the odyssey Project

odyssey students working on a sculpture project.

the odyssey Project experienced exciting changes in 2019–2020, as a generous grant from the andrew W. mellon Foundation and support from the office of the Provost, the college of Liberal arts and sciences and other uIuc partners enabled hrI to integrate the odyssey Project more fully into our campus. this year’s cohort of students was the first to register for university of Illinois courses. odyssey Project students may now earn up to eight u of I credits in the humanities by completing both semesters of odyssey programming.

In 2019–2020, hrI partnered with university housing to host odyssey classes at the student dining and residential Programs Building. over the course of the fall and spring, odyssey students attended several performances at the Krannert center for the Performing arts (KcPa), including its stunning rendition of august Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and a marquee culturetalk by anna deveare smith.

additionally, the students ventured off campus for several field trips. In october, students visited the studio of our fall artist-in-residence Kim curtis, where they saw first-hand exhibits of curtis’s work and discussed her artistic processes and practices. In the spring, they took part in a pizza-making class at the common ground Food co-op led by the co-op’s outreach coordinator, sarah Buckman.

other highlights included the in-class sessions with curtis, who led the students in a monument-making exercise related to themes in their art history studies, and audrey Petty, the spring writer in residence, who led students in discussions of her work, Highrise Stories, and guided them in thinking through their own personal narratives.

unfortunately, the coVId-19 pandemic curtailed a number of planned activities in the spring 2020 semester, including participation in the university’s undergraduate research Week. Where necessary, the odyssey Project loaned out computer equipment to students and found inventive ways to fulfill its promise to provide dinner on class nights to all students enrolled in the spring odyssey course.

even though the odyssey community was impacted by the pandemic, the students remained its beating heart. through their strong wills and commitment to supporting each other, the majority of students who began the spring semester completed the program and graduated. although the odyssey Project could not hold an in-person commencement ceremony, we were able to celebrate our students in a graduation video that included congratulatory messages from chancellor robert Jones, dean of Las Feng sheng hu and planned commencement speaker, state representative carol ammons. Perhaps more profoundly, the video included a group reading by students of a collaboratively written poem, “I come from.” the video was streamed live over Zoom for students and their families.

odyssey’s dedicated faculty and staff worked tirelessly with students to ensure they completed the course. hrI remains grateful for the efforts of odyssey’s advisor and student experience coordinator Valerie o’Brien, who also taught the literature section, and subject-area instructors shelley Weinberg (Philosophy), Jorge Lucero (art history), and Kathy oberdeck (us history), in addition to the odyssey teaching assistant and mellon Public humanities Fellow, meghann Walk and interns Lara Pur and Khiren Johnson. Valerie, Kathy, and meghann deserve a special note of thanks for their quick adaptation to the new reality of remote instruction during the pandemic.

hrI has made the difficult decision to offer odyssey courses remotely for at least the fall 2020 semester, as the risk of spreading the virus to faculty, staff, students and their families is too great. this change will be temporary, as both students and faculty regularly report that odyssey’s face-to-face instruction model is essential to student success. While we await a safe time to return to the physical classroom, however, hrI has committed to making the odyssey Project accessible to its students. In the 2020–2021 academic year, hrI will loan tablets to students and will again commit to finding ways to provide students with meal options.

Finally, hrI would like to welcome returning and new teaching staff. all of the subject-area faculty will return to teach in the odyssey Project. Valerie o’Brien, who previously served as both an instructor and the advisor and student experience coordinator, will step back from her administrative role to take up a new role at the university Laboratory high school. We wish her well in this new post, and offer her our heartfelt thanks for the vital role she has played in supporting both students and instructors, and for helping to set the odyssey Project on firm footing for the future through her hard work and dedication in this critical year of its new chapter at u of I. also, hrI bids farewell to meghann Walk, who served as the critical thinking and Writing ta for two years, as well as the inaugural mellon Public humanities Fellow. meghann’s commitment to her students and to odyssey’s mission have been unparalleled. We wish her every success in her future endeavors.

students on a field trip to Kim curtis’s studio.