At 101, This SU Alumna is Influencing Readership in Syracuse and Beyond via Daily Orange

At 101, this SU alumna is influencing readership in Syracuse and beyond

Daily Orange: 3.26.2018 by Sandhya Iyer

A Way With Words

After reading an article on U.S. Census Bureau statistics in 1961, Ruth Johnson Colvin was shocked to learn that 11,000 people in her hometown of Syracuse could not read. Although Colvin said she knew other places in the world had this issue, she was astounded by the prevalence of illiteracy in Syracuse.

She started by visiting a class in the area that helped adults learn English. An avid reader herself, Colvin decided to take matters into her own hands. She set up an office in her basement, sought out volunteers and worked with local organizations to create Literacy Volunteers of America, designed to help adults learn how to read.

March is National Reading Month — a month dedicated to literacy, just as Colvin is. Colvin, now 101 years old, graduated from Syracuse University in 1959 and has since influenced literacy worldwide while remaining young as ever at heart.

In 2002, LVA merged with Laubach Literacy International to form ProLiteracy Worldwide. At first, Colvin thought making a change in Syracuse was going to be the end goal for her organization. Today, ProLiteracy has more than 1,000 volunteers in the United States and a presence in about 30 countries.

There are about 36 million people in the U.S. who have reading levels below that of a third-grader, said Michele Bellso, director of marketing at ProLiteracy Worldwide. But literacy isn’t as black and white as learning to read and write, she added. ProLiteracy serves individuals who are learning English as a second language, who need workforce training and who have reached high-school fluency levels, in addition to those who can’t read at all.

People generally think if you can’t read, you must be unintelligent, Colvin said. But when she heard the stories of illiterate people and how they survived, she realized they were “extra smart.” They had figured out ways of getting by without being able to read things most people take for granted, such as street signs and bottle labels.

“And it’s only because (illiterate people) didn’t have the opportunities I had or others had, not because of something they did,” Colvin said. “People are very important to me … It’s not things, it’s people.”

Since graduating from SU, Colvin has been recognized with an honorary Ph.D. from the university. In September 2017, she attended and spoke at the ProLiteracy Conference on Adult Literacy, which took place in Minneapolis, Bellso said. After Colvin’s speech, a woman hobbled up to her and said, “I think you’re amazing. I’d like to do what you do, but I think I’m too old.”

When Colvin asked the woman how old she was, she replied that she was 80 years old. Colvin responded by saying she was 100, so if Colvin could do it, so could the other woman. She said she saw the woman stand up a little higher and walk away a little more proud.  READ MORE >>