â??This is the beginning of a journey: for some, a journey to college, while others are returning to college,â? said Odyssey Project Director Professor Emily Auerbach.
The Odyssey Project offers members of the Madison community an opportunity to begin a college education through an intensive, two-semester course. The programâ??s goal is to provide wider access to college for nontraditional and low-income students by offering a challenging classroom experience, individual support in writing, and assistance in applying for admission to college and for financial aid.
Auerbach said that the Langston Hughes poem â??Still Hereâ? embodies this remarkable classâ??s collective sentiment, after they had spent a year engaged in rigorous study while handling financial and family responsibilities that had previously made a college education seem little more than a dream deferred. â??Sometimes you can make a way out of no way. If you open the door to education, you can change lives,â? Auerbach said.