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Clark University
Alice Coonley Higgins Institute
for Arts and Humanities

About Us

students sitting with Professor Huang in classroom setting

Our Mission

Our ongoing mission emphasizes the essential role of the arts and humanities in our lives and champions a liberal arts education that empowers students to become informed, engaged citizens who can contribute meaningfully to society. In cultivating the ability to read great texts and artistic forms, to frame analyses and arguments on the most important questions, to speak and listen with open intensity, and to examine our own deepest assumptions, the humanities bring value and purpose to lived experience. Learning through the humanities and arts grounds our capacity to engage with societal complexities by developing historical, cultural, literary, linguistic, and philosophical consciousness.

Thanks to Alice

Alice Coonley Higgins

To relate effectively to other people we must have courage and integrity, humility, generosity—selflessness—the ingredients of emotional maturity. A leader must also be a follower. Perhaps all this sounds ephemeral, idealistic, naïve, pie in the sky. But wherever I have found these qualities, I have also found that they work.

Alice Coonley Higgins

My Liberal Education: Comments prepared for the Third Annual Paul S. Clarkson Lecture

Any celebration of our mission must also honor the generosity and vision of our benefactor, Alice Coonley Higgins. Alice was the first woman to join Clark’s Board of Trustees in 1962; she went on to become the first woman chair of a board of trustees at an American research university, serving Clark in that capacity from 1967 to 1974.

Working with the support of her husband and partner Milton P. Higgins, Alice showed remarkable leadership by championing large-scale, innovative projects that dramatically changed Clark, including the funding and subsequent construction of the Robert Hutchings Goddard Library in 1969. Independent in thought and spirit, she never failed to show interest in Clark’s staff, students, and faculty, often through unobtrusive but important acts—tulips and geraniums to beautify the campus, travel money for faculty to attend conferences, book funds for the library, and seed money for numerous other projects.

In 1986, she founded the Higgins School of Humanities with an endowment that continues to make our activities and initiatives possible. Alice is an essential part of everything we do—hence, her prominence in our new name. We look forward to continuing her legacy.

Contact Information

Alice Coonley Higgins Institute for Arts and Humanities

Mailing Address
Campus Location & Hours

  • Dana Commons, Second Floor
    36 Maywood Street
    Worcester, MA 01603

  • Monday through Friday
    9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

    Please note that the Institute operates remotely on Monday and Friday.