Bruce Clarke graduated from Ithaca College in 1967 with a B.A. in History, which he earned as a member of the College’s “Triplum” program.

 

While at IC, Bruce became a member of Delta Kappa, a social fraternity, and served as president of the frat my senior year. He also competed on the school’s wrestling team for two years.

 

After graduating from IC, Clarke attended Georgetown Law Center, but in 1968 was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army. After finishing his service, he returned to Georgetown, graduating in 1973. While in law school Clarke was invited to become an editor on the school’s International Law Review.

 

After graduating, Bruce worked for the D.C. Public Defender Service (PDS), and later in the law partnership Clarke and Graae. During this time, he began taking acting classes, to become a better trial lawyer. Clarke enjoyed the classes so much that he left the law and went to New York to study acting and script analysis with Stella Adler. In these classes he met his wonderful wife, Mary Beth Lerner.

 

While in New York, he also wrote the first of several plays, Bluesman, which was produced at the Kennedy Center and in regional theaters.

 

Mary Beth and Bruce married and settled in D.C., where he resumed work at PDS and worked at the Federal Judicial Center, eventually becoming Director of the Center’s Education Division, which develops education programs for federal judges. During his tenure, Bruce supervised about fifty attorneys and educators.

 

Bruce and Mary Beth have three wonderful children, Adam and twins Evan and Louisa. Louisa is a 2014 Ithaca College graduate.

 

Mr. Clarke served on IC’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee for several years, and currently serves on the Board of ICUnity. Since retiring in 2015, he’s published a book of short stories and a novel focused on criminal justice issues. Bruce also began teaching a Fiction Workshop for inmates at the D.C. Jail, for Georgetown’s Prisons & Justice Initiative—which he continues to teach.