The Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) will celebrate the graduation of The Odyssey Project‘s class of 2009. Ronne Hartfield will give the keynote address. The Odyssey Project is a free, eight-month program of college-level humanities courses for people living in poverty. Students in the class of 2009 took classes from September through May at the North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School on the South Side and at the Howard Area Community Center in Rogers Park on the North Side.

Ronne Hartfield is the author of a biographical memoir, Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family (University of Chicago Press, 2004). She was the Woman’s Board Endowed Executive Director for Museum Education at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1990 to 1999. Formerly, Hartfield was Executive Director of Chicago-based Urban Gateways: The Center for Arts in Education, the largest private arts and education organization in the United States, and winner of the Presidential Medal for the Arts. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago in History, Theology, and Literature.

Refreshments will be served.

This event is by invitation only. For more information or an invitation, please call Amy Thomas Elder at 312.422.5580.