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Marc Christensen ’89
Today, as president of Clarkson University
ALumNI IN AcTIoN
Dr. Marc Christensen ’89
BY BILL wELLS Director of Student Promotion
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Dr. Marc Christensen ’89 planned to enter the field of education a few years before he stepped into retirement. Retirement didn’t come early, but a job change sure did.
After working on the cutting edge of technology in the field of photonics, followed by a sooner-than-expected shift into academia, Marc was named the 17th President of Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, effective July 1, 2022.
“Clarkson has a great story and it just needs to be told—told to more people, told to more businesses, told in new areas,” Dr. Christensen said. “I look forward to telling Clarkson’s stories.” subjects. There, as a requirement, he had to take an introductory seminar course outside of his main field of study, which was electrical engineering.
“I took a class in lasers,” Dr. Christensen said. “As part of the course assignments, we got to build several lasers and I learned all about how they work. With a newfound interest, I ended up switching to engineering physics to pursue laser technologies. When I began interviewing for co-op internships, I got asked what I wanted to do and I quickly replied something with lasers and related innovation. I ended up working in a company’s photonics group.”
Work at BDM’s Sensors and Photonics Group was the best kind of work—fun. In the field of electronics and photonics, one of his first assignments was processing information for defense applications using lasers, lenses, crystals and charge-coupled device cameras.
“I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Dr. Christensen said. “It put to use all of the math I’d learned at Cornell and built something real that someone—the U.S. government—needed. In the lab it was kind of like playing with tinker toys to build these amazing systems. I was hooked.”
At the suggestion of a colleague and mentor, Dr. Christensen started to attend graduate school. At the same time, he was involved in developing technology related to internet routing. BDM wasn’t into commercializing, but a vice president at the company helped him and his mentor pursue a patent and launch a start-up business. An opportunity for Dr. Christensen to run the company arose, and he took it.
“Shortly thereafter, I was running the company and we had several defense contracts and interest from commercial companies,”
Dr. Christensen’s academic story began largely at Wilbraham & Monson Academy, where he made the 30-minute drive from Ware, Massachusetts, as a day student for four years of high school.
“I was a late bloomer, still finding myself, even as I left WMA,” said Dr. Christensen, who participated in Water Polo, Basketball and Tennis, as well as the school newspaper (Atlas). “My parents got divorced my first year there so a lot was going on in my personal life.
“All of the faculty at WMA were genuinely interested in student success. Coach (Steve) Gray ’70 and Mr. (Allen) Hsiao had a special role in shaping my future career interests, and I think Mr. (Gary) Cook and Mr. (Don) Nicholson ’79 secretly loved tormenting me as history was always my weakest subject.”
Acceptance into Cornell University proved Dr. Christensen didn’t have too many weak
dr. mArc chrISTENSEN ’89
Dr. Christensen described. “The technology was always five to 10 years out, but the companies wanted it next quarter.
“Then the internet bubble burst and most of those companies went out of business or pulled back. I was just finishing my Ph.D. I had always thought I’d retire into teaching—stay in business until near retirement then finally go and share what I learned. I always wanted to be a teacher, but naively thought I could jump into it late. Suddenly, the idea of becoming a professor sooner made sense.”
Coincidentally, Dr. Christensen’s first professor in graduate school had become an Associate Dean in the Engineering School at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. They connected.
“He had me on a plane that week for an interview,” Dr. Christensen said. “I joined that fall (of 2002) and never looked back. It was an incredible experience. I got to engage with the energy of a new set of students every fall and watch them grow and learn and go off and do these amazing things when they graduate.
“I got involved in the engineering school’s first strategic plan as an assistant professor early in my career. When I was about to make tenure, I got asked to become the Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and five years later, when the Dean left, I was asked to step into that role. That was an incredible job. I got to set vision and direction for the school and resource it by telling these amazing stories of what our faculty, staff and students were accomplishing. I learned how to differentiate an organization and build a team to go attack a goal.”
As of the Summer of 2022, Dr. Christensen and his vision have a new goal—to spread Clarkson’s story.
“Clarkson’s challenges stem from the fact that they’ve been so successful in the Northeast and haven’t really gotten their message out nationally,” Dr. Christensen said. “My hometown of Ware has something like a dozen Clarkson students right now. The entire state of Texas, from where I moved, had only four in the previous entering class.
“Clarkson is positioned to provide a transformative education by giving students all the skills—technical, business and ‘soft’ leadership skills—in a way industry is craving. Doing this, Clarkson is going to have a huge impact—an impact on the businesses our students work in, and impact in the communities in which they live, and an impact on the environment.”
Dr. Christensen feels fully prepared to take on all of the challenges of being a president at a smaller college in a rural section of the Northeast partly due to his experience at WMA.
“WMA showed me how to power a school operating at a small scale in which faculty could really connect with students,” he said. “That enables transformational experiences which change the trajectory of a student’s life. I have sought out small private educational institutions because of the impact WMA had on me and all those around me.”
• toP LEft Yearbook, 1989
• Bottom LEft Senior Stone, 1989
• BELoW Marc Christensen, seated second from right, during his time on Atlas at WMA.
