Oregon Humanities

Life Lessons

Oregon Humanities' Humanity in Perspective course marks its tenth year in Portland

Eric Gold

When Julie Hommes found out about Humanity in Perspective (HIP), Oregon Humanities’ free college course for low-income adults, she had a seven-month-old baby. As a mother struggling to support her five children, she says, “My whole life was just run like I was trying to catch up. I didn’t feel like I had the freedom to say, ‘What do I want to do?’ ” Taking the HIP class, Hommes says, “completely changed the direction of the way my life was going.” Since completing the course, she has enrolled at Marylhurst University, creating an interdisciplinary degree called “healing spirituality.” She plans to pursue a Master of Divinity next year.

“It rubbed off on my husband, too,” Hommes says, “and he started to take chances.” Originally from Mexico, he has applied to AmeriCorps and hopes to teach in a dual-immersion English–Spanish language program. Hommes doesn’t regret following her heart when it comes to her education. “How can you tell your kids to follow their dreams,” she asks, “when all you can say is, ‘Don’t be like me’?” In fact, her son has followed her: he won a full-ride scholarship to Marylhurst to study music composition.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the HIP program in Portland in partnership with Reed College. Ninety-nine students have graduated from the full-year course, and thirty-five have completed one semester. In 2009, Oregon Humanities launched a one-semester summer HIP course in Salem in partnership with Willamette University. Reed and Willamette professors teach in the program.

Pancho Savery, a Reed humanities professor, has taught HIP classes since the beginning of the program. “HIP students,” he says, “are working full time, they have kids, and they’re dealing with health and legal issues. They bring that wealth of experience in the real world to their reading of the texts.” Those texts include ancient works by Plato and Sophocles and early American writings by Frederick Douglass and the Grimke sisters, among others—all selected to provide varied approaches to democracy and civil rights. “Our vision,” says Savery, “is that the course is helping people to become better citizens.” He notes that a class discussion inspired at least one student to vote for the first time.

Graduates also receive college credit, which was a big draw for HIP alumna Sharnissa Clemons, who has gone on to earn a master’s degree in social work at Portland State University. “I applied because I wanted the credits,” she says, “but being in that thinking environment sparked a love for the arts.”

Now, Clemons does casework for the state Department of Human Services. In the HIP program, Clemons says, “I was exposed to the quote, ‘the unexamined life isn’t worth living.’ I keep that close to my heart. I’m still trying to figure it out, though. I always ask myself, exactly what part of my life do I need to examine?”