As associate director of strategic initiatives for Northeastern’s Toronto campus, Sam Clarke is a jack of all trades who brings years of experience in Ontario’s government to bear in higher ed.
If you have a question about Toronto and Northeastern’s campus in the Ontario province, chances are Sam Clarke can answer it.
As associate director of strategic initiatives, Clarke has her hands in a lot of pies. She helps develop partnerships with private industry players in AI, oversees graduation ceremonies and even supports the Toronto campus’ government relations.
It’s a lot to handle, but it’s nothing new for Clarke, who came to Northeastern after five years of working for the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.
There, she worked as a senior policy and project adviser to the deputy minister. After a career in government where she regularly handled gypsy moth invasions and protected at-risk species, Clarke leapt into higher education in 2021, joining Northeastern as special assistant to Toronto’s dean and CEO, Aliza Lakhani.
Northeastern Global News sat down with Clarke to talk about the connections between her government and higher ed work and her experience directing Toronto’s largest graduation ceremony.
I support a lot of the government relations and government affairs work with our [government relations] firm, our dean and our associate dean. With the experience that I have, I know that was also an asset when I was hired. When we have things that are currently in the regulatory process, I can give some inside knowledge and I can tell you this is what they’re doing right now and this is why they’re doing it.
Especially because it’s still the same government as when I left, I may not know all the people that are still in the government because everything changes constantly, but I know the general process of how things work when they come from a constituent into the bureaucratic space and then all the way up into the political space.
The breadth of the role is surprising to some people. I span from coordinating and being the chair for a team culture and engagement steering committee on the campus all the way to supporting government relations and external facing partnerships while doing all kinds of intertwining things in between.
You know how there’s always that one person in the office that everyone constantly asks their questions of? That’s me.
In 2022, I was the project manager and lead for what was the largest graduation that [the] Toronto [campus] was ever going to experience. We had 235 students set to cross that stage. The last graduation had three.
It was great. I was able to go from vendor contract management to actually being the one calling the ceremony with the headset on and talking to the A/V people and queuing music and organizing all of those graduates to make sure they had the best experience.
That’s what it’s all about. Crossing that stage is what they’re there to do, and I wanted to make sure that as much as it was the first one of this size that Toronto was going to do, it was going to be as special as they were expecting it to be.
I’m a huge Disney fan. I have a whole half sleeve [tattoo] that’s Disney characters. I spent Christmas at Disney World last year, and I’m going again for my birthday. I’m a massive Disney adult. But I’m also a huge wrestling fan, WWE wrestling. … I have a replica belt that I’ve brought to work before because I’ve gone to events with it. I’m a huge John Cena fan.