Alumni

Students & Alumni

THE CLEMENTE COURSE IN THE HUMANITIES ® inspires and equips motivated, low-income adults to take charge of their lives. Our year-long program activates students’ intelligence, fosters the skills to make informed decisions, and kindles the self-confidence to act upon them. Clemente uses the transformative experience of the humanities to spark a productive change in its students.


All Clemente students have faced significant barriers to their education. Without tried and tested critical skills, they risk being trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder. Through Clemente, students envision new horizons and greater goals.

A word from Clemente students

04 Oct, 2017
2016 Clemente Course Graduate from Kingston, NY
03 Oct, 2017
Anyone who wonders how the experience of studying the humanities translates to the real world should talk to Rosa Garza-Mourino. A longtime faculty member in Antioch's Clemente-inspired program, Bridge , in 2011 Rosa created Bridge Service Learning (BSL). This optional class for Bridge students gets them out of the classroom and into the neighborhoods of one of the country’s largest cities. Part service learning, part ethnographic fieldwork training, BSL offers students the opportunity to design and implement community building projects while reflecting on the humanities. “In BSL we ask critical questions about how to engage in the community,” Rosa says. “What does it mean to be inside? To be outside? How can we respectfully and ethically approach a community that is not necessarily our own and learn from them? How and why do we serve others? ” BSL students meet for two hours on Saturday mornings in addition to their twice-weekly Bridge classes and have the opportunity to earn additional college credit for the experience. The class meets in the streets of Little Tokyo and in South Los Angeles. With the collaboration of undergraduate teaching assistants, Rosa teaches students how to approach a community in three key ways. First, they enter as an observer. In fact, Rosa tells them to take the stance of the flaneur, the French figure associated with strolling in urban environments, halfway engaged and halfway detached. To do so, they have to shed their preconceptions, and even their digital devices. “The flaneur doesn’t need a phone,” Rosa tells her students. “Turn it off. Instead of a phone I’ll give you the tool of the flaneur—a clipboard—and teach you how to use it in a respectful way.” While observing the community, students are also making connections to the humanities and recording these in writing. Little Tokyo is filled with public art. Always striking to students is a traditional Ninomiya Kinjiro sculpture depicting a peasant philosopher who reads a book while carrying a load of wood on his back. When students encounter the sculpture they immediately make a connection between the scholar and the worker, saying, “That’s me!” In the next phase, students step into Central Avenue in South LA, a neighborhood with a rich history of African American creativity and resilience. Unlike the Little Tokyo streets, Central Avenue has no commissioned public art nor plaques that acknowledge its history. In order to learn from this community, students have to observe and analyze information produced by organized community members about their priorities. Finally, students identify realistic tools they can offer. Over the years students have provided a day of service for the local recreation center, or designed community resource fairs hosted by local organizations. The entire process is collaborative, and throughout students are writing, reflecting, and connecting the humanities conversations of their classrooms to the process. “In BSL we are flipping the narrative,” Rosa says. “Traditionally the demographic we work with in Bridge would be considered recipients or targets of service. Here they are becoming the providers of service. This is essential to the framework of the class. Students can eventually replicate these anywhere they choose to after graduation.” While the class is optional, students who participate in BSL are more likely to complete the regular Bridge class. They build strong partnerships in the community, and the class requires them to step up as leaders. In fact, Rosa believes that while the non-classroom setting of the course may tempt the teacher into controlling everything top down, her real job is to get out of the way. “There is a crucial moment in the learning process when I actively start stepping back as a teacher and make students realize they are already leading the process,” she says. “They take ownership of the idea they are standing for. They now know the humanities are portable. “
01 Jan, 2010
My original claim was to assert the need to reestablish an antiquated educational system by demonstrating the apathetic youth it has produced, however this being such a varied subject containing many holes for debate, I've decided to take on a less-cumbersome topic that I am much more familiar and comfortable with; Promoting the expansion of the Clemente Course using this entry as my first step in contribution. As stated by the Clemente Course "the aim of the course is to bring the clarity and beauty of the humanities to people who have been deprived of these riches through economic, social, or political forces. While the course is not intended as a preparation for college, many students have gone on to two- and four year colleges." Four months into this program, I and many other students easily recognize the growth in passion of knowledge among one another. The philosopher Socrates spent his entire life actively wondering why it was that he was regarded the wisest man in all of Athens as he admitted to not knowing anything. Ironically it is because of his admittance and awareness to not knowing anything that declared him wise, because he chased after the "why." At the Clemente, students are encouraged to impose questions upon themselves and to think in a manner that allows one to understand the brightest historical figures and most misunderstood writers alike. Socrates professed that it's best to venture into the things we don't understand, and much like his students, we are enlightened ever so on a weekly basis to do the same As a student to the course of the past four months I can say there is a certain flare our teacher's passions spark that becomes something of a forest fire over the minds of their students that drive them further on the subjects of humanities. A personal favorite occurrence of mine that I've come to enjoy is watching my classmates argue with one another. It's something I've grown to love watching for the sake that the arguments here are never over pointless scuffles, instead we have two sides of the room discuss a debate to challenge each other's beliefs in a very constructive manner. From small group sessions to a full class debate, it's always a sight to see when we share our diverse ideas and passions aloud. In Essence, the Clemente Course is truly a monument to the virtue of humanism. At first glance we are simply a room of people sitting in a box, but if you ask any of us in the most honest of words what it is we do; we learn, we think, and we write. Juan Baldera Affiliation: Clemente Course, Harlem
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