<p>I’m pretty sure that if you use walking escort you get two people not one. They also have radios and call UP right away if anything happens. </p>
<p>Also, people who go to WPI have nothing to worry about. The neighborhood around WPI is really nice. My brother is a sophomore at WPI.</p>
<p>Although, my brother did have his bike stolen freshmen year, but he left it outside over winter break. I don’t know what he was thinking…</p>
<p>If people are considering transferring, it’s probably more related to wanting to transfer, than safety concerns. Either that, or they didn’t want an urban campus (or small school) to begin with. Thus far, only single individuals have been targeted. Frankly, if I had a daughter, I’d be much more worried about what happens inside dorms at large universities, than any potential dangers of walking to 7 Eleven at night, which can be avoided. </p>
<p>I definitely don’t want to minimize concerns at all, but it would make sense to also look at crime stats (un-doctered ones) at other schools. I’ll bet there is a lot going on let’s say, around Wash U, Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown campuses…The thing about criminals is that they are good at picking targets. We need to teach our kids how not to be targets. As for random acts of violence, I don’t think any community is immune.</p>
<p>Sorry, Cape Cod Lady, but your arm chair analysis of the reasons why students leave Clark couldn’t be more “off,” at least in regards to my daughter, a freshman at Clark last year who has transferred to another university (on an urban campus) for her sophmore year. Her main reason for transferiing, as reflected in her response on the Clark Withdrawal Form, was the Clark campus. She never felt safe, and I frankly can’t blame her. I’m a Clark alumnus, and I never remember the Main South neighborhood being so sketchy and dangerous. The mugging are occuring on or within a block or so of campus. The thefts are on campus. To those who rationalize that this is just a fact of life that must be accepted by anyone living in an urban environment, I say, BS. I’ve lived in Boston, NYC, LA, SF, and never felt like a prisoner in my own neighborhood. That’s exactly what the campus life is like at Clark. So much for the millions of dollars of investment in community relations expended by Clark. In my opinion, an abject failure. No wonder the retention rate at Clark is so low compared to similar schools.</p>
<p>Here are the latest mugging reports. Two occurred 2 nights in a row last week. Expect more during the next school year. I feel much better knowing my daughter will no longer be dealing with the constant anxiety and hyper-vigilance of living on campus at Clark. I love the way the campus police describe these muggings as “incidents.” There have also been 4 thefts reported in the past 2 weeks. What a wonderful exposure to the real world–all part of the Clark educational experience of challenging convention and changing the world.</p>
<p>By the way, I have contributed financial support to Clark throught the 35-plus years since my graduation. Never again.</p>
<p>To: The Clark Community
From: University Police, Chief Steve Goulet
Re: Timely Warning 2011-12-2
Date: August 9, 2011</p>
<p>Last evening, approx. 8:00pm, 3 males approached a student and one male demanded money from him threatening him if he didn’t comply. The student gave the person $21 or $22 dollars. This happened near the intersection of Florence St. and Charlotte St.and after these three approached numerous students asking for money. This is the second night in a row that this has happened in that immediate vicinity. </p>
<p>The males are described as:</p>
<ol>
<li>male, black, possibly a pony tail, wearing a black hat, dark blue shirt, jean shorts and dark sneakers.</li>
<li>male, black, wearing a black hat, black shirt with a design on the front, black sneakers and black basketball shorts.</li>
<li>male, black, wearing a black and white hat, white shirt, black shorts and black sneakers.</li>
</ol>
<p>Please walk with friends and be alert to what is happening around you at all times. Be familiar with the emergency phone locations throughout the campus including the one
located at the intersection of Charlotte and Florence Sts. Please put UP’s phone number in your cell phones (508-793-7575).</p>
<p>Please also know that we have experienced four thefts recently (past two weeks) that involved two laptop computers and other items.
Some of these thefts involved unattended and unsecured items. Please do not leave your laptops, or any other valuables, unattended for any length of time.
Please keep your doors locked at all times. Please do not let anyone in your building that you do not know. If someone comes in behind you please call University Police immediately.</p>
<p>If you observe any activity that you deem suspicious please call University Police immediately at 508-793-7575. If you call from on campus you can dial x7575.
We have been in contact with the Worcester Police Dep’t and they will begin increased patrols and efforts immediately.</p>
<p>Dear ClarkAlum,
Sorry to hear about your experience. I don’t think I was arm-chairing anything however. I just posted what I learned and heard from my son, and also calls to the school regarding security. Just my feelings and opinions, and of course if your daughter feels like a prisoner at a dangerous school it would be crazy to stay there. I wish her all the best at her new school! Urban violence is awful. No question about that. Crimes on campus are awful too…especially when (some) universities cover it up. I don’t think that Clark is under reporting anything. They seem to be just as concerned as the students and parents. College can be a tough environment and a safety risk for young adults. No communities seem to be immune, from murders on top campuses, to alcohol related deaths, rapes, and urban muggings. I do wish your daughter the best and hope she is happy with her transition. (you, too! 
CCL</p>
<p>Now that I have left Worcester and moved to NYC I can honestly say that I feel much more scared to go out at night in New York than I ever did in Worcester. I live in Manhattan.</p>
<p>Here’s another recent “incident” reported by the Clark campus police. Clark students might as well wear placards when they venture even a block off campus stating, “please mug me, steal from me, threaten violence to me, hit me, or try to carjack me.” </p>
<p>I lived in midtown Manhattan for several years until 2009 and NEVER felt unsafe or experienced a dangerous situation walkng the streets at any hour. Sorry, but Clark has a major safety problem and it’s the Main South neighborhood. With an open campus, it is an invitation to rob, mug, and assault, and creates an environment of danger. Other urban schools in sketchy neighborhoods have closed campuses for good reason (for example, Trinity College in Hartford). Clark’s efforts to forge a relationship with the Main South neighborhood has been admirable, but has failed miserably in my opinion. I don’t see any signs that things will ever change. Clark students who venture one block off campus at any time of day put their safety at risk. And the open campus after dark offers the same dangers. This is not the type of campus environment I would want for my kid or for anyone else’s. </p>
<p>Here’s the recent incident that I didn’t post the other day. Believe me, based on what I have seen during the year my daughter attended Clark there will be more such “incidents.” </p>
<p>Posted by Paul Wykes | Posted on Jul 18, 2011
On Sunday, July 17th, at 10:15 pm, a former Clark student that lives on Florence Street, while parking her vehicle, was approached by two Hispanic males. They entered her vehicle and she began to scream. The two then fled up Florence toward May Street. The victim was not injured. Worcester Police Department was called and is investigating.</p>
<p>i live in washington heights 4 blocks from columbia medical school.</p>
<p>Yes, well I personally wouldn’t characterize “Washington Heights” as “Manhattan.” It is definitely a transition neighborhood. Honestly, I don’t think there is much difference between that neighborhood and Worcester’s Main South neighborhood. Are you attending medical school at Columbia?</p>
<p>ClarkAlum, I have a son who is interested in Clark, and (of course) find your daughter’s experience to be extremely disturbing. Since Clark’s campus is so small, it seems like it would be terrible to be confined to campus, especially if students don’t even feel safe on campus. Did many of her friends also transfer, or are they thinking of transferring? Based on our visit, it seems as though Clark offers some non-traditional types of courses, and I also wonder if the schools students transfer to accept Clark’s credits. What was your daughter’s experience with that, ClarkAlum?</p>
<p>I don’t go to the medical school, I go to seas, so I live kinda far right now. I will be moving in to the a dorm around 110th st soon. </p>
<p>As for transfer credits, all my credits were except one that I took at wpi were accepted by Columbia. So, I wouldn’t expect that to be a problem, but then again, I did the combined plan program at Clark…</p>
<p>Liam- I have no idea what the retention rate for the class of 2014 was this year. The Common Data Set for Clark shows a first year retention rate of 90 percent. That’s pretty bad (I think) for a school like Clark (for example, Muhlenberg’s retention rate is 95+ percent. I don’t know how many of my daughter’s Clark friends actually left, but I do know that many were unhappy there (some felt trapped by having financial aid packages that might not transfer to another school).</p>
<p>My daughter took the expected 32 hours of courses (4 courses of 4 hrs each) her freshman year at Clark (none of her classes, with perhaps her intensive seminar course–an intensive seminar is required of all freshmen–were “non-traditional”). All of her hours were accepted for transfer by her new school. One of her courses actually met 2 separate requirements for her major in the new school. So that worked out pretty well.</p>
<p>One of the only times my daughter and a friend ventured off campus was to go to the Auburn Mall to go shopping–there is a Clark shuttle but it is a ride of over 30 minutes. The last scheduled shuttle of the evening never showed up, so my daugher and her friend were stranded at the mall at night. They called campus security which arranged a taxi to come pick them up and return them to campus. But they were waiting for almost an hour at night at a mall that was closing up–I’d hate to think of my daughter being stranded if she had gone alone. That was one of the last straw’s for her–without a car there is no place for kids to go anywhere safely after dark. The shuttle is not very convenient. My daughter even turned down going to some off-campus parties because she was concerned about wanting to leave early by herself and having to deal with the hassle of the shuttle. </p>
<p>Obviously Clark is not for everyone. It was just a lousy fit for my kid.</p>
<p>ClarkAlum, Thanks for the information. It seems that most schools require students to take 5 courses per semester, but Clark only requires 4. Will this result in your daughter taking longer to graduate at her new school? (I guess if she has AP credits it might not be a problem.)</p>
<p>In terms of safety around Clark, I wonder if girls are more uncomfortable/worried than boys? Regardless, the reports you posted show that boys are getting mugged too. Did Clark provide any type of response to your daughter when she told them why she was transferring? Also, I’m curious why there are Clark students around during the summer (some of the muggings you posted took place during the summer)–are there classes at Clark over the summer? Or are these students just staying in the area for the summer?</p>
<p>Clark does have summer classes. Some people also just stay in Worcester over the summer. Also, most leases for off campus apartments start in june, and if you can’t find someone to sublet for the summer, then you might as well stay. I have a ton of friends who did that. They all just found jobs in Worcester for the summer.</p>
<p>Like I’ve said before, it would be very interesting to plot all muggings on a map.</p>
<p>broken_symlink, if you have lots of friends who live off campus, plus chose to stay in Worcester over the summer, it seems like those students haven’t had much of a problem with being worried about muggings–is that true? Is it something that’s talked about a lot? I really don’t want my son to feel like a prisoner at Clark (assuming he got in and chose to attend), and especially wouldn’t want him to feel unsafe even on the campus. I don’t mind that Worcester isn’t considered to be all that great of a city by most people (in terms of comparing it to NYC or Boston, or whatever), but an unsafe environment really worries me.</p>
<p>Liam- Many schools have courses of only 4 credit hrs, and some have both 3 and 4 credit hr courses (for example a science course with a lab might be a 4 credit hr course). I believe that Clark has courses of only 4 credit hrs in general. At Clark, taking 4 courses each semesters for all four years gives a student enough credit hours to graduate so long as all general requirements and those for the major are met. As far as I know Clark limits freshmen to taking only 4 courses a semester anyway. My daughter took 4 courses each semester so she accumulated 32 credit hrs for the year. Her new school has courses with both 3 and 4 credit hrs. Most kids in her new school have to take at least 5 courses a semester to maintain their class standing each year. My daughter lost no ground with the acceptance of her 32 credit hrs from Clark. Her HS did not offer any AP courses and she did not take any AP exams so AP credits did not come into play for her.</p>
<p>My daughter’s academic advisor at Clark did want to know why she had decided to transfer. She was very nice and did seem to be concerned about the reasons for the decision. The Dean of Students did not appear to want to know after my daugher informed her of her decision to transfer, but her office sent my daughter a Withdrawal Form that does inquire about reasons for transfering. </p>
<p>Good luck with the college application process with your son this year. We had to go through it all over again when my daughter decided to transfer. It was exhausting (and expensive), since we had believed it was all past us when she was admitted to Clark. By the way my daughter had an outstanding academic year at Clark (she had no complaints about the quality of her education, the classes, or her professors–that wasn’t the issue for her), and she was accepted to all five schools to which she applied for transfer. Clark is still recognized as being very solid academically.</p>
<p>Junior and senior year a lot of people live off campus. I lived off campus this past year on downing, across from the traina center. Most people are not worried about getting mugged, and its something I have never talked about with any of my friends. Even people who lived far off campus, like on woodbine st.</p>
<p>I never really thought of clark as a prison. The thing to do on friday and saturday night is go to parties at off campus apartments. They are mostly on florence, charlotte, woodland, and maywood streets. There are also always events going on weekend nights on campus, things like dances, shows, concerts, and so on. </p>
<p>If its late at night, you can always call escort. The only time I ever used it though was my freshmen year to go to the grocery store. The other thing you can do is walk in groups. Its fairly common to see a bunch of people walking together on weekend nights. I never had a problem walking by myself though.</p>
<p>broken_symlink, it’s good to know that (even though safety is obviously a consideration as we think about Clark for our son), you don’t think students are constantly worried about being mugged. I guess we’ll have to continue to investigate this issue, and decide how much it will impact my son’s experience, if he gets admitted. Thanks again for giving your input.</p>
<p>I just finished moving my D into Clark. The neighborhood is indeed poor, and it is obvious that students should not walk alone in the neighborhood at night. But this is true at many colleges, including the one I went to (USC in the '70s was intense, let me tell you). My D is ecstatic with her choice of school (she had an excellent pre-orientation trip and already has terrific friends), and we were very, very impressed with move-in day. </p>
<p>Clearly both the school and the city have to step it up a bit. But I’m not concerned about my D, and she’s not the least bit worried. She went to high school in an urban area and knows how to be smart. She talked to a couple of sophomore girls, and they adore Clark and have not had any issues with crime.</p>
<p>It is sad that they shouldn’t walk alone (or probably even in pairs) on the local streets after dark. I hope that changes someday. But the school is wonderful, and quite clearly the perfect fit for her.</p>
<p>I was a student at Clark in the late 70s/early 80s. While the school maintains the same great “vibe” it has always had, the continued violence against Clark students is disturbing but unsurprising. During my time at Clark, many students were the victims of muggings and worse crimes. I myself was attacked and mugged while walking from Oberlin Street (only 2-3 blocks from downing st). I brought my daughter to look at Clark a couple of years ago. From my perspective, Main South looks the same or worse than it did 30 years ago. At least then, we could walk on Main Street at night. I lived off campus-- across Main and also on Beaver Street for two years. Prior to the attack on me, I walked everywhere alone as did many of my friends. We did not feel unsafe like the current students do, nor were we advised to buddy-up. </p>
<p>I always share my saftey concerns with families that are considering Clark and I always tell them to ask around (get student perspective as well as Admissions and Public Safety) when they visit the school. My son attends Columbia and does not feel unsafe in the Morningside neighborhood. You cannot compare the Main South neighborhood to Morningside Heights. Morningside Heights is a 24 hour vibrant neighborhood.</p>
<p>My daughter decided not to apply to Clark. For those of you that chose it, your children will receive a wonderful education and become true citizens of the world.</p>
<p>Morningside Heights is fine. It is definitely much better than the area I was living in last month, and I am no longer afraid to go out at night.</p>