2003 Year End Report
From the Director
This spring I had the great honor of being recognized as the 2003 North
Seattle Community College Alumni of the Year. During the commencement
ceremony in which I was honored, student leaders passionately recounted
their poignant and powerful stories of transformation -- from abandoned
mother of five to class valedictorian; from homeless youth to confident
and capable scholar citizen; from impoverished and under-skilled single
parent to securely employed and "upward bound" professional -- to a rapt
audience made up of families and friends whose lives had been similarly
impacted by the experiences of these students. As I went on to offer
the commencement address to this year's proud graduating class, I
recalled my own journey of educational transformation -- begun at North
College over fifteen years ago -- and that of ACCESS students at Hamilton
College, realizing their own greatest potential, today. Witnessing
events like these has instilled in me, and continues to confirm my
deeply held belief that the academy can be a place where students
transform their lives and those of their families and communities in
profound, life-altering ways.
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Vivyan
Adair, ACCESS Project Director and North Seattle Community College
"Alumni of the Year" for 2003, with Seattle Community College President
Ron LaFayette (left) and Chancellor Peter Ku (right).
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I too had come to North Seattle Community
College as a very fragile and unsure single parent and welfare
recipient without the skills, knowledge, credentials, self-esteem or
vision necessary to support and nurture my family. At North I was
challenged by able and patient instructors who encouraged me to
positively transform my life through the pathway of higher education.
My passage was guided by those teachers whose classrooms became places
where I was able to build bridges between my own knowledge of the world
and crucial new knowledge, skills, and methodologies. Highly skilled
and dedicated faculty created exciting, interactive exercises and
orchestrated intensely challenging discussions that enabled me to
embrace a vast range of knowledge and to use my newfound skills to
re-envision my gifts, strengths, and responsibilities to the world
around me. Little by little the larger social, creative, political, and
material world exposed itself to me in ways that were resonant and
urgent, inviting me to analyze, negotiate, articulate, and reframe
systems, histories, and pathways that had previously seemed
inaccessible. The process was invigorating, restorative, and
life-altering.
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ACCESS students Art Jamison and George Lanaux
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Students in The ACCESS Project at Hamilton College experience just such
an inviting, unfolding, and regenerative process. Through carefully
designed lectures, workshops, readings, discussions, and
exercises -- again under the guidance of extraordinarily gifted and
dedicated educators -- ACCESS students learn to make connections between
their own knowledge of the world and the theories, analysis, and
history of others. In the process they begin to alter not just the
surface skills and knowledge they hold, but the way they think, problem
solve, communicate, work, lead others and value themselves, becoming
increasingly able, educated, and engaged thinkers and citizens in the
fullest senses of the terms. Through the acquisition of new knowledge
and methods, students increasingly make connections between education
and civic engagement, authority and responsibility, reaching their own
fullest potential as individuals and life-time learners; becoming both
civically invested and engaged; and beginning to think clearly about
and work for the betterment of their families and the culture as a
whole. Like me, and like so many of the fortunate students who
graduated from North Seattle Community College in June, ACCESS students
develop a complex and finely nuanced understanding of the world we live
in and commit themselves to engaging in its systems and with others
with integrity, ethics, vision, and energy.
As I spoke at the North Seattle Community College graduation, our third
ACCESS class came to a close for the summer. When I returned to
Hamilton College, my colleagues and I reflected back with pride on the
accomplishments of the past year, taking the opportunity to both
celebrate the significant successes of our students, and to address and
analyze the many challenges that continue to impede the progress of
others. This Year End Report for 2003 reflects both that analysis and
our shared senses of pride and purpose.
To date over sixty low-income parent students in our program have begun
the journey of transforming their lives, and those of their families,
with determination, commitment, and hard work. This year's ACCESS class
has worked diligently to successfully complete courses in Mathematics,
English, Anthropology, Philosophy, Science, Political Science, Art, and
Critical Thinking. As a group they have had to overcome enormous
obstacles to complete their studies, work, and care for their children;
they have done so with courage, determination, and increasing skill and
confidence. Supported by ACCESS faculty, staff, tutors, social service
coordinators, and career consultants, ACCESS students have begun to
fulfill their potential as scholars, productively employed
pre-professionals, parents, scholars and citizens.
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ACCESS student Manilai Brown
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This year two of our first year's ACCESS students graduated; both with
honors and bright futures ahead of them. Teresa Willmore graduated
Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree and ranked third in the
2003 class of Hamilton College graduates with a grade point of 94.82.
During her three years at Hamilton College she was also presented with
four prestigious literary and writing awards for top achievement in her
class. She did this all while raising and working to support her two
beloved children. Teresa is now working to save money to attend
graduate school in the fall of 2004, where she hopes to study either
library science or English education. As one of Teresa's Hamilton
College English professors put it: "Teresa will make a major
contribution to our field: she is simply one of the brightest, most
capable students I have ever had the privilege of teaching. What a
waste it would have been had we not been made aware of her sizable
talent and potential."
ACCESS student Karen Czerkies graduated Cum Laude in Psychology this
year, with a solid A grade average. She earned these grades while
working full-time and caring for four teenaged children on her own.
Like Teresa, Karen is now gainfully employed but hopes to eventually
pursue a graduate degree, leading to a professional career in
psychology.
Karen and Teresa graduated early; their colleagues are also fairing
nicely as rising seniors at Hamilton College and at Utica College of
Syracuse University. Emin Hodzic is completing a pre-med program at
Hamilton College, has been trained as an Emergency Medical Technician,
works as a physician's assistant, and did very well on his MCAT exams.
Maintaining a difficult pre-med and work schedule and caring for his
family, his cumulative grade point is 89.61. In the fall of 2005 he
will attend medical school. Emin is committed to staying in the region
to serve "[his] friends and neighbors who need health care, are poor,
and have been there for [him] all along."
Ellen Jamison has a similarly remarkable story. With the help of her
wonderful husband (and ACCESS student) Art, Ellen studies (earning very
high grades), cares for her six year old son Andy, and works as a
research assistant in Hamilton College's psychology department. Ellen's
work with Professor Julie Dunsmore has garnered great acclaim
nationally. Ellen hopes to continue this work with her mentor at
Virginia Tech, as a graduate student in the fall of 2004. The work she
completes will undoubtedly make a major contribution to our
understanding of the assessment of child development in New York State
and around the nation.
Rising seniors Serena Belmont and Kirstin Howard at Hamilton College
and Terry Moran and Rose Cotrich at Utica College of Syracuse
University are making equally impressive headway. Serena is designing
computer integrated classroom technology that will be of enormous value
in education, media, and the arts; Kirstin is earning a degree in
dance, running a youth dance and arts program, and apprenticing as a
choreographer and production assistant. Terry is completing a degree in
criminal justice and Rose is working and earning a degree that will
lead to professional employment in law and public policy. All four are
superb students; reliable and increasingly proficient workers; strong,
knowledgeable, and committed citizens; and wonderful parents.
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ACCESS student Kenya Cyrus
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Students from our second and third year are additionally studying,
earning credits, gaining experience, working, contributing to and
setting examples for their children by pursuing degrees in the fields
of Communication, Public Policy, Education, Pre-Nursing, Pre-Law, and
Social Services. They work assiduously to increase and hone their
skills, knowledge, and methodology; to gain pivotal credentials; to
become clearer and more invested thinkers, citizens and community
leaders; to nurture, support and inspire their families; and to reshape
their own lives and futures. We are proud of and grateful to all of our
students for allowing us to be a part of these, their momentous quests,
and we remain convinced that these transformations represent the power
and potential of higher education at its very best.
Vivyan C. Adair, Ph.D.
Director, The ACCESS
Project at Hamilton College
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