INITIATIVE: The Downtown Course for the Humanities
Our aim with The Downtown Course is to start a lecture series for economically-disadvantaged members of the Montreal community who have a passion for learning but lack the opportunity to access higher education. Unlike the vocational-training programs normally geared toward these individuals, The Downtown Course would focus only on the humanities. Depending on availability of instructors, students would be introduced to a range of subjects such as philosophy, art, history and literature.
The Downtown Course is based on a program started five years ago in New York by Earl Shorris, a contributing editor to Harper's magazine and poverty activist. Roughly thirty students who demonstrated a serious interest in education were selected to attend the New York program in its initial year, from which sixteen completed the yearlong course. Community organizations and universities throughout North America (including one in Mexico) have since emulated Shorris's program. In Canada, the University of British Columbia has successfully run Humanities 101 since 1998.
Through the efforts of students and faculty from McGill, we hope that a year-long humanities program can get off the ground next September in Montreal. Anyone aged 18 to 35 with a strong desire to learn and the ability to read a newspaper will be invited to apply; recruitment will be channeled through downtown resource centres, shelters and soup kitchens. Students will be expected to attend classes, complete assignments and readings, and participate in group discussions. The Downtown Course will not be for credit. Costs of course materials, transportation and child care will be covered and a hot meal provided before each class. The Downtown Course will be offered in English; with students from francophone universities, we will discuss the possibility of running a parallel French-language program.
The Downtown Course may sound ambitious, but a dedicated team of student volunteers has already been assembled at McGill, local community groups and professors have been contacted, and questionnaires have been distributed to potential applicants.
Along with planning for next year, we want to organize a series of open lectures for the remainder of this semester. These would help attract applicants to The Downtown Course, allow instructors to get a feel for a unique classroom environment, and give the program's coordinators a chance to iron out as many kinks as possible. We cordially invite you to become involved with The Downtown Course as an instructor, coordinator, community contact person, etc., or to bequeath your estate to The Downtown Course.
"If one has been 'trained' in the ways of poverty, left no opportunity to do other than react to his or her environment, what is needed is a beginning, not repetition," Earl Shorris said in an interview last year. "The humanities teach us to think reflectively, to begin, to deal with the new as it occurs to us, to dare. If the multi-generational poor are to make the leap out of poverty, it will require a new kind of thinking-reflection. And that is a beginning."
Please contact Leslie Bagg at mbagg@po-box.mcgill.ca for more information
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