The Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) will celebrate the graduation of The Odyssey Project’s class of 2006.

The Odyssey Project is a free, eight-month program of college-level humanities courses for people living in poverty. Students in the class of 2006 took courses from September through May at the Ariel School on the South Side and at the Howard Area Community Center in Rogers Park on the North Side.

Educator and writer Earl Shorris will be the speaker at the graduation. Mr. Shorris, educated at the University of Chicago, is the author of numerous books and articles dealing with a wide variety of issues related to education, poverty, capitalism, indigenous peoples, and Latin America, including New American Blues: A Journey Through Poverty to Democracy and Riches for the Poor: The Clemente Course in the Humanities. He has been a contributing editor to Harper’s since 1972, and his essays and articles regularly appear in many prestigious publications. He is the founder and chairman of the advisory board for The Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities, the parent of the Illinois Humanities Council’s The Odyssey Project, and co-founder of the Pan-American Indian Humanities Center located at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.

This event is by invitation only.

Click here for remarks given by the speakers. For more information, please contact Dimitra Tasiouras at 312.422.5580.

As part of Chicago Public Radio’s new program, Chicago Amplified, a recording of this event can be listened to or downloaded.