Free Minds
June 2012
Welcome to our e-newsletter
Minds in Motion  

In this month's newsletter, we commemorate the life of Earl Shorris and celebrate his ideas coming to fruition in our midst: we've got an Open House, an alumni master class, and a creative writing workshop coming up. Read on!
From Harper's Magazine to the Class of 2013: Remembering Earl Shorris

 

On May 26, 2012, Earl Shorris, founder of the Clemente Course in the Humanities, the program that inspired the Free Minds Project, died at age 75. Shorris first wrote about his "experimental" course for

Harper's Magazine in 1997. Originally offered on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Clemente Course model has traveled from New York to Austin, Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, and as far away as Buenos Aires. Here, Dr. Sylvia Gale (SG), founding director of Free Minds, and Free Minds Director Viv� Griffith (VG) remember their first encounters with Shorris's bold idea and chart its lineage to the applications for next year's Free Minds class.

 

SG: I can still remember the charge I felt the first time I read Shorris's essay in Harper's. It was the winter of 1998. I had recently graduated from Reed College, and I was living in western Colorado, caretaking a friend's adobe house and recovering from a severe back injury. I discovered the piece in a stack of old magazines and read it next to the picture windows at dusk. Shorris described the Clemente Course as an experiment to test his hypothesis that people could transform their lives by doing the kind of reflective thinking that would lead them towards autonomy--by engaging in the life of the mind. Reading about it in my quiet mountain hideaway, I felt literally electrified, buzzing with the sense that Shorris and his first group of students had traveled across an immense--yet bridgeable--divide.

 

VG: I like to imagine Sylvia and I reading that article simultaneously across our own divide, this one geographic. I encountered Shorris's essay while teaching composition to freshman at the University of Cincinnati, where I was a graduate student in English. I was young and excited, and surprised to discover my students had to be dragged through a curriculum they considered little more than an inconvenient diversion on their way to careers in business and engineering. In a sly move, the head of the rhetoric department had filled our course reader with texts meant to challenge students to think of their education on broader terms. That's where I first read Shorris. I don't have any idea if the article left an impact on my students, but it certainly affected me. A decade after teaching it, I heard about a similar program being piloted in Austin, and I leapt to be involved.

 

This article is continued on our blog.

Free Minds to Host Open House

 

Are you interested in sharing your expertise with

Free Minds as a volunteer or advisory council member?

 

We would love to see you at our first ever *Open House*

Thursday, July 12 at 6pm

M Station Apartments

 

To RSVP or get additional information, please contact

the Free Minds office.

Want to Be Part of the Free Minds Class of 2013?

 

We are currently accepting applications for next year's Free Minds class. You can find information about course content and eligibility on our website. The application deadline is July 6. 

Click here to apply now!

Summer Writing Opportunities

 

 

Free Minds is offering two great opportunities to hang out with your inner author this summer. Both are totally free and will take place at the Community Engagement Center, 1009 East 11th Street. You can find more detailed information on our blog.

 

 

Tuesday, June 26, 7pm

USING READING TO INSPIRE YOUR WRITING
Master class with Viv� Griffith and Amelia Pace-Borah
 

Free Minds Alums, join us for an evening of writing exercises in which we will use existing texts to spark our own creative work. No preparation is required, and you need only bring yourself.  

 

TUESDAYS from July 10 to August 28, 6:30-8:30pm

SUMMER CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP
 

During this eight-week long writing workshop, you will get to explore your creative potential, share your stories, and improve your comfort and skill as a writer. No experience is necessary and everyone is welcome. To REGISTER or ask questions, get in touch with us: 512-232-6093 OR freeminds@austin.utexas.edu

 

Volunteers Needed

 

 July is a busy month at the Free Minds office, as we interview applicants and select our new class. We need several volunteers to help us with incoming applications and our July 12 open house. Day and evening time slots are available. Please contact our office if you can help!

Issue 27
In This Issue
Remembering Earl Shorris
Free Minds to Host Open House
Want to be part of Free Minds?
Write with Us this Summer
Volunteers Needed
The Final Word

 

 

Special Thanks 



With just a few weeks left before our application deadline (July 6th!) we are especially grateful for our recruitment partners. Thank you to those who invited us to present during your staff meetings and who spread the word through your company newsletters. Thank you for passing out brochures, for telling your friends and clients about Free Minds and for helping us identify applicants for what will certainly be a strong and diverse class of 2013!

 

 

Any Baby Can | Austin Parks and Recreation Department | Austin Public Library | Capital Metro | Caritas | City of Austin Human Resources Division | Communities in Schools | Feria Para Aprender | Foundation Communities | Goodwill of Central Texas | Housing Authority of the City of Austin | Safeplace | Saint Louise House | | Skillpoint Alliance | The Villager

 

 

 

 If you are interested in volunteering with or supporting Free Minds, you can find more information on our website.




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Interview with Free Minds student Stacey Kennedy
YOUTUBE: Stacey Kennedy, Free Minds '12, and her son Richmond talk about their journey from homelessness to college.

 

 

Minds in Motion

Archive

 

 

 

May 2012

This month we celebrate the outstanding Free Minds Class of 2012!

 

April 2012

 In the home stretch of this year's class, spring renewal comes to Free Minds.

 

March 2012

  With all of the bustle that comes with a rigorous academic year, we set aside time to eat together.

    

  

 

Looking for earlier newsletters? Visit our complete 

online archive.

 

 

 

 

The Final Word
Earl Shorris on the first class meeting of the Clemente Course in Humanities
 

  

The following was excerpted from Earl Shorris' book Riches for the Poor (W.W. Norton, 1999), in which he describes his rationale for the course, its genesis and early results. Free Minds is grateful to Shorris for providing the innovative vision upon which our project was founded.

 

I told them there would be no lectures in the philosophy section of the course; we would use the Socratic method, which is called maieutic dialogue. "Maieutic comes from the Greek word for midwifery. I'll take the role of midwife in our dialogue. Now, what do I mean by that? What does a midwife do?"

 

It was the beginning of a love affair, the first moment of their infatuation with Socrates. If it is true that he was the first one to bring philosophy down to earth, it is also true that he was the first one to raise these students up to seriousness. Once he told them that the answer, the truth, was inside them and had only to be brought out through dialogue, they were never again to see themselves in the same way. The humanities became a mirror in which they saw their human worth, and like all lovers, they were transformed by love.

 

Later, Abel Lomas would characterize that moment in his no-nonsense fashion, saying it was the first time anyone had ever paid attention to their opinions. Keeping to the metaphor Socrates preferred, they were born.

The University of Texas at Austin
A program of the UT Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, in partnership with the UT Humanities Institute, Austin Community College, and Foundation Communities, Free Minds offers a two-semester college course in the humanities for Central Texas adults who want to fulfill their intellectual potential and begin a new chapter in their lives.

Free Minds Project
Community Engagement Center
1009 East 11th Street, #218
Austin TX 78702

Project Director: Viv� Griffith

Program Coordinator: Amelia Pace-Borah

 

Ph: 512-232-6093   F: 512-236-1729

www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/freeminds