INSIDE ON CAMPUS

Bridging the gap between workforce and higher education

By Tara Chandler

Free Minds Project student Beloved Ailsworth participates in a discussion during one ofthe program's two-hour evening sessions.
Photo: Christina Murrey

Dreams of college don’t always seem attainable for those with little money and time, juggling family and work. The Free Minds Project at the Humanities Institute changed that way of thinking for 15 Austin residents and aims to spread the word that college is possible for everyone.

The project’s successful pilot program began Aug. 28 with its first meeting and ended nine months later with a graduation ceremony on May 21.

The Free Minds Project is a college-level course in the humanities for adults living on low to moderate incomes.

“It’s a response to a gap in Austin and also the country between the educational opportunities available to people with low income and their access to education,” said Sylvia Gale, project director.

Professors applaud the program’s first graduating class of 15 students during a ceremony on May 21. (left to right) Student Gilbert Romero; Stacy Wolf (Theater), Jim Sidbury (History), Jill Dolan (Theater), Evan Carton (Literature) and Eileen Abrahams (writing consultant).
Photo: Marsha Miller

“There are a lot of options for workforce training but nothing as far as language arts training that challenges you intellectually,” Gale said. “Free Minds is a transition program to college – an intellectual jump start that creates a true college level class. It isn’t watered down.”

The project’s journey to the university began with Gale and an article she read in Harper’s Magazine in 1997 about the success of the Clemente Course in the Humanities, which originated in New York City, and was created by sociologist and humanitarian Earl Shorris.

Gale saved the article, knowing that someday and somewhere she would find a way to start a similar program. That opportunity came when she joined the university’s Humanities Institute four years ago and through the support of its director, Evan Carton, started the Free Minds Project.

The students met twice a week for two hours over the nine-month period. Five university professors and one Austin Community College (ACC) professor lectured on philosophy, literature, classics, U.S. history, theater and writing, creating an intense arena for discourse among the students.

“It is more like an upper level Plan II course,” Gale said. “The reason it works to build student confidence is because they are the ones who make it work each night.

Photo: Christina Murrey

“It’s a way of raising the expectations for themselves and their children. They now have the confidence to help their kids with homework and they teach them that they need to go to college.”

Abbie Navarrete, a mother of three, was excited to share her new views and ideas with her children.

“This intellectual awakening has changed how I view myself, my place in my community and in the world,” she said.

“Most of my family has never completed high school, much less college, and although I have always told my children I expect them to finish high school and go on to college, I could not offer them an example in their own family,” Navarette said.

“I will show them how a formal education can change your outlook on life but even more important that people like us not only belong in the academic setting; we are needed because we have much to contribute.”

While all of the students were changed by the Free Minds Project experience, in the end, the professors learned just as much, if not more.

“Teaching the Free Minds Project has reminded me what teaching can be at its most fun,” said Jim Sidbury, associate professor of history. “The students in the class bring fresh and often completely unexpected perspectives to the texts that we discuss.”

Stacy Wolf and Jill Dolan taught the theater and dance portion of the program and in the beginning wondered if the students would be able to get through it because of all the challenges they were dealing with in every day life.

“It seemed daunting. It seemed impossible,” Wolf said.

Week after week Wolf’s initial impression proved to be wrong as she was continually surprised by the “enthusiastic engagement” and “intense curiosity” of the students.

“I came away from each and every class not only having learned something new about the play we studied,” she said, “but also having learned something – or more often, a few things – that were new to me about teaching.”

The students are continuing to learn and realize their educational goals. Since May some have been meeting to discuss poetry and continue the many conversations and debates started by the Free Minds Project. Eleven are planning to enroll at ACC.