Higher education for everyone.

Clemente Worcester brings a free, college-level humanities course to adults across the city, with credit from Bard College and a seminar table at the Worcester Art Museum.

It started with a question.

Why should the humanities belong only to the people who can afford them?

In the 1990s, the writer Earl Shorris asked that question and answered it with a course. Free, college-level, taught seminar-style, and open to adults living on low incomes. The first classes met at the Roberto Clemente Family Guidance Center in New York City, which gave the course its name. Bard College stood behind the credits from the start.

The idea spread. Today the Clemente Course runs in cities across the country, and more than 10,000 adults have taken it. The course and its founder have each received the National Humanities Medal.

Worcester's seminar table.

Classes meet at the Worcester Art Museum, two evenings a week, September through May. Clemente Worcester is made possible through the support of many of Worcester's most important educational, clutural and philanthropic instituitions an individuals.

Massachusetts has graduated more than 750 Clemente students, and Worcester adds to that number every May.

Founded2014

VenueWorcester Art Museum

SupportMass Humanities

Fiscal AgentWorcester County Poetry Association

A faculty member holds up The Epic of Gilgamesh during seminar.

Students in conversation over dinner before class.

Two graduates at the Clemente Worcester graduation, one holding flowers.

Who else sits at the table?

A small team and faculty from local colleges who are enthusiastic about their subjects and expert at creating that same kind of enthusiasm in their students.

Program

Dr. Laura Kane

Program Director

Jarelys Castillo

Communications Coordinator, and a graduate of the program