Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action
Professor of Sociology David Eisenhower, Professor of Political Science Ken Pittman, and long time community organizer Connie Hogarth founded the Connie Hogarth Center at Manhattanville College in 1997. Connie Hogarth, for whom the Center has been named, was the Executive Director of the Westchester People’s Action Coalition for over twenty years. The Hogarth Center has an office in Founder’s Hall where its student leaders and participants meet weekly.
The organization’s mission is, “to help the next generation of college-educated activists acquire, in the course of their undergraduate training, the practical skills and knowledge necessary for work in some field of social change.” The Hogarth Center’s mission is carried out in student activities designed to raise awareness on campus of current social issues. In recent years, students at the Center have organized film series, lectures, and teach-ins on a variety of issues and have attended local and national assemblies. Speakers who have been invited to campus by the Hogarth Center have ranged from New York environmentalists and UN representatives to international human rights activists.
Assistant Professors of Sociology Beth Williford and Elizabeth Cherry currently serve as faculty advisors for the Hogarth Center. In addition to helping students hone their organizational skills, Professors Williford and Cherry offer a one-credit seminar focused on the Hogarth Center lecture series, which is offered every fall and spring semester.
The Hogarth Center relies on two sources of funding: private fundraising and the allotment distributed through the Office of Student Affairs for student clubs. Currently, the Hogarth Center depends mostly on the private fundraising to meet the Center’s needs.