Catherine Clack, Rice University’s associate vice provost in the Office of Access and Institutional Excellence and director of the Multicultural Center, is retiring in May, providing a capstone to her long and productive career with the university.
Affectionately referred to by close friends and students as “Lady C,” Clack joined the Rice community in 1981. She worked for seven years in the Office of Admissions before becoming the founding director of the Multicultural Center, which began in the late 1980s as the Office of Minority Affairs. She has been an ardent advocate for students with a focus on social justice, diversity and inclusion.
“It has been my honor and privilege to be part of such a spectacular community,” Clack said. “I love that Rice has nothing to which students are expected to conform, and I love that we find ways every day to truly embody the word ‘community’ and take care of each other. This is a very special campus, and it has been my pleasure and purpose to help ensure we all can contribute to, help maintain and feel a part of this vibrant university while always challenging ourselves and each other to do and be better.”
From a position defined by a deep involvement in campus life, Clack has witnessed and worked to address challenges in higher education while also pioneering transformations at the university since the early 1980s.
“Catherine was there to support our students with her experience, her knowledge and her understanding of the challenges that our students face,” said John Hutchinson, professor of chemistry and former dean of undergraduates. “There was hard work to be done to build a community, but she was there to do it. I won’t say that [she was] tireless, because this was hard work, and it was tiring, and it was often frustrating, but I will say [she was] relentless. Even while tired, [she] showed our students how to find their voices, individually and collectively, and how they could work together to make effective change at Rice.”
Clack’s co-workers echoed the praise of her integrity and determination throughout her decades at the university.
“In her 43 years at Rice, she has helped to power many of the university’s efforts toward becoming a more inclusive and equitable place,” said Alexander Byrd, vice provost of access and institutional excellence. “She has been indispensable in helping to build the university we now enjoy and in pressing us to greater heights.”
Byrd also spoke of Clack’s lasting impact on the university.
“You cannot understand what this university has become — how it has changed — if you do not understand her place here,” he said. She was, Byrd added, among the pioneers on campus in holistic student admissions, key in helping to unlock the potential of the residential colleges as inclusive spaces and a definitive example of the university’s culture of care in action.
Blaque Robinson ’16 expressed Clack’s unwavering commitment to the student body by recounting their own experience.
“When I think about care, the first thing that comes to mind is Lady C’s couch,” they said. “That couch has meant so much to so many over the years. I knew there was one place I could go where I would be welcome no matter what, whether to talk or to say nothing. It was that couch. On that couch, I shared my greatest joys, talked about my fears, expressed my dreams and told them I always felt heard and seen whenever I sat on that couch.
“She was committed to making sure that my time at Rice was one in which I felt loved and cared for. I know for sure that love and care are not adjectives that anybody puts in a job description, but I do know that whatever [her job description might be], Lady C took it to mean just that: love and care.”
Upon retirement, Clack plans to relocate to Mexico.
