Page 18 - BusinessWest February 19, 2024

K-12 teachers from the Center for East Asian Studies visit the Mo’ili’ili Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Honolulu.
(Photo by Anne Prescott)
es, adding that this dynamic is exciting to her, in that it necessitates the collaborative work Five Colleges specializes in. “It allows some students to get experiences and opportunities they wouldn’t have on their own campus, but can have because this exists.”
Executive Director Sarah Pfatteicher agreed. “I feel like the work we do is particularly valuable and powerful at a moment that feels very divisive,” she said. “Particularly after the pandemic, we’ve all been so focused inwardly. This is all about getting people in a room to think in a bigger-picture way than they do alone, or accom- plish collectively what they couldn’t do themselves — just get out- side their individual interests and think of the collective good.”
“We have this opportunity to throw out an idea and see what happens with it because we have this network that exists around us.”
And it’s a good that impacts the broader community outside the campuses, she added. “We have deep connections to our communi- ties. The campuses can’t be healthy without healthy communities. It’s a symbiotic, mutually supportive relationship, and it’s a lovely
thing.”
Clark’s nonprofit back-
ground is extensive; besides the Smithsonian Design Museum, she has worked in develop- ment at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Cooper Hewitt, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and Sesame Workshop. She also recently served as interim director of SPCA Interna- tional, an animal-protection organization.
At Five Colleges, “one of the many things I have found ter- rific in this opportunity is that you have these very brilliant people who are quite differ-
ent from each other, and these campuses that are close by but have different perspectives on things, different points of view, and we have a way to pull it
all together and brainstorm an idea into a stronger idea, to consider what’s possible,” Clark said.
“That’s a truly amazing idea, and hard to find in a world
where people have been isolated. We have this opportunity to throw out an idea and see what happens with it because we have this net- work that exists around us.”
Gradual Growth
Historically, Pfatteicher said, the campuses have been collaborat- ing since at least 1914, but Five Colleges officially became a 501(c) (3) in 1965. “For many years after that, it was a very small organiza- tion. So it’s been 110 years of growth to get to where we are now, with our staff, budget, and all the things we have in place.
“Our whole reason for existing is to help facilitate collaborative efforts between the campuses,” she went on. “Everything the cam- puses want to do together, however we can help them collaborate, our job is to figure out how to do that.”
External funding, mainly in the form of grants, makes up about 15% of the budget, paying for a series of sponsored programs, said Kevin Kennedy, director of Strategic Engagement at Five Colleges.
“The vast majority of our work on the campuses is with things other than the sponsored programs — cross-registration, extensive academic program support, student research ... a wide variety of areas.”
That includes a lot of academic programming, sharing curricula and faculty, some back-office and administrative operations, risk management, insurance, and shared fiber-optic network contracts, Pfatteicher noted.
“The majority of our annual budget comes directly from the cam-
“People will be able to research thousands, even tens of thousands of museum objects that aren’t nearly as accessible to them with the current system.”
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