R. Inslee Clark, Jr.

Russell Inslee "Ink" Clark, Jr. (died 1999) was an educator, administrator, and a key player in the transition of the Ivy League into co-education in the 1960s.

Personal life

Clark was born in 1935 and graduated from Garden City High School on Long Island, New York.Clark graduated from Yale University as a member of the class of 1957. During his time at Yale he was a member of Skull and Bones, and head of the undergraduate student governing council.Clark earned a Master's Degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Career

As Director of Undergraduate Admissions (1965-1969) at Yale University, Clark oversaw the school's transition to a coeducational admission policy, and shares credit with Yale President Kingman Brewster for establishing academic credentials in place of "character" in the admissions process. For decades in college admissions to prestigious, northeastern colleges, "character" had been used seemingly as a code to limit the number of acceptances afforded to secondary school students of Jewish-ancestry for college settings defined by an Episcopalian or WASP social standard. Associated with this move, Yale, and followed by other prestigious colleges in the northeast section of the United States, recruited for the first time beyond the prep school orbit of New England and mid-Atlantic boarding schools, and private schools in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., now a standard practice in their respective admissons practices.

As Headmaster and President (1970-1991) of the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, New York, Clark reintroduced co-education and oversaw the school's merger with the Barnard School. His obituary, published August 7, 1999 in The New York Times", read: "a brilliant, dynamic teacher, he taught an Urban History course and took students into prisons and courtrooms to learn first hand about the complex urban issues confronting New York City. His inspirational leadership, his ebullient personality...His impressive intellect and passion for baseball are legendary."

Clark picked up the nicknames "Ink" or "Inky" at Camp Dudley YMCA in Westport, New York, where he spent over 50 summers (1948-1999) as a camper, counselor, and Assistant Director.

Bibliography

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE0DA1330F934A3575BC0A96F958260 Paid Death Notice (New York Times, August 7, 1999)]

External links

* [http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/99_12/admissions.html The Birth of a New Institution: "How two Yale presidents and their admissions directors tore up the "old blueprint" to create a modern Yale " (Yale Alumni Magazine, December, 1999)]