Cool program at my alma mater

[Fatman]

Her odyssey ends with a UW degree

 

Sugar cookies, warm potato casserole, fresh fruit and crisply cut vegetables towered high on the table.

Students greeted one another with boisterous laughter and hugs, grabbed heaping plates of food, then settled in with a buzz of energy for a discussion on Charles Dickens.

The mood was joyous -- and not just because it was the last class of the semester.

One of their own is graduating from UW-Madison.

The Odyssey Project provides six free credits at UW-Madison to students who otherwise couldn't afford to go to college. The idea is to jump-start college coursework for people who have gotten sidetracked along the path to higher education.

On Sunday, for the first time, a student who started in the 7-year-old program will see it to the idealized end -- graduating from UW-Madison.

Kegan Carter, a 32-year-old mother of three, participated in the program's very first class in 2003.

By working, leaning on the Odyssey program, feeding her children lots of pizza, and sometimes getting up three hours early to take the bus across town to class, she will graduate with a degree in English.

"It's a lot of work, I'll say that much. But it's possible and it's doable," she said. "A million excuses could come up, like, I can't do it this year. I'm sick. No child care. No money. No transportation. But you can't let that stop you."

Carter moved to Madison in 1999 from Chicago, pregnant and with a 4-year-old son in tow. Her housing plans fell through and she ended up living at the YWCA for about four months, sharing a small room with three people and sleeping in a bunk bed.

Over the next few years, she worked one minimum-wage job after another. But she loved to read, and would frequently visit the library to take out books.

There, she saw a pamphlet offering a chance to go to college for free. Carter applied that day and was accepted into the Odyssey Project, where students meet once a week from September to May in a room at the Harambee Center, 2202 S. Park St., to read Plato, Emily Dickinson, the Federalist Papers and more.

They earn six college credits in English and get an introduction to history, art history and philosophy.

The program's director, English professor Emily Auerbach, provides a warm and supportive environment for people who may be attending college courses for the first time or returning after a long hiatus. There's also free child care.

Like a nosy aunt, Auerbach also stays in her students' lives after they leave the program.

"It's become kind of this big family," she said. "I think besides money, it's also important to have support when you're trying to work your way through school."

Of the program's roughly $200,000 annual budget -- which comes from sources including private donations and the university -- about half goes toward helping the program's graduates with books, fees or other supplies as they continue through college, Auerbach said.

Carter said the program's support helped her to continue taking classes at Madison Area Technical College and then UW-Madison. Although she worked, often full time, the program filled in gaps left by her financial aid checks, paying for photography equipment and even the fees to join an honor society at MATC.

"There's no shame in being poor, and yet we make people feel that way, as if there's a failing," Auerbach said. "The reality is that college is increasingly an opportunity for the elite, and it shouldn't be. Especially not at a land-grant institution like UW."

More than half of the students who have gone through the Odyssey Project are in school, slowly working toward degrees and certificates, Auerbach said. One other student has graduated with a four-year degree, from Edgewood College, but Carter will be the first to graduate from UW-Madison.

Wednesday night's Odyssey class was the last of the semester before winter break. Before launching into a reading of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," Carter had a few words of encouragement for the students.

"You have a bit of a break -- a lot of break actually," she said to some laughs, "from now until the next time this class meets. And I want to encourage you all not to give up in the interim."

Carter hopes to one day become an English professor and has applied to become a teacher through the Teach for America program.

 

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/edu...efe8cb17c6.html

[Chief Dick]

That's a great story.