August 24 , 2006
Clark kicks off the new academic year with Fall Convocation Aug. 30
Partners in Health director to deliver address – 'Saving Lives… A Call to be Bold'
Worcester, Mass. - Orientation is well under way at Clark, where 570 new first-year students and 65 transfer students arrived last week to join nearly 1500 returning undergraduates for fall classes, which start on Monday, August 28. Read remarks by Clark President John Bassett, Nancy Budwig, Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies and Research and Doug Little, Professor of History Associate Provost and Dean of the College
"This is one of the strongest and most diverse classes I have seen in 25 years," says Dean of the College Douglas Little. "We have a record number of Presidential Scholars and our new international students hail from China to Venezuela and from Ghana to Georgia (the former Soviet Republic, not the Peach State)."
Fall Convocation and Salute to Student Scholars, which marks the official opening of the academic year, will begin at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 30 in the Daniels Theater, Atwood Hall. A short formal ceremony includes opening remarks by President John Bassett, the awarding of university-wide awards to outstanding faculty and students by Dean of the College Doug Little, and the convocation address, "Saving Lives, Transforming Communities, and Changing the World: A Call to be Bold," by Edward Cardoza of Partners in Health.
Cardoza's address will introduce the theme for the academic year: "Global Health and Social Justice," which links closely to the summer-reading assignment for first-year students—Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains." Kidder's book, which came highly recommended from Clark faculty across the disciplines, focuses on the career of Paul Farmer, a charismatic Harvard-based physician who founded Partners in Health (PIH) to fight tuberculosis in Haiti.
Today, the organization is committed to bringing the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need in the world's poorest and sickest communities. Cardoza is a top PIH official and close associate of Farmer.
Cardoza holds a Master of Arts in Ministry from Saint John's Seminary School of Theology and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Saint John's Seminary College of Liberal Arts. While in the seminary, Mr. Cardoza served in the Office of AIDS Ministry and the chaplaincy office at Massachusetts General Hospital. During this time, he also attended the University of Lisbon in Lisbon, Portugal, where he studied Portuguese and worked with refugees from East Timor.
After graduating from the seminary college, he worked as a development researcher at Tufts University. In 1998, Cardoza became a development researcher at the Harvard Medical School, and later the director of development research at the Appalachian Mountain Club in 2000. In December 2002, he was recruited by Partners in Health to become the director of development. He is currently fundraising for Partners in Health's programs in Boston, Haiti, Russia, Peru, Rwanda, Mexico and Guatemala. In spring 2002, Cardoza completed a practicum in spiritual direction at the Center for Religious Development through the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass.
A series of events is being planned for the 2006-07 academic year around the theme of "Global Health and Social Justice," including a President's Lecture by Kidder, which is slated for October 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Razzo Hall. The University hopes to bring Farmer to campus in the spring.
A Salute to Student Scholars reception will follow Convocation at 3 p.m. in Tilton Hall, Higgins University Center. The campus community is invited to attend; strawberry shortcake and ice-cream sundaes will be served.