Carleton College has established the Clement F. Shearer Fund for Achieving Common Ground to honor the memory of Clem Shearer, one of the College’s most admired and respected administrators. The memorial endowment will support programs encouraging students to develop the service and leadership skills needed to help the campus or other communities achieve common ground amid differences.
At the time of his death in May 1998, Shearer was dean for budget and planning and professor of geology. In addition to preparing Carleton’s annual budget, overseeing the College’s facilities planning, and teaching in the geology department, Shearer spent a great deal of time participating in thoughtful debate on sensitive topics such as diversity.
Cynthia Shearer, Clem’s wife and senior lecturer in French and director of the Language Center at Carleton, noted that among Clem’s strengths were "his ability to listen well, courage to speak out on matters facing the campus that were sensitive and therefore highly charged, and an openness that welcomed thoughtful debate, whatever the topic." The name for the fund is modeled after "In Search of Common Ground," the title of a book by Howard Thurman, an African-American theologian whose works Clem and Cynthia often discussed.
Clem Shearer worked at Carleton for nine years before his death at age 49. He was respected for his leadership skills, served on many committees and played an integral role in Carleton’s governance system. He supervised numerous administrative departments and was well-known for his strolls across campus, often stopping in offices to engage colleagues in conversation. Prior to coming to Carleton, he worked for the U.S. Geological Survey for 10 years. He was a graduate of Brown University and received his Ph.D. in earth sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The Clement F. Shearer Fund for Achieving Common Ground was established by gifts to Carleton in memory of Clem by faculty, students, staff, trustees, alumni, family and friends. Its first use will be to support Carleton’s April 6 convocation, a talk by local author Cheri Register, whose book "Packinghouse Daughter" merges memoir and public history to tell about family loyalty, small-town life and working-class values in the context of a 1959 labor strike in the meat-packing industry in Albert Lea, Minn. Her talk, titled "PhD=Packinghouse Daughter: Breaking the Taboo About Social Class," is part of Carleton’s six-week series of events focusing on privilege systems and diversity.
"I believe, as did Clem, that there is value in striving to reach common ground, especially when much divides us. I know Clem would be proud to have his name associated with a fund to which his colleagues, students, friends, and family contributed for that very purpose," Cynthia said.