Saranac Hale Spencer

The News Journal

Wesley College has inaugurated a new president, although he's not new to the Dover campus.

Robert Clark, who was sworn in last Wednesday, has been in the president's office since last summer, getting to know the campus and its people before holding the official ceremony.

"I was completely drawn in... by the true sincerity of the community," Clark said on Friday.

He is now officially the 17th president of the small liberal arts college and he has a vision for what the school should be. But, he also wanted to understand and include ideas from the faculty and students, "so we have a shared and collective vision," he said.

Ideally, Clark wants to transform not only Wesley College, but the Dover community around it.

The school and the community are connected by more than just location, he explained, riffing on the familiar phrase that children are the future.

"Students are the post cards that we all send into the future," he said, adding that you teach and mentor them, like you sign your name to a post card and send it off.

And, he said, "that future will impact our community."

STORY: Markell supports 'Testing Bill of Rights'

STORY: Christina, Cape win referendums; Brandywine fails

The education that shapes students in college stays with them and informs them when they become the workers and citizens who are the community, Clark said.

"Education is not just about job training," he said, noting the value of a diverse liberal arts education, but the school can offer and emphasize programs that will prepare students to do the jobs that society is demanding.

For example, the school is working toward getting accreditation for a master's degree program in occupational therapy that it plans to offer in the fall.

Clark also plans to increase the number of students that the school takes in – both in its maters programs and its undergraduate programs.

Wesley has traditionally had a graduate student body that numbers in the low hundreds and he'd like to "beef that up," Clark said.

In the same vein, he wants to increase the school's undergraduate population from around 1,500, where it has been hovering in recent years, to over 2,000.

With the growth he'd like to see in the number of students would also come some new construction, which he'd like to do in a way that would bring in members of the community. If the school builds a new dorm, Clark said, he'd like to put a commercial tenant, like a coffee shop or a school book store.

The school had begun creating a strategic plan the year before Clark arrived that was largely in sync with the new president's general vision for the school. It was titled: Vision 2020: Small College – Big Opportunities.

The administration is taking that outline and refining it now, Clark said.

The new president comes from a military background, having just retired after spending 32 years in the Navy's submarine force, the last five of which he spent in higher education – he was most recently the joint service coordinator at Pennsylvania State University.

Now, Clark said, "I'm blessed to have the privilege of serving the Wesley College community."

Contact Saranac Hale Spencer at (302) 324-2909, sspencer@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @SSpencerTNJ.