<p>So far I’m hearing nothing but raves from my Clark freshman. She loves the school, loves her classes, loves her new friends, and feels safe. (She even loves the food!) They’ve ventured off campus on foot a few times, and didn’t seem concerned, but of course that’s with a group.</p>
<p>To paraphrase one of the guidebooks, if Clark were 40 miles east in Boston… or even a couple of miles east in, say, Shrewsbury… it would be one of the hottest schools in the northeast. The neighborhood is a negative, and I’m sure they lose a lot of good prospective students because of it. But everything else is so terrific that it outweighs the bad.</p>
<p>Seems to me that Clark and Holy Cross (which also has a dicey neighborhood) need to work really hard with the city of Worcester. Seems to me like a classic tipping-point situation. All the way from Clark through downtown (including downtown), I saw broken glass, trash, and general signs of civic neglect. That stuff matters. Obviously the city is on the poor side and doesn’t have a lot of resources, but I have to believe they could do a better job.</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree more about the fact that if Clark were located in or around Boston it might be THE hottest liberal arts school in the NE. However, it’s not, and that’s the problem. The Main South neighborhood feels like a bombed-out, post-apocalyptic war zone. Unfortunately Worcester itself is a post-industrial rust belt city that can’t quite reinvent itself. In my opinion it will take several generations to change, if it ever does. In the meantime, Clark will lose great applicants, it’s selectivity will continue to be at the 60-70 percent accept range, and the “tail” of those accepted students will be leave much to be desired (bringing the overall stats down).</p>
<p>To: Clark Community
From: Chief Stephen Goulet, University Police
Re: Timely Warning 2012-01
Date: February 23, 2012</p>
<p>On Thursday, February 23, 2012 at approximately 4:14AM, Worcester police responded to a report of an unarmed robbery. Upon the officers arrival, they met with a female victim who is a Clark student. She stated that at approximately 3:30AM she was walking on Clifton Street when she was approached by a dark colored vehicle. At this vehicle got closer to her, the males in the vehicle began to talk to her but she ignored what they were saying. The victim stated that a male in the back seat opened his door and forced her inside the vehicle. Once inside, the male suspect slapped her across the face and held her down. At this time, the suspect took her purse and began to sexually assault her. The vehicle then stopped and dropped her off on Hollywood Street.</p>
<p>Worcester EMS was called to check on the victim. The victim described the male suspect in the back seat as a dark-skinned male wearing a dark sweater and black hat. She informed the officers that the front seat passenger was a Hispanic male with dark hair.</p>
<p>Worcester Police investigators are working in a coordinated effort with the Clark University Police. If anyone has information about this incident, they can send an anonymous text to 274637 TIPWPD plus your message or send an anonymous web-based message at worcesterma.gov/police. Calls can also be made to the Worcester Detective Bureau at 508-793-8651 or Clark University Police at 508-793-7575.</p>
<p>We encourage all members of the Clark Community to call for an escort at Student Escort Safety Services between 4PM and 4AM at 508-793-7777 or call University Police at anytime at 508-793-7575.</p>
<p>I wonder where on clifton this occurred. My friends live on clifton and I was just there yesterday visiting them. I walked back to their apartment at around 2 in the morning by myself. However, I am a guy. They live very close to campus though, and you can see estabrook, the little center and sanford from their apartment.</p>
<p>ClarkAlum, my freshman D told me about the incident, and said it was a really big deal on campus, with the media there, and police, and lots of attention. </p>
<p>It is a sad thing, but again, late-night attacks on people walking alone happen in all kinds of neighborhoods and near all kinds of campuses. A young man who works for me was recently mugged in a hip, “good” part of LA while walking alone back to his car. </p>
<p>I’m happy to say that my D feels safe at Clark. She goes to off-campus parties, walks to the beloved Salvation Army and to CVS, and goes into Boston. She said she always walks with friends and would never walk alone late at night off campus, but she wouldn’t do that at most of the other colleges she was accepted to, either. Or at home. She’s sorry that the local neighborhood is so poor, and that she feels like she shouldn’t walk around by herself, but fortunately she’s found lots of great friends and always has companions for nighttime outings.</p>
<p>Just chiming in as someone who works in Worcester and is a big fan of Clark: The Worcester police recently announced that it will be conducting concentrated neighborhood “sweeps” in the Main South area to crack down on various drivers of violent crime such as drugs, gang issues, property code violations, etc. So, i think we’ll see some improvement soon.</p>
<p>Wow we were heading to visit clark after reading all the good things about the school and was jsut checking here to see what the current vibe is.</p>
<p>It it pretty easy to fix this ( i was at Penn in the late 80s) policing…</p>
<p>Currently live in Downton Memphis, and although the locals say they would never venture there at night I am out till 1AM and never worry ( but again I lived off campus at Penn in the 80s) </p>
<p>What they do in Memphis is have police patrols every time you turn a corner you see a car. They also have hundreds of cameras with blinking blue lights to let the baddies know they are being watched. Some are permanent others portable. </p>
<p>Rhodes College in Memphis ( worst city in the US) and U Memphis CBU does not have similar problems, they have partnered with the city.</p>
<p>If the school would pay to install, and man cameras with the police it would help a lot.</p>
<p>Not sure we will visit now, its my Daughter we are thinking would thrive here, my son is at William and Mary and we love the liberal arts research U ideals, but the locations are not comparable.</p>
<p>I know I’ve only been here a month and a half now, but I really don’t think the location/security should be a reason for anyone to cross Clark off of their list. </p>
<p>The surrounding neighborhood is really no worse than most any city, but like any city, you just have to not be stupid.</p>
<p>As long as you don’t walk around off campus by yourself late at night, you really should be fine. And you never need to walk around by yourself, because Clark has a free shuttle service that runs from 4 pm to 4 am every day, and it will drive you anywhere within half a mile of campus. Everything you need is that close.</p>
<p>They did make some changes over the summer, such as closing downing street, but I’m not sure if that has improved things much. In my time at Clark, as I’ve said before, I never had any problems, even walking around by myself at 1 in the morning, you just need to be smart.</p>
<p>Found a neat tool to look at crime reports, you just put in an address and there they are. Looking at Clark campus, there have been plenty of reports on the street around campus, mostly theft under 250, just as you would think local harrassing college kids. 5 per week it seems over the last month on average. You can use this tool to compare other schools. </p>
<p>Same several block area around Boston University , for one week 2 per week for the last 4 weeks… So 5 seems a bit hi for a “small” city</p>