Delight Gavor ’16 lives by a lesson she learned at Clark University: To dream big, then never stop trying to turn those dreams into reality.
Gavor, now working toward a master’s degree in education at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, held true to that lesson as a Global Scholar pursuing a psychology degree at Clark. She believes there’s nothing more powerful than learning.
“I wasn’t just in classes to get a good GPA,” she says. “I was intentional about gaining competencies from each class that I could apply to other contexts in which I was interested or passionate.”
The Clark and greater Worcester communities as well as students in Gavor’s hometown of Accra, Ghana, benefitted from her Clark education.
In 2015, she planned TEDxClarkUniversity, a day-long event modeled after the popular TED format, where she had to think on her feet and learned to coordinate different aims while keeping her initial vision in mind. Gavor also co-founded the Butterfly Effect — a LEEP project designed to help 36 children in underserved communities explore interests beyond the classroom and solve issues in their community. With the help of a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant, she was able to expand the program to serve more than 200 seventh grade students in Accra. In May, she’ll return to Accra to grow the organization into a sustainable educational enterprise raising lifelong learners.
“In all these instances, I took away the power of never-ending learning,” she says. “Learning by doing, learning from mistakes, and learning to apply skills and knowledge in various contexts.”
A double minor in management and entrepreneurship, Gavor credits advisers Amy Whitney, director of Clark’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship program, and Laura Burgess, program director of academic and student services in the Graduate School of Management, with helping to guide her toward various resources. As a first-year student, she along with Julia Carrasquel ’16, co-founded DormBoard, a Worcester startup, which makes detachable bedside desks. They expect to expand the company to create opportunities for other collegiate entrepreneurs pursuing their ideas.
Throughout her Clark journey, Delight found inspiration in Seana Moran, research assistant professor in psychology, and Eric DeMeulenaere, assistant professor in the Jacob Hiatt Center for Urban Education.
“Seana set me on the path to believe in the power of my own ideas, while Eric will always be an exemplar of who an authentic educator should be,” she says.
Gavor believes her Clark experience taught her to understand various perspectives and value relationships.
“I learned not to assume, but to take a step back to understand the context others found themselves in and to empathize with them,” she says.
