Dr. Margaret Louise Sirman Clark

2020/2021/2022 Inductee

Margaret Louise Sirman Clark was born in Dixie, Ga. She graduated from high school in New York City, earned a bachelor’s degree from Arkansas AM&N College, which became the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB), married Oran Clark and taught French & Spanish at Merrill High School in Pine Bluff for 11 years. While teaching, she continued studies in French at Summer Institutes at Rutgers University and the University of Massachusetts in Arcachon, France; on a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for the 1964-65 academic year at the Institut des professeurs de français a l’etranger at the Sorbonne in Paris, coupled with a Summer Institute at the University of Besançon; and earned a Master’s degree from the University of Arkansas in 1968.

She started teaching at the University of Arkansas (UA) as a visiting instructor in the Summer of 1969. She was hired as a part time French instructor in the Fall of 1969 while working on her doctorate in education, thereby becoming one of the first African Americans hired to teach at the UA. Over the next 29 years, she taught French in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and in the College of Education and Health Professions, she taught courses in secondary education, including foreign language methodology and multicultural education. She offered English as a Second Language (ESL) workshops in Northwest Arkansas before developing a master's degree program in ESL and teaching master's degree education courses in the university’s summer program in Athens, Greece. Over the years, she made numerous scholarly presentations, including ones in the countries of Brazil, Brunei, Chile, Mexico, Oman, and Singapore.

She has served on the boards of the Washington County Historical Society (WCHS), the Arkansas-East Bolivia Partners of the Americas as its first African-American president, and the Arkansas Alumni Association. She spearheaded the chartering of the UA chapter of Pi Delta Phi, a French Honor Society, and spearheaded the chartering of the undergraduate Kappa Iota Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in 1978. She served as the first president of the Phi Alpha Omega graduate chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority which was chartered in 1998.

Clark is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1989 Panhellenic Award for Outstanding Faculty Member, the Martin Luther King Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003, a Silas Hunt Legacy Award in 2006, the AR Alumni Association Service Award in 2015 and the Machado Leadership Award from the Partners of the Americas in 2016. She was honored for her community service with the 2004 Torchbearer Award from the graduate chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and named one of the Outstanding Women of the Year in 2003 by the Washington County Women’s Coalition. In 2019, a dormitory was named by the UA - Margaret Clark Hall.

She served as the first African American president of the following organizations: the Arkansas Foreign Language Teacher’s Association; the Arkansas division of the American Association of University Women (AAUW); the Fayetteville Branch of AAUW; the Fayetteville Business and Professional Women; and the Iota chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society of Key Women Educators.

She served on the board of the Hispanic Women’s Organization of Arkansas and volunteered as a docent at the Walton Arts Center. She served as the chair of the Synchrony Committee for AAUW in its effort to coordinate predominantly women’s organizations in a get-out-the-vote initiative. Her wide range of interests is reflected in her memberships in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society, the university’s Fulbright Alumni Association, and the Washington County Democratic Women, plus her support of the Walton Arts Center and the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas.

As a member of St. James United Methodist Church, she served for 11 years as both treasurer and chair of the Education Outreach Committee. Also, for her church, she has served in leadership positions at both the district and conference levels, including serving as chair of the Conference Religion and Race Committee.

She retired in 1998, but continued teaching foreign language methodology classes until the end of the summer of 2007. Currently, she remains actively involved in community and state organizations by continuing her years of service on the boards of both the WCHS and the AR-E. Bolivia Partners of the Americas, and on the Committee of the Washington County Coalition of Women in History.

Photos credited by The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History