Meet Arendt Speser
February 7, 2018
Academic Director, Clemente Course, Port Townsend, WA
There’s a new kid on the Clemente block. In 2017, Dr. Arendt Oak Speser joined the team as the new academic director of Jefferson Clemente. He’s the program’s second director, stepping into the role vacated by Clemente National Program Director Lela Hilton, who founded the Port Townsend, WA, program in 1999.
For Arendt, the decision to return to his hometown on the Olympic Peninsula to work with Clemente was obvious. “As someone who has dedicated his scholastic and professional life to the humanities, using a curriculum like this to address the cycle of poverty makes perfect sense to me,” he said. “I believe these works are relevant to people from all walks of life.”
Port Townsend is the most rural of Clemente programs, situated in a town of just 9,000 residents. Arendt understands the need to consider the specific nature of the place when designing the program. In fact, his familiarity with the community is one of the many strengths he brings to his new job.
“Arendt is uniquely prepared to guide Clemente here,” said Lela Hilton. “He has deep appreciation and affection for the place, but is clear-eyed about the fact that the remarkable natural and cultural resources we have here can very easily gloss over what is not only deep economic disparity, but also a profound insularity among and between people.”
Thus, Arendt sees his first task as opening doors. He takes inspiration from a surprising source: the years he spent running programs for the University of Washington in Rome, Italy. Like Clemente, those classes were interdisciplinary and provided a powerful educational experience for students.
“Working in Rome encouraged me to think about breaking down barriers, even in terms of classroom space,” he said. “I’d ask students to go out into the city, to visit a museum or find something to draw, and I’d see them come alive in a way that was directly related to their lived experience.”
That connection to lived experience is essential to the Clemente classroom as well. If the program is to serve the students and the community as it always has, participants must engage not just with the texts, but with their relevance to their lives today. “As much as possible I want students to see that the work they do academically is directly related to who they are and their choices in life,” he said. “In their encounters with the humanities, I want to ask, ‘How can you make them your own? How can you apply them to your life?’”
Jefferson Clemente alumni will have the chance to answer that question this spring, when Arendt leads a bridge course for them, with a complete faculty of five professors. He’s also offering a workshop on Homer’s Odyssey to community members, who can have their own encounters with the humanities through a groundbreaking new translation of the text.
Port Townsend is the most rural of Clemente programs, situated in a town of just 9,000 residents. Arendt understands the need to consider the specific nature of the place when designing the program. In fact, his familiarity with the community is one of the many strengths he brings to his new job.
“Arendt is uniquely prepared to guide Clemente here,” said Lela Hilton. “He has deep appreciation and affection for the place, but is clear-eyed about the fact that the remarkable natural and cultural resources we have here can very easily gloss over what is not only deep economic disparity, but also a profound insularity among and between people.”
Thus, Arendt sees his first task as opening doors. He takes inspiration from a surprising source: the years he spent running programs for the University of Washington in Rome, Italy. Like Clemente, those classes were interdisciplinary and provided a powerful educational experience for students.
“Working in Rome encouraged me to think about breaking down barriers, even in terms of classroom space,” he said. “I’d ask students to go out into the city, to visit a museum or find something to draw, and I’d see them come alive in a way that was directly related to their lived experience.”
That connection to lived experience is essential to the Clemente classroom as well. If the program is to serve the students and the community as it always has, participants must engage not just with the texts, but with their relevance to their lives today. “As much as possible I want students to see that the work they do academically is directly related to who they are and their choices in life,” he said. “In their encounters with the humanities, I want to ask, ‘How can you make them your own? How can you apply them to your life?’”
Jefferson Clemente alumni will have the chance to answer that question this spring, when Arendt leads a bridge course for them, with a complete faculty of five professors. He’s also offering a workshop on Homer’s Odyssey to community members, who can have their own encounters with the humanities through a groundbreaking new translation of the text.
You will live as long as your life has meaning. I embarked on this educational journey to satisfy my life’s desire to learn. This opportunity crossed my path at the right moment and is supplying me with the chance to evaluate my ability to perform on the college level with like-minded people within the veteran’s community, where a person can always find support. All of the instructors and staff are helpful! Thank you for this possibility. – George, Coast Guard, Ocean City, NJ The New Jersey Clemente Course Veterans Initiative (CCVI) launched its second cohort on September 25, 2025, welcoming twenty-four veterans from every branch of service. The cohort includes eight women; and while most come from communities across New Jersey, the course has also drawn participants from New York. Part of the wider Clemente Veterans Initiative and operating in partnership with the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and Atlantic Cape Community College , the CCVI brings transformative humanities education to those who have served.
You may be familiar with Clemente's 30+ programs across the United States, but did you know that Clemente also has a long and rich history in Australia?
The Clemente Course in Worcester, MA continues to thrive through partnerships that bring the humanities to life in unexpected ways. Hosted by the Worcester Art Museum , the course benefits from inspiring classroom space and exclusive after-hours gallery tours led by Art History instructor Elissa Chase, the first of which took place in early October. A new partnership with Indigo Fire Studio in Watertown brought an especially hands-on dimension to learning this fall: the studio donated 25 pounds of clay and kiln space; and under the guidance of Mass Humanities' Sarah Carroll, students participated in a clay handbuilding class that wove together Philosophy of Art, Art History, and creative expression.
Amy Howard on how Clemente changed her life and her community.
25 years ago, The Clemente Course partnered with Illinois Humanities to offer free college-level humanities courses to low-income adults in Chicago through The Odyssey Project and Proyecto Odisea . Clemente Executive Director, Dr. Aaron Rosen, recently joined Dulce Maria Diaz (Odyssey Project alumna and founder of the SHE Gallery ) and Dr. Rebecca Amato (Director of Teaching and Learning, Illinois Humanities) on the Federation of State Humanities podcast Humanities= . In this episode, hear how this transformative program changes lives!
The Clemente Course in the Humanities is proud to announce writer and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay as the first recipient of the Public Humanities Prize.