CLARK Magazine: Clark University In The Powell's DNA

In the recently released issue of CLARK Magazine (Spring 2011), Editor-in-Chief James Keough profiled third generation alum Reed Powell. A key cog in the Cougars trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2010, Powell explains how an injury opened his eyes to a side of Clark he never knew existed ...

Clark University In The Powell's DNA

By James Keough, Editor-In-Chief, CLARK Magazine

It took a knee injury for Reed Powell '10 to truly "discover" Clark.

In his sophomore year, the point guard for the Cougars' basketball team tore his anterior cruciate ligament, and then developed a serious infection that required him to self-administer antibiotics through an IV pump. Suddenly, the basketball-player piece of his identity faded into the background, and a more nuanced Clarkie emerged.

"It was one of the hardest years for me, but it helped me learn more about myself and gave me a whole new perspective of Clark," Reed says. "For my first two years, basketball and school was all I knew; I didn't really take advantage of what Clark had to offer. Yes, it's okay to go to school and be a basketball player, but now I advocate other things. Go to the International Gala, go to the dances, go to poetry readings, go to the movie screenings in Jefferson. There are many things I would never have experienced, people I wouldn't have met, if I hadn't gotten hurt. The injury helped me to focus."

Being a third-generation Clarkie played a role as well. Powell's mother, Lynnel Reed-Powell '80, and his grandmother (Lynnel's mother), the Rev. Catherine H. Reed '93, already knew the value of the Clark experience. Catherine earned her degree in English after raising two children and while working full time. Lynnel began her college career at Worcester State before transferring to Clark for her sophomore year.

The fact that the Powells live within walking distance of Clark, that Reed had grown up attending Cougar basketball games, and that he attended University Park Campus School from grades 7 to 12, made his enrollment at Clark seem a slam dunk.

Not quite.

In addition to Clark, Reed was accepted to a number of schools, including Bentley, Babson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, WPI and Holy Cross.

"We figured if we pushed Clark too hard he wouldn't like it, even though we thought it would be a good fit for Reed," Lynnel says. "Of course, I'm biased."

Reed eventually chose Clark as a business/economics major.

He was on familiar terms with the University, including with then-President John Bassett, and the recruiting work of basketball coach Mo Cassara and encouragement from Cassara's successor, Paul W. Phillips, didn't hurt either.

"Coach Phillips always said, 'I've got a place for you,'" Reed recalls.

Reed works at Sigma Systems, a staffing and consulting firm in Marlborough, Mass., where he finds candidates for high-level jobs in technology and management. At the time of this interview he'd just finished preparing and presenting his company's bid for a $25 million government contract.

Despite a lifetime of work and family, Catherine Reed never abandoned her dream of earning a degree. As a Clark English major she displayed a talent for poetry, and would go on to publish two books of her original works, "Crossing Boundaries" and "Between Midnight and Dawn." She continues to give poetry readings throughout Worcester.

Catherine attended graduate school at Boston University at age 64 ("I was the oldest person in the dorm," she laughs) and Hartford Seminary and was ordained a minister at John Street Baptist Church in Worcester, where she serves as associate pastor. She worked for seven years as a campus minister at Clark, where she shared a prayer room in Dana Commons with Muslim students, and then served for eight years as Holy Cross' first Protestant chaplain. Catherine has returned to campus several times to address incoming freshmen through the Academic Clark Excellence program, which is keyed toward first-generation college students and students of African-American, Latino, Asian or Native American heritage.

Lynnel graduated with a degree in psychology and was a social worker with the elderly for 17 years. She then earned her master's degree and certificate of advanced graduate studies in rehabilitation counseling, and for the last 10 years she's worked as a guidance counselor at North High School in Worcester, placing her on the front lines of the embattled American public education system.

"I've seen big changes even in the last five years," she says. "The requirements of the state, budget cuts, bureaucracy. The dynamics of the family have changed, too. I work with a lot of families and even the best ones are overwhelmed."

She's volunteered as a liaison between Clark and the neighborhood as a board member on the Main South Community Development Corp., and holds a special affinity for the University Park Campus School. "I will do just about anything they ask because I believe in the school," she says.

Clark, Lynnel notes, taught her to think critically and "exposed me to people from all over the world. Clark embodies diversity in every aspect."