25th Anniversary
"The humanities have great appeal to give people a sense of self, to see the world and themselves differently in the Greek sense of reflective thinking, of autonomy. People who know the humanities become good citizens, become active, not acted upon.”
Clemente Founder, Earl Shorris, 2000
Then
25 years ago in the spring of 1996, the Clemente Course in the Humanities graduated its first class from the Roberto Clemente Guidance Center in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Founder Earl Shorris, seeking to understand the roots of poverty in the U.S., had developed a rigorous humanities course like the ones he’d taken himself as a student at the University of Chicago. He had been inspired by interviews he’d conducted with thousands of people, and with one incarcerated woman, Veniece Walker, who told him that those struggling economically needed access to “a moral alternative to the street.” To Shorris, that moral life was embodied in the humanities. Within a year of that first course ten of Clemente’s first sixteen graduates were attending four-year colleges or going to nursing school; four with full scholarships to Bard College. The others were attending community college or working full-time. (To read more about the origins of Shorris's groundbreaking work,
click here.)
Now
Today Clemente has more than 30 courses operating across the U.S. from rural Washington State to the large urban centers of Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Chicago. Each course is embedded in its local community in partnership with key academic institutions, social service and cultural organizations, and local and regional funders.
Future
Our Vision for the Next 25 Years is for Clemente to continue to support the aspirations of our students and expand to more underserved communities. We move forward guided by the priorities outlined in our five-year strategic plan.
- offer multi-year matching start-up funds to help establish ten new courses in the next five years
- increase retention by 50% by offering access to more wrap-around services and emergency funds for our students
- support students after graduation by establishing a national alumni network to offer additional courses for credit, internships, and college counselling
- maintain the highest academic standards by providing on-going professional development opportunities for our faculty;
- increase diversity by establishing an advisory council of alumni and stakeholders to ensure that our board of directors, staff, academic directors, faculty and curriculum reflect the rich cultural and life experience of our students
- increase access for place-bound students through hybrid and online platforms
- create opportunity for graduates to become community leaders and creators of knowledge on topics that are important to them through service learning, published essays, Op Eds, and documentary films
- share expertise about serving non-traditional adult students in higher education, public humanities, and community education settings
Clemente teaches altruism. Most of us, when we come in, are on the needing end of everything. We are down, have minimal resources, and feel pretty powerless. What we learn from Clemente is that we have something to give to our communities, and we want to do that. It's pretty empowering, and it changes how we see ourselves.
Paula H. Class of 2007, Port Townsend