Judith Hamill:  

I attended Cathedral High School on Chicago's Gold Coast from September, 1967 to the spring of 1969. I transferred to Thomas Kelly High School on Chicago's near southwest side in September of 1969 and graduated from there in 1971. I was accepted at Chicago Musical College, Roosevelt University and majored in Music (education) with a minor in Voice. Upon graduation from Roosevelt in September, 1975, I was admitted to the College of Urban Planning at the University of Illinois (Chicago Circle). During this time, I was an Urban Intern at the City of Chicago's Department of Planning and Development. I finished the coursework at U of I in 1977 and upon completion of my graduate project, "Corporate Support of the Arts", a Monograph, graduated with my Master's in Urban Planning & Policy (MUPP) in December, 1979. I spent the years of 1977-1981 working for newly minted Chicago Council on Fine Arts and the Chicago Department of Planning & Development as a City Planner. During this time, I worked with every major Museum in Chicago that was on public land to assist them in moving forward with their accessibility projects. (This was well before the ADA federal law. So, we were in uncharted territory). I worked with the Adler Planetarium, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Academy of Sciences (now the Nature Museum), the Chicago History Museum, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Science & Industry, and the Shedd Aquarium. In 1982, upon attending a meeting of Chicago Women in Government Relations, I became aware of the Mid-Career Master's program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Three of the representatives of the Chicago Cultural Institutions that I had worked with on Accessibility wrote letters of support for my application. (You know who you are). I am eternally grateful to these individuals. I applied to the Kennedy School and was accepted. So, off I went to Cambridge, Massachusetts where I enjoyed the time of my life taking classes in the undergraduate school, in the Education School, at the Law School, and in the Business School as well as at the Kennedy School. I had Professors such as Robert Reich, who later became Secretary of Labor, former Governor Michael Dukakis, who ran for President of the United States in 1988, and Federal Appellate level Justice Stephen Breyer, who became a Justice on the United States Supreme Court. I worked on a business consulting project for WGBH Boston; wrote a paper about the Chicago Fire Strike, and a monograph on Airline Deregulation and the Impact on Labor. It was indeed a heady time. In June, 1982, I graduated from the Kennedy School with a Mid-Career Master's in Public Administration (MC/MPA). My fortieth anniversary (this is being written in 2021) is quickly approaching. Robert Reich tried to interest me in a then, little-known, Governor from Arkansas. He said that ...Expand for more