsets at the end of 2025. The Clark Foundation exemplifies how well-intentioned and well-thought philanthropy opens doors and improves lives through access to higher education.
A. James “Jim” Clark ’50 was a visionary who built one of the most successful construction firms in the country. Modern Washington, D.C. is in many ways a monument to Clark Construction’s work. All the while, Mr. Clark never lost a connection to his local community: someone invested in him with a scholarship, and he paid it forward his entire life. In 2017, the University of Maryland (UMD) and Clark Foundation announced Building Together: An Investment for Maryland. The $219.5 million commitment is the largest in UMD’s history and, to this day, ranks among the largest to a public research institution in the 21st century. It shapes, and continues to shape, generations of individuals and families:
More recently, UMD was fortunate to receive $51.7 million in new investments to further expand scholarships for promising engineering students.
The Foundation may be sunsetting, but its legacy will not. In addition to the transformational impact of the investments described above, UMD is now the proud home of the Clark Scholars Program Network, a network of 11 partner universities that, day by day and year by year, grows the impact of the original Clark investments, and opens the doors of engineering for people who otherwise might not step through them. Stanley R. Zupnik Hall, our forthcoming interdisciplinary building, will also include a legacy space designed to immerse visitors in the Foundation’s impact and provide a place for future engineers to gather, study, and innovate. We encourage you to read our feature story, which introduces you to people benefited by the Clark Foundation’s transformative investments, and how they leveraged those investments into innovations that have improved society. We also encourage you to visit the Clark Foundation’s legacy website and learn more about their novel approach to supporting organizations. One of my favorite quotes by Mr. Clark is, “This is our home; we should build it.” The Clark Foundation continues to build our school, build up future engineers, and catalyze positive change in our society. My hope is that others learn from and follow the Foundation’s example. Have a safe and happy holiday season.
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