Hamilton College
Skip Main Navigation
Skip Section Navigation The ACCESS Project Exhibit and Invited Lectures
Contact Information
Vivyan Adair

2001 Year End Report

ABSTRACT


The ACCESS Project at Hamilton College is a demonstration educational, social service, and career program that assists profoundly low-income parents in central New York in their efforts to move from welfare and low-wage work to meaningful and secure career employment through the pathway of higher education. Our program supports this increasingly at-risk population through an intensive and fully supported introduction to liberal arts education, coupled with comprehensive social service, family, and career support. As a result, in the year and a half that that our program has been in operation, our students have survived--indeed they have thrived--at Hamilton College. Our program has demonstrated that with hard work and adequate support, poor parents are able to earn post-secondary educational degrees, gain economic security, and become increasingly confident and productive citizens, workers, parents, and leaders in their communities.

Our program is generously supported by Hamilton College, The State of New York,The Watson Lowery Memorial Fund and the Frank W. Baker Fund of the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties, The Charles A. Frueauff Foundation, a United States Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant and a work site development contract administered through the New York State Department of Labor.

PDF version of the complete report
Return to Table of Contents

Photo Exhibit
ACCESS Photo Exhibit in Houston
A nationally touring exhibit of 50 framed, museum quality, color photographs coupled with narratives created by students who are welfare eligible, single parents changing their lives through the pathway of higher education.  The installation presents a unique view of poverty from insiders’ perspectives and reframes the cultural (de)valuations of poor single parents vis-Ă -vis family, work and higher education in the United States today. View the Gallery Guide.