Announcement

Distinguished University Leader David Fithian ’87 Named Clark University President

David Fithian, whose academic career began as a Clark University undergraduate and progressed to senior leadership roles at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, has been unanimously elected Clark’s 10th president by the Board of Trustees, Chair Ross Gillman ’81 has announced. Fithian, a 1987 graduate of Clark who earned two master’s degrees and a doctoral degree from Yale University, currently serves as Executive Vice President at Chicago. He joins Clark amid its recent success with new undergraduate and graduate enrollments overcoming national trends and following its bold investments in integrated experiential learning. He will begin his duties as Clark’s president on July 1.

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 apply what he has learned to help Clark and its current students achieve even greater success and recognition. His decades of preparation for this role at two of the world’s great universities gives him confidence about Clark’s standing and potential to achieve yet more.

“I’m returning to a place that’s deeply familiar to me and where I’ll feel instantly rooted. I definitely have a sense of coming home,” he said. “I know what it felt like to be a student here, what was great about it, and what could have helped me even more. I’m excited to engage the entire community around the many strengths upon which we can build as well as vital new aspirations for the future.”

Fithian added, “One cannot serve in the roles I’ve been in at Harvard or Chicago and not think boldly. 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. I look forward to developing a shared understanding across the University about where we want to go and how best to get there. Anyone familiar with Clark’s past and its people should feel inspired about its future.”

Gillman, who chaired the Presidential Search Committee, 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.” He added, “It says something important about David that after such a rigorous process, the committee unanimously selected him on its first ballot. The search committee and Board of Trustees believe David is the transformational leader we were looking for, and we are convinced that he has the ability to take an already exceptional university and move it forward in a way we’ve never seen. Beyond that, he’s a Clarkie. We’re part of his DNA.”

Fithian said he wants to continue strengthening Clark’s distinctive combination of a rigorous liberal arts education embedded within a midsize research university with a number of strong graduate programs. A Clark education, he noted, should be fully immersive. We should provide “the broadest, richest, deepest learning experience that students can have by more fully integrating opportunities in the classroom and laboratory with those in the arts, internships, community service, athletics, and residential life.”

Fithian succeeds David P. Angel, who is retiring at the end of June following a distinguished 32-year career at Clark, including the last 10 years as president. Gillman lauded Angel’s foundational leadership, saying he has given the University a formidable presence on the higher education landscape and positioned the institution as a desirable destination for a new president.

“We had a roster of very impressive candidates because of Clark’s reputation and record, and that’s directly attributable to the efforts of David Angel over the last decade,” Gillman said.

In recent years, Clark has launched the LEEP Student Success Network, amplified its work in diversity and inclusion, and opened the Shaich Family Alumni and Student Engagement Center. This summer the University will conclude Campaign Clark, the most successful comprehensive campaign in its history.

As the University prepares to welcome Fithian during this momentous time, Chair of the Faculty and search committee member Gino DiIorio ’83 looks forward to his impact. “David Fithian will be a force to be reckoned with — he can be a real gamechanger,” he said. “We’re at an inflection point in higher ed, and it’s good to have someone with a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening and what’s needed. He understands the synergies of our strong undergraduate and graduate programs and has a wonderful sense of Worcester and our role in the community. As an alumnus, David also will engage Clark’s alumni in a way that expands the circle. It’s an exciting time to be a Clarkie.”

Since 2007, Fithian has been a central figure in the dramatic momentum underway at the University of Chicago, with roles spanning major operations, academic program development, support of the University’s Board of Trustees, executive recruitment, and fundraising. He participates in university financial strategy and budget planning; oversees campus master planning, including architectural design for major capital projects and campus enhancements; and oversees the Office of the President and its budget, the Office of Institutional Research and Analysis, the University’s public programs for the arts (including the Smart Museum of Art, Court Theatre, and Logan Center for the Arts), and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Among his many accomplishments at Chicago, Fithian spearheaded the establishment of good governance practices; contributed to the opening of global centers in Beijing and Delhi (and is currently overseeing construction of a new center in Paris), helped to plan for and implement the most recent stages of an unprecedented campus facility renewal program spanning over 50 capital projects, including 18 new buildings; proposed and guided the appointment of a faculty committee on freedom of expression; led executive searches; and played a major role in designing the university’s recently concluded campaign, which surpassed its $5 billion goal.

Before joining Chicago in 2007, Fithian served for twelve years at Harvard, holding increasingly elevated responsibilities. As assistant dean of freshmen and, later, the Allston Burr Senior Tutor (resident dean) of Adams House, he oversaw the academic standing and personal well-being of more than 500 first-year and 400 upper-class students each year. As associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, he coordinated all aspects of faculty governance, including the monitoring and coordination of faculty-related policies, procedures, and legislation.

A New York City/Westchester County native, Fithian graduated from Clark as a sociology and English major with a passion for art and architecture and earned his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Yale. His dissertation, “A Dark and Shining Stone: Symbol Contests and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial,” received the Theron Rockwell Field Prize, the first time a social science dissertation received this distinguished literary award. He has lectured in the departments of sociology at Yale, the University of Connecticut, and Harvard, where he also taught seminars for the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies.

Fithian and his husband, Michael Rodriguez, Ph.D., recently celebrated their 25th anniversary together and their 15th anniversary of legal marriage. They met in graduate school at Yale, where Michael received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. He completed his clinical and post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School before serving as the Resident Dean of Adams House and teaching innovative and influential courses in the Department of Psychology at Harvard. He and Fithian raise and breed Friesian horses on the couple’s farm in northwest Indiana.

Fithian’s appointment follows a rigorous national search that began last March under the direction of a 19-member search committee representing trustees, faculty, administrators, and students and with the support of Shelly Storbeck of the Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates search firm.