After 27 years as division chair, Florence Clark to step down from administrative duties
October 16, 2015

Florence Clark PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, associate dean and chair of the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, after much reflection, has decided to step down from her administrative positions after the 2016 calendar year. The announcement was made to USC Chan faculty, staff and students in a memorandum distributed October 14 by Avishai Sadan DMD, MBA, dean of the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC within which the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy is administratively operated.

Dr. Clark joined USC’s faculty in 1976 as an assistant professor in what was then known as the Department of Occupational Therapy. In 1983 she was promoted to the rank of associate professor, and in 1989 was appointed department chair at the rank of professor. Due to a strategic administrative realignment, in 2006 the department expanded to become a division within the USC School of Dentistry, and Dr. Clark was appointed the inaugural associate dean of the newly created division.

Dr. Clark was installed as the first Mrs. T.H. Chan Professor in Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, an endowed faculty position created in 2014 by the unprecedented $20 million gift made by USC Trustee Ronnie C. Chan and his family, which also formally named the division as the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Dr. Clark will continue to hold this named professorship.

“It has been a tremendous honor to serve as our division’s associate dean and chair,” said Dr. Clark. “I am so grateful for the many accomplishments, friendships, discoveries and joys that have imbued my personal and professional life, and I am invigorated to return to being a full-time scientist and educator on our faculty.”

During Dr. Clark’s 27 years of leadership, the USC Chan Division has grown exponentially: its budget today is 22 times larger than what it was in 1989, the faculty size has grown from seven members to more than 80 full-time members and extramural research funding has increased to more than $27 million of cumulative federal support.

During her tenure as chair, Dr. Clark also served one term as president of the American Occupational Therapy Association, acquired more than $10 million of federal research funding on most grants of which she served as principal investigator and was instrumental in securing the Chan family’s naming gift, the first and largest of its kind made to any occupational therapy program in the history of the field.

“We have been very fortunate to benefit from her leadership,” wrote Dean Sadan in the announcement. “I look forward to . . . her continued accomplishments as she returns to life as a full-time academic.”

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