Mount Tamalpais College

MTC News

Mount Tamalpais College Awarded one of 2021 California Nonprofits of the Year

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Mount Tamalpais College honored by Assemblymember Marc Levine

San Rafael, June 25, 2021 – Mount Tamalpais College is proud to announce its selection as a 2021 California Nonprofit of the Year by Assemblymember Marc Levine. Mount Tamalpais College is one of more than one hundred nonprofits that will be honored by their state senators and assemblymembers for their tremendous contributions to the communities they serve.

Mount Tamalpais College (formerly the Prison University Project) provides an intellectually rigorous, inclusive Associate of Arts degree program and college preparatory program, free of charge, to people at San Quentin State Prison. It strives to expand access to quality higher education for incarcerated people; and to foster the values of equity, civic engagement, independence of thought, and freedom of expression. For over twenty years, the College Program at San Quentin has been the site of a unique educational enterprise for one of our country’s most vulnerable populations. More than 4,500 students have participated in the program since its founding. Hundreds of alumni are now living, working and/or continuing their studies throughout the state of California.

From Jody Lewen, President of Mount Tamalpais College: “We are overjoyed and deeply grateful to receive this recognition from Assemblymember Levine, especially at such a special moment in the life of our new academic institution. We hope that the community of Marin County, and the state as a whole, will recognize and embrace the transformative and groundbreaking work being done by Mount Tamalpais College, and join us in lifting up the community of San Quentin Prison, and the larger incarcerated population, for the betterment of all.”

“The pandemic and shelter-in-place orders of the past year and a half have put nonprofits – usually hidden in plain sight – in the spotlight,” explains Jan Masaoka, CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits (CalNonprofits). “California Nonprofit of the Year is an opportunity for our elected officials to celebrate the good work they see nonprofits doing in their districts, and for everyone to appreciate the collective impact of nonprofits in our communities.”

Additional Background

California Nonprofits Day, now in its sixth year, was formally recognized by 2021 Assembly Concurrent Resolution 80, authored by Assemblymember Luz Rivas, and co-authored by Senator Monique Limón. Each year legislators from across California have chosen a Nonprofit of the Year in their district.

Traditionally, honorees and legislators are invited by CalNonprofits, Chair of the Senate Select Committee on the Nonprofit Sector Senator Monique Limón (Santa Barbara), and Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on the Nonprofit Sector Assemblymember Luz Rivas to a celebratory luncheon on California Nonprofits Day. This year, like 2020, the luncheon was canceled in response to pandemic restrictions, but legislators moved forward with honoring nonprofits doing great work in their districts.

According to “Causes Count,” a 2019 report commissioned by CalNonprofits, the nonprofit sector is the 4 th largest industry in the state, employing more than 1.2 million people. Each year, California nonprofits generate more than $273 billion in revenue and bring in $40 billion in revenue from outside of California. The unpaid labor contributed by volunteers at nonprofits is equivalent to 330,000 full-time jobs every year.

In-Person Classes to Resume in September

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We are thrilled to announce that we have been approved to return to in-person classes inside San Quentin in September. During the summer, we will plan and prepare for the fall semester, run extracurricular activities, provide student advising, and rebuild our campus community. We also launched a summer correspondence term on June 1 with 16 courses, alongside college preparatory math and writing. These one-credit, elective courses qualify for Milestones, which allows a student who passes three correspondence courses to have three weeks reduced from his sentence. The courses for our summer term are listed below.

College Preparatory Math

College Preparatory Writing

BIO 180: The COVID mRNA Vaccine: The Product of Decades of Research

ENG 180: What is Poetry?

ENG 180: Building Fiction from True Stories

ENG 180: Wilderness Stories

EST 180: 1 ST: Contemporary Environmental Issues

EST 180: Introduction to Energy Systems

HED 180: Foundations of Global Public Health

HIS 180: 20th Century Social Justice Movements

HIS 180: The 1619 Project: Examining the Debate over Slavery and the Nation’s Founding

HIS 180: Histories and Strategies of Decolonization

MTH 180: Introduction to Trigonometry

MTH 180: Introduction to Geometry

POL 180: Mutual Aid

POL 180: Parties and Polarization Today

PSY 180: Psychologies of Liberation

PSY 180: The Psychology and Literature of Memory

We piloted correspondence courses in Spring 2021 during the extensive lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 200 students took courses on a range of topics, including Climate Change, Poetry In Times of Crisis, and Landmark U.S. Court Cases. Although mail delivery slowdowns created hurdles, feedback from students showed that the pilot was a success. We are looking forward to supporting students and faculty with the summer semester and returning to face-to-face instruction.

Historic Agreement Reached Allowing Laptop Use by Students

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We are thrilled to announce that we have reached a historic agreement with the administration at San Quentin State Prison around the use of technology by Mount Tamalpais College students. As we resume in-person classes, we will have laptops, charging carts, and printers available in the prison for student and faculty use. Students will be able to use laptops during class or in the education building.

Laptops will allow students to conduct research independently and access learning supports and word processing capabilities. They may also access online resources available on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Canvas Learning Management System. This initiative will begin on a limited basis, and will gradually be expanded over time.

This agreement represents a significant gain for our students. For the past twenty-five years, students have not had access to technology or computers during their studies. They have handwritten work and conducted research using printouts and course readers sourced by faculty members and a limited collection of books. In fact, very few programs at San Quentin have been allowed to bring any technology or equipment inside the prison, resulting in a marked technology gap among incarcerated people upon their release.

Ultimately, we hope that students will have access to the laptops during lockdowns or quarantines and be able to engage in synchronous and asynchronous remote instruction as needed. We are now in the process of purchasing and processing the equipment for use as in-person programming resumes. 

Staff Spotlight: Jen Juras

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We’re thrilled to welcome Jen Juras as Mount Tamalpais College’s new Chief of Institutional Effectiveness and Research. We asked Jen a few questions to learn more about her background, professional and personal interests, and approach to research and evaluation.

What drew you to this position? 

This role is the perfect blend of my experience, interests, and skills. Back in Michigan, I worked in criminal and juvenile justice reform research and advocacy, and for the past five years here in California, I’ve worked in higher education institutional research. They fit together so perfectly—I never thought that would exist.

What values and interests drive your work as a leader and researcher? 

I’m really attracted to Mt. Tam’s mission of bringing high quality education to all people incarcerated in San Quentin [State Prison]. I think education is a right and an important tool to help people reach their goals and have a voice in their communities. It’s a mission that I can really get behind and that I’m excited about.

How do you plan to approach your work over the coming year? 

There’s a lot to be done for accreditation so that’s a big focus right now. It’s actually nice that it’s happening that way because it provides extra guidance and support around setting up a really effective and comprehensive system of assessment. I’m looking forward to creating systems for assessment and evaluation in partnership with other staff and faculty.

What work are you most excited to dive into?

I’m really looking forward to engaging Mt. Tam’s students in the assessment process. In my past, I did a lot of participatory action research and participatory evaluation with both youth and adults. I think engaging stakeholders and having them be a part of the process to make sure we’re asking the right questions and that we’re going about collecting the strongest data is very important. They [students] can help interpret the results and decide what they mean, and help figure out the ‘So what?’ ‘What do we do to address what we found?’ ‘What actions do we take?’ ‘How do we improve the program?’ To me, that’s the most exciting part of research and evaluation and I’m really looking forward to doing that at Mount Tam College.

How will your work support the ongoing improvement of Mount Tamalpais College? How will it enhance student success?  

For all research and evaluation, the idea is that you’re engaged in a cycle of gathering information so that you can set goals, gathering data to figure out if you’re meeting your goals, collecting additional information to figure out why or why not, and then making course adjustments. Part of that process is just making sure you have data to know if you are being successful.

A question for Mount Tam is: what does student success mean? In more traditional colleges, a typical marker of student success is first-year retention—how many of the students who enrolled one fall return the following fall—but obviously that doesn’t work for us. Another one is time to graduation. That also doesn’t work perfectly for this population; from what I understand, it would be difficult for our students to take a full-time course load of 12-15 credits. So student success is going to look different…I think it’s going to have to incorporate learning what the goals are of particular students involved and not just tying to degree completion, but also tying to whether students are getting what they need to accomplish their own personal goals.

What are your interests outside of work?

I love trail running, especially long distance mountain trail running in other countries. I have a couple of friends I like to sign up for adventure races with—we like to sign up for things that scare us a little bit. One of my favorite races was a marathon that started at Mount Everest base camp.  That was really challenging and scary and exhilaratingly fun. I did another marathon with a friend that went along the Inca Trail route to Machu Picchu. I love the process of signing up for something that scares me a little bit and figuring out a plan to prepare to get there to do it.

President Jody Lewen Honored by James Irvine Foundation

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President Jody Lewen was recently honored by the James Irvine Foundation for Mount Tamalpais College’s COVID-19 relief efforts in California prisons. The Foundation applauded Mount Tamalpais College’s work to deliver care packages to incarcerated people and highlighted the need to “invest in humane and effective interventions that include epidemiological strategies for containing and controlling the coronaviruses and strategies for counteracting the feelings of fear, boredom, abandonment, and degradation pervading the prison system.”

The recognition is part of the Foundation’s new effort, Leadership When It Matters Most, which recognizes the efforts of leaders who are adapting their work to address the pandemic and other challenges. Awards were given in six issue areas: education, environment, health, human services, public safety, and workforce and economic development. Dr. Lewen, a 2015 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award recipient, was recognized in the public safety category. Details about the program and fellow honorees can be found here.

Photo: Dr. Lewen, pictured above (far right), with past Leadership Award recipients.

Our 2020 Annual Report is Now Available

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It has now been a full year since the pandemic shut down all programs at San Quentin. With this report we hope to not only provide an overview of our work during this unprecedented year, and share insight into how the focus and the impact of our work has shifted focus during this time—we also hope to cast attention on the experiences of incarcerated people in 2020. Thus, in addition to sharing news about Mount Tamalpais College as an emerging institution, we’ve also included an array of content including letters and stories that convey the pandemic’s impact on people in prison, and on those returning home.

The full report is available below.

Community Dialogs: COVID-19 Vaccination and the Incarcerated Community

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California has acted quickly to make the COVID-19 vaccine available to prison staff and residents. However, some people are reluctant or refusing to take the vaccine, citing concerns over its safety and a lack of trust between incarcerated people and communities of color with health care providers.

On February 25, we hosted a panel discussion that explored the legal, public health, and media efforts to protect the health of California’s incarcerated community and provide accurate information.

Featuring:

  • Juleen Lam, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Sciences, CSU East Bay; Faculty, Mount Tamalpais College
  • Michael Bien, Founding Partner, Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP
  • Joseph Hancock, Mount Tamalpais College Alumnus; Site Support Specialist, Family Bridges
  • Dr. Leah Rorvig, Director of Health Education, AMEND, Zuckerberg SF General Hospital
  • Nigel Poor, Co-creator and Co-host, Ear Hustle Podcast; Professor of Photography, CSU Sacramento

A recording of the event is available below.

Community Dialogs: Innovative Approaches to Reentry

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In California, most people are released from prison with $200 and meager other supports for rebuilding their lives. The challenges to landing on their feet are enormous, especially for those who have been incarcerated for decades. We brought together members of two Bay Area nonprofits—Impact Justice and Bonafide—and a former Mount Tamalpais College student for a panel discussion on innovative approaches to reentry.

Featuring:

  • Sia Henry, Senior Program Specialist, Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice and Mount Tamalpais College Board Member
  • Becca Carter, Co-founder, Bonafide
  • David Cowan, Executive Director and Co-founder, Bonafide
  • Terah Lawyer, Program Manager, The Homecoming Project at Impact Justice
  • Aishatu Yusuf, Director, Innovation Programs at Impact Justice
  • Brian Shipp, former Mount Tamalpais College student

A recording of the event is available below.

Introducing New Staff Members

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Mount Tamalpais College is excited to welcome three new staff members to our team: Denisse Manrique, Jacob Kernodle, and Kevin Milyavskiy.

Denisse Manrique, Development Associate

Before joining Mount Tamalpais College, Denisse worked as the Development Coordinator for the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco for five years. She has been involved with several organizations, including WashPIRG, La Voz Latina, and Glide. She brings with her a passion for equity and creating community to Mount Tamalpais College. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in Sociology and Philosophy.

Jacob Kernodle, Registrar

Jacob joined the staff at Mount Tamalpais College after working for nearly ten years serving students and staff in higher education. Through his work as an educator and manager of student systems and records, he has developed a keen devotion to student needs and well-being. He is dedicated to serving marginalized students, especially in the creation of policies and procedures, so he is thrilled to contribute to the Mount Tamalpais College team in their mission. He holds an interdisciplinary BA focused on ethics and leadership from California State University, Monterey Bay.

Kevin Milyavskiy, Assistant to the Chief Academic Officer

Kevin is excited to be part of a mission-driven organization that empowers the incarcerated through education. As a community college graduate, he personally understands how significant Mount Tamalpais College can be for its students. His background includes work in environmental advocacy, technology and human rights, research on political accountability, and immigration law. Kevin earned his BA in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley.