As Ralph “Butch” Clark sees it, environmental studies aren’t about reacting to contemporary problems; rather, the field is about adapting for the crises of the future. That, he said, is why Western Colorado University’s School of Environment and Sustainability is so important, and it’s why he has decided to donate most of his wealth — upwards of $4.5 million — to the school.
To honor his gift, the school will be renamed the “Clark School of Environment and Sustainability.” That recognition goes beyond the size of the gift, said the school’s dean, John Hausdoerffer.
“We wanted to name the School of Environment and Sustainability after a family that reflected and inspired our values,” Hausdoerffer said. Clark “represents the ecological, economic and social justice values of who we want to be.”
Hausdoerffer announced the gift and the naming to Western’s Board of Trustees on May 7. The paperwork and asset transfer are expected to go through by the end of June.
The Clark family has supported environmental studies at Western for 20 years, starting with a $1,000 gift Clark’s father made in 1999 and then a $100,000 check Clark’s father cut to help elevate environment and sustainability from a minor to a major in 2001. For the past seven years, Clark has been one of the most significant supporters of the school and especially its Masters in Environmental Management (MEM) program.
He donated 330 acres and a house along Tomichi Creek to start the Western-affiliated Coldharbour Institute. He has co-funded a faculty position in the school and supported a handful of MEM students each year with tens of thousands of dollars in Clark Fellowships.
Off campus, Clark has been a stalwart for social justice movements. He has demonstrated for peace on Main Street at noon every Friday since 9/11. He sold the dude ranch property he purchased with his late wife Judy Clark in Lost Canyon, donating the proceeds to the Gunnison Valley Housing Foundation. And he worked with communities across the west to mitigate the harms of boom and bust cycles in his capacity as a Ph.D. in environmental planning.
“After seven years of Butch investing annually (in the School of Environment and Sustainability), I asked him if he wanted it to be forevever. And, if he was invested in that forever, we would be happy to name the entity after him,” Hausdoerffer said.
Clark requested that it be named after his entire family, to honor his father and Judy, as well.
“Butch never would have come up with this on his own because he is so humble,” Hausdoerffer said.
The impact of Clark’s gift will be to sustain in perpetuity the Clark Fellowships for graduate students, the salary of the executive director of the Coldharbour Institute and the half-time faculty position of Sustainable Development Chair. A new $2 million gift from Clark will serve as an endowment, generating about $100,000 in interest annually.
That amount is on top of approximately $2.5 million in property and funds that Clark has given to Western and Coldharbour in recent years. He has also decided to will an unspecified amount to Western through his future estate planning.
Freed from the worries of fundraising for her own salary, Coldharbour Institute Executive Director MJ Pickett said the gift will allow her to do more fundraising for projects on the ground.
“It’s every nonprofit’s dream to be endowed,” Pickett said. “We will always have this executive director position and some fellows to move the needle forward. It (the gift) allows us to focus on bigger projects, infrastructure, development, and increasing our impact.”
The source of Clark’s wealth is family inheritances. He has “conservatively” managed that wealth for decades, he said, and it’s one of the reasons why he pursued a graduate degree in finance before he was called to serve in the Vietnam War.
During the Vietnam War, Clark was a captain in the U.S. Airforce. Part of his duty was notifying next of kin.
Clark has lived in Gunnison since 1970. He earned a masters in business from Western in 1972 and went on to receive his doctorate from the University of London when he and his wife Judy relocated to England to take care of her parents, who had Alzheimer’s disease. Judy would later suffer from the disease, too. She died three and a half years ago on Christmas Day. Butch and Judy decided to not have children, and his gift to Western is part of how he would like his family’s legacy to carry on.
From his experiences in academia, Butch said he knew from the inception of the MEM program at Western that “it was really good, and we needed it.”
Environmental studies garnered his support because they enable the Gunnison Valley to “cope” and “to learn about what is going on in the present and then eventually apply that into the future,” Clark said.
“He is the ultimate Western alum in weaving together a balanced life in service of the world,” Hausdoerffer told the Board of Trustees.
Western’s Naming and Gift Review Committee approved the name change for the School of Environment and Sustainability on March 31. The Board of Trustees unanimously endorsed the change on May 7.
Clark’s gift gives a major boost to the university’s seven-year “Elevate Western” fundraising campaign. According to numbers shared by Vice President of Advancement Mike LaPlante, that campaign has so far raised $9.8 million. The average gift has been $516,426.
(Sam Liebl can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or editor@gunnisontimes.com)
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