UP DA TE
JON JACDBSON
‘We've gone through Are and been tested’: Sister Catherine Dunn. Clarke president
Rising From the Ashes
Clarke College survives a trial by fire; turning
disaster into a golden opportunity for renewal
It wastwodays before graduation in 1084
when the hilltop campus caught (ire,
and Clarke College burned from after
noon until early morning. The awful pyro
technics incinerated four major buildings
at the Roman Catholic coed institution in
Dubuque, Iowa, and left 30 nuns homeless.
Students who stood in forlorn clusters,
holding hands and wondering whether the
school would survive, heard a fervent aflir
ination from Sister Catherine Dunn, who
had then been president of Clarke for only
111 days. Marching along the police lines
with a bullhorn, Dunn announced that fi
nal exams would lx- rescheduled and insist
ed that the school would rise, triumphant,
from the ashes of the accidental blaze Sure
enough, Dunn reopened the devastated
school at 8 a m. the following day By noon
she had counselors telephoning reassur
ances to every applicant—and was em
barked on a mighty salvage mission
Today, 30 months later, it is clear that
Clarke has turned disaster into opportuni
ty. Contractors are putting finishing touch
es on u state-of-the-art campus that was
built to serve for 150 years Gleaming new
structures flank a huge atrium, vet blend
skillfully w ith the pitched, red-tile roofs of
the old buildings that withstood the (ire
Innumerable clever design features mean
students at the school—which opened in
1843 as the Midwest’s first women's col
lege-will reap the grandest rewards of a
reconstruction they helped plan "Small
schools need something that says, 'Bang—
this is the spirit of the place!' "says Chicago
architect Percy E Roberts. "Clarke’s new
campus will help achieve that."
St udents and administ rators say t he syn
ergies occurred largely because Roberts's
prestigious firm, Vickrey Ovresat Aw
sumb. set up shop in a campus lounge and
invited endless opinions from anyone who
Up in smoke: Blaze destroyed four major buildings
__ _lilH.ii M-H m t; \l i»
had an idea about Clarke
Many faculty members helped
design facilities exactly as they
wished. Librarian Paul Rob
erts—no relation to the archi
tect—will have twice the space
he had before the blaze, plus a
fully computerized catalog that
students can instantly examine
from 50 terminals scattered
across the campus. And with
space to spare, Clarke’s library
is now growing at five times
its normal pace. Roberts, who
had to freeze-dry some water
logged volumes, is even adding
new subject areas with books
obtained from less fortunate
small colleges that have closed.
"We're growing,” he says confi
dently. "I’m the only librarian
around who accepts donated
books by the ton.”
Encircled by music: Fine touches
abound The wraparound bal
cony in the performing-arts
hall will permit music director
John l^ease to experimentally
surround ms audiences wun live sound, in
a well-lit print laboratory, ventilators
quietly remove the inevitable solvent
fumes. One end of the atrium is terraced
to offer noontime seating for readings or
small performances. And a partially con
cave front lawn now boasts a sculpted out
door amphitheater.
The new buildings are virtually mainte
nance-free, accessible to the handicapped
and wired for futuristic telecommunica
tions systems. Broad windows swathe li
brary study areas, highlighting the tree
topped limestone hills around Clarke. "At
last we have open spaces again,” says
student-body president Lisa Hawks.
Insurance covered two-thirds of the
S13 million loss. The rest will come from
donors, including phenomenally loyal
grads who routinely keep Clarke debt-free;
their donation rate is among the nation’s
highest, easily upstaging such alumni fa
vorites as Harvard and Notre Dame. In the
short term the president must deal with an
unexpected avalanche of requests to con
duct weddings in the new atrium, a facility
mm win niso De me sue ior stu
dent affairs, community events
and seminars For the long haul
Dunn is adding academic pro
grams. She trusts that Clarke’s
new splendors will make re
cruiting far easier, and she
foresees enrollment climbing
from 9(X) to 1,2(X). "We’ve gone
through fire and been tested,"
she says. "Any student who
passes through here will en
counter that strength.”
John McCormick in Dubuque