A Return to Wilson, Via Rwanda, Indiana and Antarctica
Wyatt Layton | Sept. 15, 2026
Associate Director of Work Engagement Grace Clark poses for a photo in her office on Sept. 11, 2026 in Swannanoa, N.C. (Echo News/Wyatt Layton)
Upon walking into Grace Clark’s office, one is likely to be met with her smiling face and kind, can-do attitude. Clark is the Associate Director of Work Engagement and Work Program Office (WPO) Crew Supervisor at Warren Wilson College (WWC), as of November 2025. She holds a Master of Education (MEd) degree from Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Mass., a Bachelor's Degree in Geography from San Francisco State University and an Associate of Arts from Valencia College in Orlando, Fla.
Clark is no stranger to work and employment programs – for two and a half years, she worked in Bloomington, Ind., as the Manager of Education and Employment Programs at Exodus Refugee Immigration. Clark has also worked in several international positions, including her Educational Consultant position at The Littlest Lamb, a nonprofit organization that works to “help children to break the imprisoning cycle of poverty” and her four-year tenure at the United States Antarctic Program at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station as a Logistics Manager, General Assistant and Postal Clerk.
Most recently, Clark has returned to Western North Carolina from Rwanda, where she worked for about a year as an English Second Language Specialist in Kigali City at a boarding middle and high school for refugee girls from Afghanistan. Once she returned to the United States and began looking for a new position, WWC just made sense; especially since Clark attended WWC for a short time in the 1990s.
“My parents asked me to come back to the continent,” Clark said. “It was 36 hours to [fly] back to America, and my folks are older, so they were like, ‘Could you just come back?’ I was living with my sister in Mills River and looking for work, and somebody was like, ‘What about Wilson?’ and everything kind of came together.”
Though Clark has been working as the Associate Director of Work Engagement since last November, this semester she is also the WPO Crew supervisor. The crew is composed of nine students that make up what Clark lovingly referred to as the “Human Resources Department” of WWC.
“Nobody goes to HR on a good day, right?” Clark said. “Every time somebody walks through the door, they might be stressed out…a big part of our job is just supporting our community. We're a place people know they can come to for answers…I'm not saying they get all their favorite answers, but we do have answers.”
One of those student crew members is Owen Gunter, a senior and WPO Crew Lead who has been on the WPO crew since her second semester at WWC.
“Grace is such a wonderful person to work with,” Gunter said. “Her personality is so amazing, she brings a lot [to the WPO]. She's been a nice kind of change of pace…This is kind of her first semester being the crew supervisor without much help, but I think she's really doing a good job.”
Work Program Office (WPO) Sign outside the Log Cabin at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., Sept. 11, 2026 (Echo News/Wyatt Layton)
This year, the WPO team (under Clark’s guidance) has been asking student workers to consider what “meaningful” work means to them. With her extensive resume and globe-spanning experience, Clark wants to help students explore and dive deeper into that exact question through WWC’s work program. Clark understands how the answer to the question is not always as philosophical as one would like it to be.
“For a long time, meaningful work was being able to pay [my] rent,” Clark said. “Some people are born knowing what they want to do, but most of us amble through life like, ‘I'll try that,’ ‘No, I didn't really like that,’... Now that I've reached this point in my life, I really need to know that what I'm doing is making a difference.”
After focusing on middle and high school-aged students at her last position, Clark is excited to get back to working with college students as they navigate early adulthood. She specifically enjoys how the work program gives students a “gentle place to make mistakes.”
“I love working with folks who get to make their own decisions, and helping them understand that actions have consequences,” Clark said. “I really like that we have just the right amount of ‘Your actions have consequences,’ but you also probably aren't going to end up unhoused if you make a bad decision.”
Along with all of the work she does with the WPO crew, last semester Clark spearheaded the launch of the Center for Experiential Learning and Careers Professional Development (CELCPD) Program, which allows WWC to receive money from the Work College Consortium to fund special crew training. Crew supervisors apply through the WPO with a training program or certification they want their crew to complete, and the money from the consortium fully covers the cost.
So far, 169 students have received nearly $10,000 in certifications through this program. Clark emphasized the importance of certifications and training that can give WWC students and graduates an edge when applying for all types of positions.
“When you go out into the world and you hand your resume over to somebody and you're like ‘I worked on all these different work crews,’ but then when you're [also] like ‘I have an OSHA10 and I have ServSafe,’ nationally recognized certifications, it's just a little bit more,” Clark said. “[We want to do] anything we can do to give our students just a little bit more.”
While studying at WWC, Clark was on the dining crew for the fall 1993 semester, before she moved to campus safety (when it was still a student crew with overnight security shifts!) in the spring of 1994.
“The campus was a very different place back then,” Clark said. “If there was an electrical problem, we had an electrical crew… things have evolved and changed, you know. It's cool to be back and see how that's happened.”
After that school year, Clark decided to take time to work, explore and discover what she wanted to do next– unaware how that exploration would eventually lead her back to WWC. As she supervises the WPO crew and continues her Associate Director role, Clark is excited for both the coming semester and to be settling back in at WWC.
“All these years later, full circle – now I'm back.” Clark said.