How do you measure the impact of eight months of reading and writing and thinking? In Oregon, where a similar course has been ongoing for five years, the changes are often quiet ones, says the director: more books checked out of the public library, more lectures and plays and civic meetings attended by the course's graduates.

"I used to believe that, because I was poor, the world was not open to me," said Moeller one morning near the end of the semester. "I thought you had to have the right ticket and the right shoes. You're reminded all the time, when you're poor, what you don't have. But you don't need a ticket. You can walk into a museum and you don't have to hide from anyone."

The Venture program has received a grant to provide follow-up classes for Moeller and her classmates next year. And applications are now being accepted for the second Venture class, which will begin in September.

Meanwhile, Moeller has decided to get herself and her children involved in next fall's elections, Gina Zivkovic is setting up a nonprofit to create urban gardens, and Judy Fuwell has been accepted into the University of Utah. Her husband, so resistant at first to the idea of his wife going to school, is now reading the poetry books she leaves on the nightstand.

How to apply

The Utah Humanities Council's Venture Program, funded by donations from the A.H.E. Cultural Initiative and The Humanities Connection, is accepting applications for 2006-07. Applicants must be low-income, have not completed college and have a newspaper-level comprehension of English. For more information, contact the UHC at 359-9670 or visit www.utahhumanities.org/Venture.htm.

An exhibit about Venture, including portraits of the class of '06 by photographer Kent Miles and excerpts from student writings, is on display on the lower level of the Salt Lake City Library, 210 E. 400 South, through June 25.

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com