Each panelist was given 20 minutes to speak, and at 3:10 a period of questions and
panelists' responses followed for 45 minutes.
This was followed by a black-tie dinner at Graham Hall attended by Symposium guests,
alumni leaders, academic deans and department heads, and members of the Schools of
Management and of Engineering Advisory Councils. Saturday evening's activities ended with a
concert at Hosmer Hall by the noted trio, Kalichstein, Laredo, and Robinson. Special buses
transported dinner guests to the concert. A select group returned to Hepburn House after the
concert for a light buffet.
The inauguration itself took place at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, September 15, in the Indoor
Recreation Center with an audience of the full campus community plus distinguished visitors
from across the state and southern Canada. New York Governor Cuomo was invited but was
unable to attend. Dr. Arthur Hansen's remarks following the invocation led up to the actual
investiture of Dr. Clark and his inaugural remarks.
The guest speaker at the inauguration ceremony was Dr. John Morris, chairman of the
board of trustees for the New York State Commission on Independent Colleges and
Universities and president of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. Dr. Morris spoke about the
importance of independent colleges, noting that Dr. Clark was:
... being inaugurated as the President of one of a group of institutions in
the State of New York that have
proved significant service to the State and which belongs to a tradition of service which goes back to the earliest
days of
the State. ... the dignity of higher education, fed by the independence of many of our institutions in their
founding, is the very genius of American
education...
In his address to the Inaugural participants and guests, Dr. Clark touched on some of the
problems confronting higher education, and said at one point that people used to believe in
miracles, expecting them even from the Pope.
Few of us now await miracles from the Pope. Hardly anyone anticipates them from Congress. The law
forbids those performed by E. F. Hutton. Yet we still expect miracles from our schools. We expect schools to
compensate for poverty, crime, racial and gender discrimination, to inspire patriotism, to encourage literacy, to
discourage drugs, to teach safe driving, to develop musical skills, and provide athletic entertainment. And to do it,
please, without raising tuition or taxes, and without upsetting anyone's political or religious beliefs. Talk about
miracles!
This focal event was followed by the concluding luncheon buffet in the Alumni Gym at
12:30 p.m.
Allan Clark earned his BS in mathematics from MIT in 1957 and his MS and PhD in
mathematics from Princeton in 1959 and 1961, respectively. During his last two years of
graduate work, he held a Proctor Fellowship. After completing his doctorate, he accepted a
position at Brown University, where he subsequently became a full professor in 1970. He then
spent a year at the Aarhus University in Denmark. Upon his return to Brown he was appointed
head of the mathematics department, a position he held until 1973. In 1975 he was appointed
Dean of the School of Science at Purdue University, a position involving seven departments,
3,700 undergraduates, 925 graduate students, 300 faculty members, over 300 staff members,
and having an annual budget of over $42 million, including grants and contracts in excess of
$18 million.
His research interests lay in the areas of algebraic topology. In 1971, he published
Elements of Abstract Algebra
, a book reprinted by Dover Publishing in 1984. His memberships
