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Vivyan Adair

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.

 Vivyan Adair with Seattle Community College President Ron LaFayette and Chancellor Peter Ku
 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).
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.

 ACCESS students
 ACCESS students Art Jamison and George Lanaux
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.

 Manilai Brown
ACCESS student Manilai Brown
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.

 Kenya Cyrus
ACCESS student Kenya Cyrus
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

PDF version of the complete report
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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-à-vis family, work and higher education in the United States today. View the Gallery Guide.