What is happening here? People living on the edge of poverty are talking about Plato and patriarchy?
For the last eight months, these students have been enrolled in The Venture Course in the Humanities, a free, interdisciplinary, college-level course run by the Utah Humanities Council. Their tuition, books, child care, and transportation have been provided through a grant from the Arts, Humanities, and Environment. Cultural Initiative and The Humanities Connection, two private foundations. Since September, they have studied literature and art history, critical writing, American history, and philosophy with professors from Westminster College and the University of Utah. They have written papers, read books, visited museums, completed research. Westminster offers eight units of college credit for students who pass all course requirements. Utah’s Venture Course in the Humanities is one of the latest programs in the country modeled on the Clemente Course in New York City, the brain-child of author and social activist Earl Shorris in 1995. A long-time student of why people are poor and sta
