Dr. Joseph Samuel Clark This is Me

Education

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1. 1. www.ibac.net

   www.ibac.net/article.php?story - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/2/2007   Last Visited: 11/2/2007

   Founders of Southern University are Joseph S. Clark who aslo served as its first president, Octavia H. Clark (his wife), James B. Moore, Emma N. Mayberry, and John S. Jones.

2. 2. 2theadvocate.com - Dr. Clark As We Knew Him 10/12/03

   www.2theadvocate.com/stories/1 - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/12/2003   Last Visited: 10/12/2003

   Clark's father, Joseph Samuel Clark, founded Southern in 1914. The younger Clark committed himself to becoming an educator at an early age. His father and mother, Octavia Head Clark, were both on the faculty, and their son lived in a college environment and became one of the first students at the new institution, starting with second grade and graduating in 1920.
   
   He entered Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1922, graduating in 1924, and in 1946 Beloit awarded him a Phi Beta Kappa key and honorary doctor of law degree. He earned master's and doctor's degrees at Columbia University, and was the first black person to receive his doctorate in college administration.
   
   When he took the reins from his father at Southern, 700 students, mostly women, were enrolled. At his retirement, enrollment was more than 5,000.
   
   He was nationally known, was a member of the executive committee of the Southern Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and served on the staff of the U.S. Office of Education in 1936-37.
   
   Clark's renown
   
   Ransburg recalled his first awareness of Clark as a boy.
   ...
   "My oldest brother came to a program at Southern while he was in high school, and came home and talked about Dr. Clark for two years.
   ...
   Monday's program, Dr. Clark as We Knew Him, features Jewel Prestage, former head of the political science department, as moderator of a panel that includes former students, retired and current Southern faculty and staff and community leaders.
   ...
   The program follows a weekend of media events and campus observances and the John B. Cade Library features a display of photographs, documents and souvenirs of Clark's 30-year tenure at Southern.
   
   Southern chancellor Edward Jackson said Clark and his father literally built the university.
   ...
   Huel D. Perkins, retired vice president for academic affairs at Southern and current assistant to the chancellor at LSU, was a former student, colleague and friend of Clark.
   ...
   Clark encouraged students to get advanced degrees at other institutions, then return to Southern, Perkins said.
   ...
   Elton C. Harrison, retired vice president for academic affairs at Southern, remembers Clark as an exceptional orator who was in demand all over the country.
   ...
   "It was the first black university to have an honors college program, and Clark always emphasized programs for gifted students."
   
   Harrison said Clark urged students to go to graduate school, and he took his advice and went to Fiske.
   
   "I sent my grades home, and he (Clark) got up in chapel and talked about it.

3. 3. Welcome to the Best of New Orleans! Blake Pontchartrain 06 25 02

   www.bestofneworleans.com/dispa - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/12/2005   Last Visited: 9/12/2005

   Joseph Samuel Clark was a well-known educator in Louisiana and had a lasting influence in the development of Southern University.
   
   Courtesy of Southern University
   
   Hey Blake, I read a story in the paper last week that referred to two schools in New Orleans that must be named for famous people -- Sophie Wright and Joseph Clark.
   ...
   Joseph Samuel Clark, born on June 7, 1871, in Sparta, La., was a major influence in the development of Southern University. A well-educated gentleman with two Doctor of Philosophy degrees, Clark came to Southern University as its president in 1913 when the university was reorganized on the former Kerman Plantation at Scotlandville. The school had only 47 students, but through Clark's leadership, enrollment grew to more than 3,000.
   
   During his lifetime, he was involved in many state and national educational organizations, including the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools and the Louisiana State Colored Teachers Association. He was also recognized by President Calvin Coolidge as a member of a commission to make a national education survey and by President Herbert Hoover as a minister to Liberia. Because Clark wanted to continue his work at Southern University, he declined this last honor.
   
   He retired as president of Southern University after 25 years of service and was succeeded by his son. And after his death in 1944, he was buried in Scotlandville on the campus of Southern University. It is altogether fitting that a school in our city should bear his name.