Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

The Ph.D. treadmill is a long and intense ordeal of taking classes, helping teach classes, taking qualifying exams, doing research, proposing a thesis and then defending that thesis. All fairly well established and with clear requirements for continuing on to the next step. However, the need to produce and “’pass” was ever present. Michigan State [...]

Professor Sparks was excited. “Good, we finally have a clear difference of opinion here.” He continued quickly. “Joe, you did not think that the conclusions were supported by the data. What data would you personally want to see to support those conclusions?” I was on the spot and all alone on my opinion, but felt [...]

I was asked, or more precisely, ordered one semester, to do some lectures to the undergraduate physiology class on thermoregulation and thermogeneration in mammals. More simply stated, a series of lectures on how we keep warm. The senior lecturer for the class gave me some outline material and also the types of test questions that [...]

In graduate school I was taking classes with some incredibly bright students. There were two people who were veterinarians studying for Ph.Ds. and an MD/Ph.D. student as well as regular Ph.D. students. All of them were superstars in their undergraduate programs or even in their first doctorate degree. I say all of “them” because I [...]

 The more physiology I learned, the more I realized that I needed to learn a lot more physiology. I had a reasonable understanding of applied physiology between having worked on an ambulance to help pay for college and my experience as an athletic trainer, and my bachelor’s in chemistry gave me a solid foundation in [...]

After a lot of discussions and reading, I asked Dr. Dillon if I could be his graduate student to work on a Ph.D. in physiology, after my masters was done. He asked me if I knew what kind of research project I wanted to do, I said yes and gave a brief outline of a [...]

The following week I did extremely well on my finals. I stayed in town and went looking for another job, because I would need it to earn the money to pay for graduate school. Also, as an out-of-state student, I needed to have a graduate assistantship at the university. Otherwise my tuition would be much [...]

“OK, I’ll lock up the training room. I suggest you get someone here for when practice ends.” I said. Clint hung up on me before I could say any more. Right then one of the wrestlers came in asking to have his wrist taped. I of course obliged him and told him I had just [...]

We were learning how to relieve back and neck tension by back and neck cracking along with muscle stretching. Because I had a solid anatomy background from dissecting Clare, all the lessons made tons of sense to me. The muscle stretching would focus on loosening the longest and strongest muscles to increase range of motion [...]

 I studied for and passed the Certification exam for the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and became a certified athletic trainer the summer before starting graduate school at Michigan State University. I left for Michigan State to join the training staff who were going to work with the football players at the start of camp for [...]