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Mount Tamalpais College

Research & Outreach

Historic Agreement Reached Allowing Laptop Use by Students

June 2, 2021 by Mt. Tam College

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. 

Filed Under: Academic Papers & Studies, Academics, Announcements, Current Affairs, In the Classroom, MTC in the News, MTC News, Research & Outreach

We Are All Directly Impacted: Mapping Societal Wellness, Institutions, and Self

February 28, 2020 by Mt. Tam College

3/10/2020 UPDATE: Due to the threat of COVID-19, the academic conference has been postponed. Please check back for more information soon.

The Prison University Project will host its second academic conference at San Quentin State Prison on April 17, 2020, from 8AM-3PM. The conference, conceived and planned by a committee of Prison University Project students and staff, will involve panels of incarcerated and nonincarcerated scholars. Our conference in 2018 demonstrated the influential perspective shifts that can occur when different communities contribute to dialog around central debates, and we are excited to continue the conversations.

This year, our theme is “We Are All Directly Impacted: Mapping Societal Wellness, Institutions, and Self.” Starting with the observation that both self and institution are socially constructed, our conference aims to explore the ways in which pathways to reaching our individual full potential intersect and conflict with the various social contracts and norms that we are born into. Some institutions, like marriage, effectively create more rights for many participants, while others, like prison, purport to create a safer society by denying rights to those people within its confines. In a similar vein, some institutions like higher education are exclusive to varying degrees, while others, like gender, are largely assigned at birth and difficult to opt out of. At various times throughout the history of this nation, the freedom to drink alcohol, love or marry whom one wants, have various medical procedures, and travel freely, have been deemed detrimental to a healthy society, at the expense of personal wellness. Conversely, institutions that perform policing, military operations, border control, and health or education are considered by many to be essential to our personal wellness.

We will discuss these topics and more at our conference:

  • What is wellness? Is it possible in the context of institutions?
  • How do the individual and the institution intersect?
  • What roles can institutions play in helping individuals reach their full potential?
  • What institutions are missing from our society?
  • What are some empirical indicators of societal wellness? How could these indicators be improved?
  • What are pathways for people with different political ideologies or identities to dialog more effectively?
  • How do wellness and freedom play out across societal structures, identities, and communities?
  • How do different social ways of being affect personal wellness?
  • What roles can or should individuals play to help systems or institutions reach their full potential?
  • How should society respond to people who don’t conform to our institutions or norms?
  • How can institutions of education be reimagined to help more people reach their full potential?

The Prison University Project has been running a college for people incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison since 1996. We run twenty classes each semester and have over 700 active students. The mission of the Prison University Project is to provide an intellectually rigorous, inclusive Associate of Arts degree program and college preparatory program, free of charge, to people at San Quentin State Prison; 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.

Unfortunately, it won’t be possible to have non-presenters attend the conference because of severe space limitations. Please send any questions to conference@prinsonuniversityproject.org.

For more info on last year’s conference, see our news post, “San Quentin’s First Academic Conference: “Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reform—21st Century Solutions for 20th Century Problems.”

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Filed Under: Announcements, Conferences, Events, MTC News, Research & Outreach

Jody Lewen Moderates Colloquium on Narratives of Incarceration at BAMPFA

December 13, 2019 by Mt. Tam College

Executive Director Jody Lewen moderated Contextualizing The San Quentin Project: Nigel Poor and the Men of San Quentin State Prison, a colloquium at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive that brought together leading UC Berkeley faculty from the fields of law, social welfare, and literature, along with artist Nigel Poor, to discuss the power of personal narrative and how narratives of incarceration have taken shape across disciplines.

Filed Under: Campus & Community, Conferences, Current Affairs, From the President, Partnerships, Research & Outreach

Call for Papers: Academic Conference Spring 2020

October 7, 2019 by Mt. Tam College

In the spring of 2020, the Prison University Project will host its second academic conference at San Quentin State Prison. The conference, conceived and planned by a committee of Prison University Project College Program students and staff, will take place inside San Quentin on April 17, 2020, from approximately 8AM-5PM and will involve panels of incarcerated and nonincarcerated scholars. Last year’s conference demonstrated the influential perspective shifts that can occur when different communities contribute to dialog around central debates. We welcome proposals for individual papers (20 minutes in length) and full panels.

This year, our theme is “We Are All Directly Impacted: Mapping Societal Wellness, Institutions, and Self.” Starting with the observation that both self and institution are socially constructed, our conference aims to explore the ways in which pathways to reaching our individual full potential intersect and conflict with the various social contracts and norms that we are born into. Some institutions, like marriage, effectively create more rights for many participants, while others, like prison, purport to create a safer society by denying rights to those people within its confines. In a similar vein, some institutions like higher education are exclusive to varying degrees, while others, like gender, are largely assigned at birth and difficult to opt out of. At various times throughout the history of this nation, the freedom to drink alcohol, love or marry whom one wants, have various medical procedures, and travel freely, have been deemed detrimental to a healthy society, at the expense of personal wellness. Conversely, institutions that perform policing, military operations, border control, and health or education are considered by many to be essential to our personal wellness.

We hope to discuss these topics and more at our conference:

  • What is wellness?
  • Is it possible in the context of institutions?
  • How do the individual and the institution intersect?
  • What roles can institutions play in helping individuals reach their full potential?
  • What institutions are missing from our society?
  • What are some empirical indicators of societal wellness?
  • How could these indicators be improved?
  • What are pathways for people with different political ideologies or identities to dialog more effectively?
  • How do wellness and freedom play out across societal structures, identities, and communities?
  • How do different social ways of being affect personal wellness?
  • What roles can or should individuals play to help systems or institutions reach their full potential?
  • How should society respond to people who don’t conform to our institutions or norms?
  • How can institutions of education be reimagined to help more people reach their full potential?

The Prison University Project has been running a college for people incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison since 1996. We run twenty classes each semester and have over 700 active students. The mission of the Prison University Project is to provide an intellectually rigorous, inclusive Associate of Arts degree program and college preparatory program, free of charge, to people at San Quentin State Prison; 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.

To propose a paper or panel please send a 300-500-word proposal, 100-word abstract (for the conference program), and a 50-word biography to conference@prisonuniversityproject.org. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis through the end of November. Presenters will not have to pay a registration fee. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible to have non-presenters attend the conference because of severe space limitations. Please send any questions to conference@prinsonuniversityproject.org.

For more info on last year’s conference, see our news post, “San Quentin’s First Academic Conference: “Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reform—21st Century Solutions for 20th Century Problems.”

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Filed Under: Academic Papers & Studies, Announcements, Campus & Community, Campus Events, Conferences, Events, MTC News, Research & Outreach

Prison University Project Releases Report on Best Practices for Higher Education in Prison

August 8, 2019 by Mt. Tam College

In partnership with the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, the Prison University Project released the first comprehensive report written by and for practitioners to share recommendations for higher education in prison programs. Equity and Excellence in Practice: A Guide to Higher Education in Prison was co-authored by Prison University Project executive director Jody Lewen, Mary Gould (Alliance for Higher Education in Prison), and Tanya Erzen (Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound), with support from the Lumina Foundation. It offers practical advice for anyone seeking to launch, expand, or improve upon a program offering in-prison higher education. The report also offers guidance for funders, policy makers, researchers and college/university administrators to support quality higher education in prison and sustain the field.

“The Equity and Excellence in Practice report is rooted in the belief that all people deserve access to high-quality education. With that in mind, the report offers advice for how to overcome some of the most common challenges people face when delivering educational programs in prison. Recommendations pull from in-prison programs that rival high-quality programs on colleges and university campuses across the country,” says Mary Gould, director of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison and co-author of the report.

The report details the most essential components of a quality in-prison higher education program:

  • Program Design: Attributes such as full-time dedicated staff, professional development opportunities and faculty and student advisory boards are essential.
  • Partnerships and Collaborations: Written agreements outlining the roles and responsibilities of the academic institution, non-profit organization, corrections department and/or other agencies are critical.
  • Faculty Recruitment, Training and Supervision: Ensuring that faculty and instructors are highly qualified, properly trained, and supported through continued professional development is necessary to ensure that instructors are able to respond effectively to challenges.
  • Curriculum: A comprehensive curriculum not only determines the course-of-study for students; it also communicates the values of the program and what the program believes students are capable of accomplishing.
  • Pedagogy: From recruiting faculty to providing ongoing training and support, program administrators have a significant role to play in ensuring the quality of instruction offered to students.
  • Instructional Resources: Students must have access to the tools and resources needed to succeed, including basic school supplies and library and technology services.
  • Student Advising and Support Services: Students with access to robust student support systems, such as academic planning and advising and academic reentry support, have a much higher likelihood of success during an academic program and after returning to the community.

The number of programs offering post-secondary education in prison has grown significantly in the past few years, yet, organizations and institutions involved in delivering higher education in prison continue to face numerous challenges related to developing quality programs, as well as funding, policy and public opinion.

Equity and Excellence in Practice: A Guide for Higher Education in Prison is available here.

About the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison
The Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, founded in 2017, is a national network dedicated to the expansion of quality higher education in prison, empowering students in prison and after release, and shaping public discussion about education and incarceration. The Alliance will host the 2019 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison in St. Louis (November 14-17). To learn more, visit: www.higheredinprison.org.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Filed Under: Academic Papers & Studies, Campus & Community, Partnerships, Research & Outreach, Resources Tagged With: homepage spotlight

Jody Lewen Gives Keynote Address at “Symposium on Transformative Education in Prison and Beyond”

April 15, 2019 by Mt. Tam College

The following paper, “Imagining Incarcerated Students,” was given by Jody Lewen at the Symposium on Transformative Education in Prison and Beyond at the University of Wyoming March 29-30, 2019.

The topic of this paper is how incarcerated students are imagined within the field of higher education in prison. I am specifically interested here in how this issue plays out in the context of teaching and learning.

My central purpose is to issue a kind of call for self-reflection about these issues within this community, of higher education in prison—in fact I think we should be aiming to create a culture of continual self-reflection about all matters of imagination and representation in our work. We should be asking ourselves constantly, how the ways in which we imagine our students impacts our ability to serve them well.

To be clear: I don’t believe there are any right answers here—there’s no one truth about incarcerated students, so there certainly cannot be any one right way to imagine them. But what I want to call for here is a kind of perceptive vigilance—I think we need to be constantly paying attention to the question of to what extent we are fully seeing our students, or to what extent we believe that we already know them, or know about them. In other words, to what extent stereotypes inform or even direct our work.

This is a stunningly complicated space, in a representational sense, and I think the best we can do is proceed with caution, openness and humility, and simply be committed to maximizing the good we do, and minimizing the harm.

To start out, I just want to share a bit about how I came to some of these questions: I started out as a teacher in the college program at San Quentin in 1999  I was in graduate school at the time  and I started running the program in 2000. One of the first times I ever noticed explicitly how I was imagining incarcerated students was when I walked through the gates of the prison for the very first time. The thought that went through my mind—as if spoken out loud—was, “I’m going to die now.”

That anxiety abated when we got over to the education building, and I actually met the students. They were so friendly and clearly excited about the start of the new semester that I completely relaxed. But I do remember a sense of surprise. It was only when I met them and saw how polite and friendly everyone was, that I realized I’d been expecting some amount of discomfort, or even lecherous energy in the room. As I was leaving the prison at the end of the night, and walked back through that same gate, I remembered that moment of terror.

It struck me later that in the weeks leading up to the start of the semester, I had not felt anxious—I was mostly just excited. And in retrospect I realize that that actually pointed to another issue: I was afraid, but until the pressure of that moment of walking in, my very bold, political and compassionate mind would never have allowed me to register a conscious fear of my students.

I share all of that not just to introduce some very common experiences related to teaching in prison, but also to point out the obstacles that we sometimes face to really accessing the answer to the question of how we imagine incarcerated students: some of what we think or feel may seem morally or politically unacceptable to us, and so we may just block it out and lose access to it.

I would suggest that this (what some might call repression) does not mean that those imaginings do not impact us; rather, they simply become a lot harder to trace, to reckon with, and thus to manage constructively. This is also why I think it’s so important that we as a professional community create spaces in which it is possible to think and communicate candidly, and without judgment. We need to be able to hear and communicate our own thoughts, so that we can really begin to sort them out.

Once I started teaching at San Quentin I certainly talked about my students a lot, but when I began to run the program in 2000, the range of contexts in which I talked about them quickly expanded: recruiting and training teachers, talking to journalists or researchers, and above all, when fundraising, I found myself constantly describing, and essentially advocating on behalf of students.

And it was odd in many ways; I’m sure many people here are familiar with this experience: just as I was falling in love with the experience of teaching inside, I was constantly interacting with people who held all kinds of negative stereotypes about people in prison: People assumed that they were dangerous, unpleasant, predatory; not very smart; lacking in empathy, and entirely unrepentant for the harm they’d done.

In conversation, my response was almost always to share about my experiences inside. I would talk about how nice, smart, and intellectually curious students in the program were were; how often extreme personal hardship (poverty, abuse, lack of education, lack of job opportunities, addiction, etc.) played some kind of role in their crimes. I also talked a lot about how grateful they were for the opportunity to be in school.

At some point I also began to notice how these interactions were rather like a game of stereotype ping pong: people would lob their negative assumptions at me, and I’d lob positive ones back. I also began to notice was how hard it was not to simply counter stereotypes with other stereotypes. People working in this space are constantly on the representational defensive, and we often cope with the barrage of skepticism not just by listing specific contrary characteristics, but by constructing alternative narratives as well.

Others tell us stories about the harm [that they at least imagine that] our students have done; in response, we tell positive, uplifting stories—about the growing and changing they’ve done; the impact of education on their lives… Clearly this is an effort not only to shed light, and to bring greater accuracy or at least nuance to the picture, but also to make those students more sympathetic, more relatable.

But one of the things I began to think about, over years, was all the editing I was doing—the things I would leave out—the characters or stories I wasn’t sharing—primarily because I didn’t want to reinforce a certain stereotype, or even scare people away from the work. As I got involved in things like creating a newsletter, or writing grant proposals, I began to really experience how intense that pressure can be to generate “uplifting” narratives.

As an organization today, we try hard to challenge ourselves to generate portraits of our students that are more complex and nuanced than just “poster children” and “success stories.” But the problem is, of course, that the general public often only seems capable of imagining incarcerated people (and certain other categories of people) as a kind of monolithic homogenous mass. It can only be black or white.

So the pattern in the field of creating alternative stereotypes (above all, of the “rehabilitated criminal”) is, to a large extent, a kind of attempt to, in a cognitive and political sense, “meet people where they are”—in other words, offer images that will fit into their black and white thinking, but still allow space for the possibility that people in prison are something other than pure evil.

But I want to raise the question of whether there might also be other meanings or functions of these intensely idealized and simplistic images of “good incarcerated people.” I wonder if we ourselves might also be struggling to imagine incarcerated people as unique and ordinary human beings. I wonder whether part of what’s happening here is that the stories we share with the outside world might also communicate something about how we want or need them to be.

I wonder whether how we imagine students allows us to imagine ourselves in a particular way. Is there a version of our students that makes us more the people we long to be, or perhaps fear that we are not enough of? I think the question is worth asking because it’s when desire leads perception that we are at the greatest risk of distorting, obscuring through projection, or in some sense simply erasing the other.

With this suspicion in mind—this question, of to what extent our desire might shape our perception of our incarcerated students—I’d like to sketch out a few themes that I find to be especially common in the ways in which incarcerated students are imagined (and represented) by people who work in this space.

But before that, I just want to point out an issue that I consider foundational to this whole realm, and that is, the way in which incarcerated people—also known as Prisoners, Criminals, Bad People—are generally imagined as an abstraction, something surreal or otherworldly, like a work of fiction. Whatever characteristics we may project onto them, I would argue that they are, in our imaginations, not fully actual people. In the negative version of this, they’re not just bad; they’re literally the embodiment of evil, which is itself imagined as a kind of supernatural force.

And yet even more confusing is the fact that while most people think of them as frightening, at times they also have a certain fascination, as if the thought of contact with them were both scary and exhilarating. (Hence an entire popular culture that’s organized around a fascination with crime and violence.)

One minor illustration of this not-fully realness: I was once talking to a group of undergraduate students at Berkeley about our work, and in the discussion, one of the students suddenly said, “It’s weird, I can’t stop imagining them in cartoon. I can’t imagine them as ordinary people.” I think what had happened was that I was probably talking about them as ordinary people, and he registered the internal cognitive conflict, or dissonance.

This otherworldliness also fits nicely with the place of the prison: in an imaginary sense, the prison stands in for that preternatural galaxy that they supposedly come from. You see this even in the language we use to refer to the place of the prison—we talk as if the prison were not in the world, not part of the society—it’s a place where people become not just invisible but socially, politically and morally irrelevant, where their lives are believed to have no meaning or value.

This is of course the essence of dehumanization, and what makes the lives of certain human beings so precarious: it’s that moment when a person’s existence in the realm of the human has been withdrawn or suspended by the larger group.

A minor, fairly innocuous example of this larger effect arose a conversation I just had a few weeks ago with a person who’d visited SQ a few days earlier. She was explaining how exciting the visit had been for her, and said, with great animation: “I’d never talked to a Prisoner before.” I understood that that was literally true, but something about the way she said it made it sound like she had been in the same room with exotic sea creatures.

If prisoners are abstractions, if they are not fully human in a normal sense, this may be partly why we have such a hard time conceiving of them as individuals, and it may also be part of what makes them so vulnerable to projection.

Here I want to come back to my stated intention (before that giant digression) to sketch out a few themes that I find to be especially common in the ways in which incarcerated students are imagined. One important theme in the representation of incarcerated students is that of emotional vulnerability and trauma. I find this topic especially complicated because of course, as human beings they are emotionally vulnerable—and certainly anyone who’s been incarcerated has, by definition, been traumatized. And as far as I can tell, the vast majority of people who are incarcerated were traumatized long before they got to prison—often chronically, over the course of their lives. (The same seems to be true of many people who work inside the system.)

But what I want to call attention to is the meaning of such narratives to the outsider. And again, there are sound reasons for highlighting these issues—the public urgently needs to understand the psychological context for much of what we know as crime—especially violent crime. But I still want us to reflect on the significance of this theme for those working in this field. This may be wildly unfamiliar to folks here—maybe this is some weird California thing—but I see people becoming fixated on those characteristics—almost as if the traumatized person were an object of fascination, or even desire.

To some extent it reminds me of the near-fetishization of firefighters after 9/11; or the public fascination with testimonials from survivors of sexual assault. Someone referred to it as trauma porn. I see something like this manifesting in this field: Teachers turning entire English composition classes into autobiographical writing classes; people without any formal clinical training or support creating their own “trauma narratives” curriculum.

I’m not sure what if anything the connection is, but one of the things one often hears about in outsider accounts of students who are also trauma survivors, is their deep attachment and gratitude towards their teachers. Because of course, people who have been exposed to extreme violence, neglect and abuse, are likely to have a strong reaction to a benevolent authority figure who clearly cares about them and wants to help. This is a huge issue: the context in which our work takes place frequently causes us to appear as saviors or godsends. I wonder if part of what’s compelling here is not just the abstract idea of that person, but the way the entire dynamic causes us to feel—intensely special, valued, and recognized. I will come back to this.

Another common and recurrent theme in the representation of incarcerated students is as victims of social or economic inequality, systemic racism, or other forms of structural or institutional oppression. In some cases, the student is imagined as a revolutionary or radical intellectual, engaged in a political battle against repression.

Just to be clear: I know a lot of people inside the system who fit this characterization quite nicely—once again, my point is not whether or not it’s accurate; my point is to call attention to 1) the ways in which it’s appealing to imagine students in this way; 2) what function it might have for us to imagine or represent them like this; and 3) what the impact of this might be on how we teach, or run programs inside.

People frequently seem to come to this work with pre-existing images, narratives, interpretations, maybe even fantasies, about students. These images and ideas that they bring with them (or that perhaps evolve once they get there) often seem to carry special personal meaning—or even to be a large part of what attracts them, and even energizes them in their work. So many people seem to arrive at this work with their own scripts in tow, as if they were looking for others to help act them out.

Whether they simply project these images onto their students, or come in searching for those who’ll be a “match,” when they find those individuals, those are the ones who become their “favorites”: the people they notice the most, have the strongest connection with, and invest the greatest time and attention in. It’s as if those are the folks they’re really there for—other students are more like background to these “special relationships.”

This is (hopefully obviously) a problem—particularly for all the students who DON’T fit this mold—because both as teachers and as entire programs, we are actually supposed to be there for ALL of our students. One thing we ought constantly to ask ourselves is what it feels like to be those students who are apparently less appealing to us. We also ought to wonder what image of us, both as people and as professionals, this kind of behavior pattern communicates to others, and how it impacts our legitimacy in the eyes of our students.

One way of thinking about the function of all of these dynamics is to consider the ways in which each of these images basically maps to a corresponding role or image for that teacher/practitioner who stands in relation to them. For example: if the student is intellectually or morally inferior, then I must be superior. If the student is broken or lost; then I become the one who can fix or rescue them. If the student is a revolutionary and a martyr; then I am the radical co-conspirator who supports them in battle. If the prisoner is exotic and supernatural, and we’re friends, then I must be cool. So in other words, by existing in relationship to that person, or that image, we’re allowed to construct an image of ourselves that is intensely gratifying, in a narcissistic sense.

I would argue that this theme of gratification—which is clearly, at healthy levels, a feature of any highly functional educational environment—can become especially intense in a classroom setting in which students are particularly attentive and grateful, as they often are in a prison classroom. It’s easy to love people who love you. The gratitude, attention, idealization, even love that incarcerated students often shower on program staff and faculty can just feel really good (even when they can also be quite complicated).

And at the same time, incarcerated students often have an extraordinary amount of undeveloped and unrecognized potential (unrecognized not just by others, but also by them), which once activated is almost like watching one of those national geographic specials where you watch a flower blooming in fast motion. At least for me, it’s not just the emergence of intellect and creativity that’s so wondrous; it’s also witnessing students encounter those parts of themselves that’s so powerful. This is all intensely gratifying for everyone.

If you consider the extreme forms of distress that any incarcerated student lives with, and the fact that so many people inside have had such limited contact with benevolent authority figures, competent teachers, etc., and how all of that magnifies the intensity of those emotions—especially of gratitude and admiration… for anyone who wants to feel valued, teaching in prison is basically heroin.

And I would argue that teachers and staff sometimes, perhaps ironically, develop a kind of addictive relationship to the love of their students. It can be literally intoxicating, and it often creates a kind of reciprocal idealization that while for the most part just creates a very warm and positive energy within the program, and inspires people to work ridiculously hard, at times can also be problematic.

If a teacher’s commitment to their student is rooted largely in their idealization of that student, it can bake into the relationship a kind of precarity or instability. Eventually, someone’s going to struggle—there will be some kind of perfectly normal conflict—maybe just a bad mood, or a conflict in needs or interests—and that rupture or tension will be unduly personalized, or even experienced as abandonment or betrayal.

The same risk applies if the teacher is relying on their students’ idealization of them—or even just their love—to feel like a good teacher, or a good person. Or, for example, if the teacher is looking to their students for some sort of political affirmation or even absolution, perhaps of their own self-perceived sins of privilege…

Teachers need to be able to maintain a sense of their own competency (or even integrity, in an egoic sense), even in the face of conflict—even when they screw up. It cannot be the end of the world when your students are upset or disappointed. Teachers must be able to hold their ground—whether it’s about the quantity of reading assigned, or disagreements about language, politics, or anything else. That doesn’t mean they can’t ever learn from their students, or discover that they were wrong about something—just that they should not be so dependent on their students’ approval that it prevents them from actually fulfilling the role of teacher.

And teachers also need to be able to allow students in an intellectual and emotional sense to be separate, imperfect, even rebellious. And they need to be able to actually see their students. If I hold an idealized image of you, or project one onto you, I’m not actually seeing you—at best, I’m sort of editing you all the time. And while this may feel good in the moment, in a sense, it’s a kind of erasure. And given that students rely on their teachers to let them know that they have value, and that they make sense, even when they’re not pleasing or agreeing with them, then teachers need to be grounded in, and motivated in their work, by something other than their students’ adoration.

As students discover their own minds, their own imaginations, their own critical insights, what they need is teachers and peers who can listen closely, help them hear themselves, and help them discover their own opinions, values and ideas. The teacher who already has in mind who they believe or need their student to be, or what they need them to think, or to desire, is ill-equipped to support their intellectual or emotional development.

In contrast to all of this, it’s a lot easer to imagine the harm of typically negative stereotypes, but I’m going to talk briefly about these. For example, it’s not hard to imagine that it would be damaging to have a teacher who assumes you are physically dangerous, psychologically pathological, intellectually inferior, or morally defective.

Consider what kinds of messages this sort of mindset transmits to the incarcerated student about themselves, whether through interpersonal interaction, for example, in the course of a classroom discussion; or in the way courses are designed, or in response to students’ work—for example, in feedback on papers. And on a practical level, if a teacher thinks their students are fragile or simply not very bright, what motivation do they have to find ways to hold those students—and themselves—to a high standard academically, especially when those students struggle?

Digression/story: shortly after I started running the San Quentin program, I held a series of conversations with fellow instructors about the academic standards of the program. At one of them, when I explained that I felt we needed to get clear about whether or not we were holding our students at SQ to the same standard that we held our students on our main campuses (UCB, Stanford, SF State, etc.), one of the teachers there got very upset and said, this is just unfair. Their lives have been so difficult already; you’re just going to demoralize them.

One important issue that this exchange captures for me in retrospect is how bias can turn a teacher completely upside down, so that what is both ethical and reasonable (in this case, holding students to a high standard) appears to them to be both irrational and cruel. In other words, she didn’t think they were capable of meeting those standards, so holding them to them seemed just mean.

One of the great ironies of that situation is that, as I understand it today, really the problem was that our students were terribly underprepared and inexperienced academically; they were not incapable; they just hadn’t had access to the quantity and quality of basic instruction that they needed. And we, at the time, were a bunch of academics who knew little or nothing about teaching basic skills, and there was hardly anyone involved with the program who was capable of putting together a strong developmental English or math class. So in other words, it was a structural failure on our part. It had nothing to do with their abilities anyway!

And if you think about it, that whole encounter also expressed a very curious interpretation of the spectrum of harm we were facing—somehow, our failure to take responsibility for ensuring that our students got the same quality education they would have gotten at a high quality college on the outside, so that they would be prepared for academic and professional success, that failure seemed less harmful than challenging them academically would be.

I think it also expressed an intense anxiety at the thought of causing the students emotional distress, as if that might destroy them, that I have often encountered in the world of prison education. And this is something else that I think we need to take a close look at. Obviously we want teachers to feel appropriately protective of their students, but I think it’s worth asking what exactly is going on at a moment like this, and what the emotional context is not just for the student, but for the teacher.

Inexperienced students will at times feel overwhelmed: they may be having trouble processing information, they may be anxious, they may be feeling self-doubt, or even panic; they may be flashing back to a time when they were emotionally or cognitively overwhelmed by school; when they were too anxious to think, and teachers or other authority figures were telling them that they were stupid or lazy. Whatever it is, what students need is not for teachers to lower the bar; they need their teachers to stay with them in a psychological sense—the same is true when they experience disappointment or frustration.

Students need teachers whose patience and calm will reassure them that they’re going to be fine; that they’re not going to be rushed, or punished, or humiliated if they struggle. And obviously they need continual academic support.

But again, consider how the teacher’s image of their student might impair their ability to tolerate their student’s frustration, or even anger, or feelings of persecution by the teacher. (Because this is also common; when students get scared they sometimes feel that others are deliberately trying to harm them.) The point is not that students in prison or anywhere else should be allowed to act out in a destructive way, but they should be allowed to have their feelings.

If I as a teacher think you’re inherently emotionally fragile, or are deep down a violent dangerous person, how might that shape my reaction to your showing any sign of anger or frustration? How might it influence the kinds of feedback I offer you, or even impact my grading scale? Or my willingness to interrupt if you’re taking the class discussion completely off track? For that matter, if I think you’re inherently sexist, racist or homophobic, how might that influence my beliefs about the course content you will appreciate, or benefit from, or can handle, whether intellectually or psychologically?

Another brief anecdote: some time before I taught my own class at SQ for the first time, I was chatting with two more experienced instructors about what texts I should teach, and one of them said, “So there are two things you can’t talk about in the prison classroom: one is feminism; the other is homosexuality.” So when I was at SQ a few weeks later, as I was getting ready to introduce my students to The Women of Brewster Place, I told them about that advice. And the students’ reaction was basically, who the hell told you that?

What I believe is that for those two men, my esteemed colleagues, the idea of incarcerated people had come to represent a place onto which they could project all their own repudiated thoughts and feelings. It’s not that WE are anti-feminist or homophobic, but don’t talk to these guys about that stuff…

Another example might seem like the opposite of what I just described: the teacher who idealizes their incarcerated student as, by definition, the embodiment of political radicalism, and thus seeks their approval as a form of psychological validation. This is not the same as simply recognizing a student’s intellectual wisdom or insight; rather, it’s about projecting onto that student the problem of one’s own social (or political) insecurities, and then delegating to them the responsibility of overcoming them. This type of dynamic—in which the student is simultaneously both idealized and instrumentalized as a source of validation—means that the teacher is highly unlikely to hold their ground in any kind of conflict which they fear might lead to the loss of the student’s approval. The intensity of such a relationship might well be deeply satisfying for both parties, but I would argue that it is also nevertheless in a certain sense a form of exploitation.

I cannot overstate the importance of being vigilant about these kinds of projections. The issue is not simply the matter of the teacher’s fantasies about the student, and how these kinds of needs might impair the quality of teacher or staff performance; there’s also the deeply confusing (even if unspoken, or even unthought) impact on the student of the teacher’s attachment to their own fantasy of them, and the burden of their corresponding desire to maintain a certain kind of bond with them.

These dynamics are problematic—though obviously in different ways— both for those students who are the objects of such projections and those who aren’t. But my larger concern is ultimately that while we may see ourselves as political saviors, I fear that we are not so much overcoming reductionist stereotypes, as we are replacing or upgrading them with new patterns of objectification and exploitation. I simply don’t see how we transform the system, or the society as a whole, if our capacity for genuine interpersonal relation remains so deeply impaired.

This is also why I believe that while the somewhat glorifying reductionist stories that I talked about in the beginning may be useful and even necessary at times, they are not going to be enough.

The opposite of dehumanization is not idealization; the opposite is seeing each human being as a fully unique, always flawed individual whose life matters and who is worthy of compassion. If we agree (as I would argue) that the dehumanization of people in prison is the central underpinning of our current catastrophically flawed criminal justice system—and that it is the key factor that both inspires and legitimizes the brutality and neglect contained within it—then we should continue to challenge ourselves, our colleagues and our communities to pay close attention and to forge ahead.

Filed Under: Conferences, Current Affairs, From the President, Research & Outreach

Symposium on Criminal Justice Reform and Philanthropy—Students Reimagine Reform

February 6, 2019 by Mt. Tam College

On January 26, the Prison University Project hosted a Symposium on Criminal Justice Reform and Philanthropy in partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. This event showcased proposals developed by students of the College Program at San Quentin State Prison through an intensive workshop during the fall semester. Guided by two facilitators and four research assistants, students first learned about theories of power and the foundations of philanthropy before crafting their own solutions to mass incarceration. The symposium allowed those most impacted by the criminal justice system to claim their rightful seat at the table of reform and contribute to the conversations surrounding their lives and futures. Summaries of some of the students’ proposals are featured below.

Randy Akins
Akins proposes the creation of a speakers bureau of formerly incarcerated people and their allies to inform the public about the impacts of mass incarceration and to help instigate conversation about alternatives to the current system that has caused such harm, especially in African-American communities. His proposal highlights the potential of facilitating ways for formerly incarcerated people to contribute to their communities and to the conversation around criminal justice reform. Due to their intimate familiarity with the system, the voices and efforts of formerly incarcerated people in working to improve the system and strengthen their communities are significant.

Wayne Boatwright and Clark Gerhartsreiter
Gerhartsreiter and Boatwright propose the creation of a startup research institute – The Institute for Decarceration Studies – that finds, structures, and scales solutions for criminal justice reform with the particular goal of reversing mass-incarceration. The Institute aims to do this through the discipline of academic inquiry, combined with strategic synthesis and analysis of the best research and data. Operating from within a state prison and staffed by incarcerated persons, the Institute would publish a quarterly academic research journal. It will also conduct off-site parallel operations through a scholar-in-residence program in collaboration with a major research university.

Steven Brooks
Brooks proposes that CDCR implement an incentivized, rehabilitative program intended to reduce or eliminate the possession, use and sale of addictive substances within its institutions. Brooks believes that this would also help facilitate incarcerated people’s focus on rehabilitation. Today, California’s prison system is full of drugs, drug users and drug dealers, and often incarcerated people are forced through default to “hustle” for survival. Even those who are serious about their rehabilitation process often lose their willpower to abstain from illegal trading after too many nights of going to bed hungry. To encourage prisoners who have little or no family support to choose participation in rehabilitation programs, CDCR could offer incentives for participation in substance use disorder treatment and drug counseling programs. They would not only benefit the participants by helping them recover from addictions, but make CDCR institutions less punitive and more rehabilitative in nature.

Conrad Cherry
Cherry proposes the funding of re-entry “advocates” who will use technology to help incarcerated people get housing and employment. Currently, people preparing for release, and especially those preparing for parole hearings, have a hard time connecting to available programs and services because of technological and logistical barriers. It is difficult for many people, especially those without family support, to prove to the parole board that they will be able to support themselves in the community because they cannot communicate with potential employers or transitional housing providers easily. Funding advocates to assist people in locating, communicating with, and applying for employment and housing would greatly improve people’s chances for success when they re-enter the community and improve their ability to demonstrate their ability to function successfully in the community to the parole board.

Roberto DeTrinidad
For the average U.S. citizen, our current judicial system is a vast web of protocols, technicalities and jargon. There is, effectively, a language barrier preventing clear understanding. DeTrinidad proposes a pilot project that seeks to alleviate the gaps in understanding that exist within today’s court rooms. DeTrinidad proposes creating a panel of psychologists, linguists, educators, justice system stakeholders (i.e., District Attorneys, Public Defenders, etc.) and average U.S. citizens of varying reading levels to review and simplify the language used in court and court documents. In addition, beginning with a single courtroom, this pilot project would test a system where judges and other courtroom actors would have to confirm a defendant’s understanding of each discussed item before proceeding, as well as create a space for open dialogue in the courtroom.

Ronell Draper
Community reform and prison reform should go hand in hand; there needs to be a conversation between the two. Instead of only focusing on self-help programs inside prisons, people working on prison reform should also work on community building in order to address past traumas and prevent future traumas. Draper’s proposal addresses the need for criminal justice reform to co-exist with community reform efforts – to humanize returning citizens while the community can have real interaction with the incarcerated by attending self-help groups alongside one another, becoming allies and champions for one another.

Teddy Fields
Fields seeks funding to support a ballot initiative to reform California’s Three Strikes Law. The People’s Fair Sentencing and Public Safety Act, originally proposed for the 2018 ballot, would change the language of the Three Strikes Law to ensure that individuals whose triggering offense is nonviolent no longer be exposed to a lengthy life sentence. It would also change the way that the law classifies certain crimes that are currently considered “serious” crimes or violent felonies despite not involving any actual violence. It would ensure that these individuals are able to secure release into society without racking up extra time for repeated non-violent convictions, and it would save the taxpayers millions of dollars. This Act seeks to rectify this illogical practice by amending the Penal Code to make a distinction between violence and nonviolence. Under Federal guidelines, this very distinction exists; 18 USC 3559 (3)(H)(i), (ii). The amendments will serve to protect nonviolent offenders from suffering miscarriages of justice.

Chung Kao
Kao proposes broad funding for the expansion of higher education programs across prisons in the United States, which would allow those who are incarcerated to obtain post secondary degrees. Based on the overwhelming success of the Prison University Project, Kao would like to see this model funded and replicated across the United States. If funded, Kao believes that this initiative will lead to a significant decrease in the overall rates of recidivism. It would also provide a space for incarcerated folks to gain the knowledge and skills they need to gain employment upon release. Finally, similar programs have been proven to have positive effects on self-identity, mental health, relationships as well as race relations.

James King
King proposes investment in a new media company that will provide an online platform for people who are directly impacted by the criminal justice system. In particular, this media platform would provide a system for educating and sharing information with people who are currently incarcerated and an outlet for incarcerated people to directly share their stories, thoughts, and observations about life on the inside. If funded, King would expand the Re:Vision blog (a current project of Re:store Justice) to provide an avenue for incarcerated people to learn about, shape, and independently lead the criminal justice reform conversation.

Chan Lam
Lam proposes the creation of a job-seeking platform designed specifically to help recently paroled people find employment. This platform seeks to explicitly outline the federal financial incentives for hiring people with felony convictions and features a streamlined filing application so employers can receive their refunds. There are no upfront costs for companies or people on parole to use the site and it features a rating system similar to GlassDoor. Lam’s mission is to connect more parolees with meaningful, long-term employment and financial independence. Funding for this platform would help him achieve this fundamental purpose and improve employment opportunities for people coming home from prison.

Isaiah Love
Love argues that prisons should be transformed into academies for higher education and for building new, pro-social habits. This culture would help incarcerated people change their lives and adopt new habits during their time in prison, which, in turn, would allow them to succeed in the community upon release. Orienting correctional institutions around cultural and behavioral transformation would mean providing opportunities for all incarcerated people to access high quality higher education, to develop and maintain new habits, and to create new identities.

Michael Mackey
Mackey’s proposal involves reforming how the justice system interacts with and treats people with mental illness. He believes that the current system does not address the needs of people with mental illness sufficiently. Access to assessment, treatment, and (when necessary) referral for mental illness (including substance use disorder) should be a part of the general health services available to all incarcerated people. People with mental illness in prison, he says, should have access to the same types of psychotropic medication and psychosocial support as people in the community outside of prison.

William Merlen
Merlen proposes a program to help address and heal feelings of social inadequacy that are common among incarcerated people and that cause real harm to their ability to heal, develop supportive social networks, and re-enter the community successfully.

Lonnie Morris
Far too often, the criminal justice reform agenda is created without sufficiently utilizing the specialized knowledge and lived experiences of currently incarcerated men and women. In order to remedy this problem, Morris proposes to conduct a series of workshops on criminal justice reform strategies and priorities (entitled “Resetting the Criminal Justice Reform Table”) for philanthropists, businesses, community based organizations (CBOs), judges, lawmakers, district and defense attorneys, law enforcement and other drivers and influencers in the criminal justice reform movement. These workshops would bring the perspective of currently incarcerated people “back to the table” and allow them to help shape more inclusive, meaningful, and sustainable criminal justice reform policies, strategies, and priorities.

Rahsaan Thomas
Thomas seeks to fund a new project of Prison Renaissance, which is an organization that Thomas co-founded that uses art to support the healing of incarcerated people and to connect them to the wider community. This project, called We Rehabilitate Us Program (WRUP), would create opportunities for incarcerated artists to collaborate with outside artists. Although rehabilitative programs like art therapy are proven to reduce recidivism, CDCR inconsistently maintains art programs. Unlike CDCR programs, which rely on state funding, outside funding and collaboration with volunteers would enable WRUP to pursue its goals free from bureaucratic constraints. Through WRUP, Thomas envisions a future of reduced disciplinary infractions in prison environments. He hopes WRUP will serve as the catalyst to create mentorships and collaborative relationships between incarcerated people and communities outside, financially empower artists by producing three journals a year that pay artists for their work, and reduce recidivism rates to zero for program participants.

Jesse Vasquez
Vasquez writes, “Relatively few people adversely impacted by public policy are involved in the decision-making process. The vast majority of inner city Americans, especially black and brown people, are at a disadvantage in the public arena because they lack knowledge of the governmental framework that regulates how bills and ballot measures become law. Few of them know whom to address their concerns to and the rest of them assume that no one will care enough to listen.” He proposes the funding of a “Civic Empowerment Program” designed to strengthen socio-political bonds by providing everyone with a platform of political expression. Through a program serving middle school, high school and college students, as well as others eager to learn, Vasquez envisions an education infrastructure bolstering the US democracy and engagement within it. This infrastructure will increase civic engagement and, therefore, hold the capacity to transform the current criminal justice system.

Charles Williams
Williams proposes funding for a holistic rehabilitation program for people ages 35 and older who have been incarcerated for 15 years or more. The main components of this program would include: mental health professionals guiding participants through confrontational therapy and coping skills, developing a mechanism of community responsibility that clusters participants into accountability groups, and an investment in each participant to support their successful transition into society. Williams further proposes that the Mental Health Department play an integral role in both developing the curriculum and providing adequate psychological evaluation of incarcerated persons prior to their release. If funded, Williams believes that this initiative will serve as a holistic approach for incarcerated people who are preparing for their release to successfully reintegrate into society with minimal barriers.

Van Wilson
Wilson proposes an alteration to CDCR policy in order to allow incarcerated people to own and use cell phones. He believes that providing access to cell phones would promote the independence, self-reliance, self-esteem, and community ties of incarcerated people. Opponents of this idea claim that incarcerated people would use cellphones behind walls to invite criminal activity. Wilson envisions a cellphones-behind-walls policy that works for everyone and improves public safety; calls would be monitored via authorized ID codes and the provider would be equipped with technology that prevents incarcerated people from accessing sensitive information. A working policy has the potential to eliminate unauthorized cell phone contraband and protect public safety, while improving self-esteem, self-actualization, and family and social ties for incarcerated people. The value of providing an outlet for self-expression and connection would be seen in the increased safety of CDCR institutions and smoother re-entry when people leave prison.

Phoeun You
You proposes the creation of a 13-week seminar on the causes and impacts of, coping mechanisms for, and strategies for healing from trauma led by incarcerated facilitators for prison staff and volunteers. This “Trauma Academy” would aim to build empathy, cultivate a deeper understanding of personal traumas, guide healing and uncover coping skills. Funding for the seminar would help pay for facilitation fees as well as marketing materials, a website and workshop training. You believes that once the pilot program achieves success at San Quentin, it can expand to prisons across the nation and include workshops for society at large. Processing, understanding, and healing from trauma is an important way to make communities safer. This seminar aims to both transform individuals’ lives and make prisons safer and healthier for staff and incarcerated people alike.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Filed Under: Academic Writing, Academics, Campus & Community, Campus Events, Conferences, In the Classroom, Open Line, Partnerships, Research & Outreach

University of Wyoming Symposium to Feature Executive Director Jody Lewen

January 22, 2019 by Mt. Tam College

The University of Wyoming is hosting a symposium, “Transformative Education in Prison and Beyond,” on March 29 & 30. Jody Lewen, Prison University Project’s Executive Director, will deliver a keynote address with Damon Horowitz,  a philosophy professor and serial entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology and the humanities. 

From the symposium’s website:

“The purpose of this two-day, solution-oriented symposium is to advance the field of education in prison, as well as efforts to support formerly incarcerated people in their transition from incarceration to freedom. The event will consist of various panel discussions, interactive workshops, and keynote addresses by leaders in the field.

The fact that higher education, specifically the humanities, transforms the lives of prison inmates is remarkable — and the transformation is lasting. Quality education supports the development of emotional intelligence as well as academic growth, and prepares people to live successful lives post-release. Using education to improve the lives of the disadvantaged and underserved populations who end up in prison supports social justice. The Symposium will focus on enhancing current programs, strategizing and implementing new programs, and sharing solutions to existing challenges.”

For more details and registration information, visit the University of Wyoming’s site.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Filed Under: Conferences, Research & Outreach

Prison University Project Attends National Conference on Higher Education in Prison 2018

December 1, 2018 by Mt. Tam College

Prison University Project staff, volunteers, board members, and former students traveled to Indianapolis for the National Conference on Higher Education in Prison (NCHEP) in November 2018.

As described by its organizing body, the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, “this conference [was] a space for practitioners, students, teachers, advocates, allies, and many other higher education in prison stakeholders, to gather in solidarity, to support the development of networks, and to share learning, in the broader hope of building a movement.”

Through plenary sessions, panels, workshops, and keynote addresses, attendees were encouraged to cross-pollinate ideas and grapple with some uncomfortable questions that emerge in higher education in prison work related to race and representation, boundaries, ethics, privilege, agency, and complicity.

The Prison University Project stood out as a leader in the field with many members of our community actively participating in the conference’s events:

  • Executive Director Jody Lewen led a plenary session on boundaries, ethics, and self-care with Molly Lasagna from the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative.
  • Jody also led two pre-conference workshops on starting a higher education in prison program, with former students and Prison University Project staff David Cowan and Dmitriy Orlov. Jody moderated a panel on California prison education programs as well.
  • Academic Program Director Amy Jamgochian presented a paper on how rules related to “overfamiliarity” play out in the educational context of prison.
  • Volunteer instructor, Ethics Bowl coach, and Prison University Project board member Kathy Richards; former student Tommy Gardner; and Lecturer in Philosophy and Assistant Director of the Center for Public Philosophy at UC Santa Cruz, Kyle Robertson presented on the Ethics Bowl format.
  • Volunteer instructor Amber Shields presented a paper co-written by Prison University Project student James King that questioned how the perpetuation of institutional power structures through the classroom and canon can hinder the accomplishment of educational goals and produce conflicts for a diverse student body.

Prison University Project staff members came away inspired, challenged, and committed to continue to engage in the critical, yet often difficult, conversations essential to social justice work.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Filed Under: Conferences, Research & Outreach

Where the Movement Starts

November 1, 2018 by Mt. Tam College

Published in the November 2018 newsletter, which you can read in its entirety here.

On October 5, the Prison University Project hosted an academic conference inside San Quentin, entitled Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reform: 21st Century Solutions for 20th Century Problems. Panelists included college students at San Quentin and outside academics, and Patrick Elliot Alexander, author of From Slave Ship to Supermax: Mass Incarceration, Prisoner Abuse, and the New Neo-Slave Novel, delivered the keynote address.

This was only possible because all came off as planned. There could have been a lockdown or a quarantine, either of which would have kept students from attending or guests from coming into the prison. There might have been delays, so students missed half of the event. There could have been an alarm on the yard, leaving students stuck on the spot until it cleared. Student speakers and facilitators may have found themselves in risky situations, called upon to critique their captors or disagree with others in the face of potentially serious social or political repercussions. The list goes on and on, and even after several years working inside the prison, I know I don’t know the half of it. But all such contingencies are examples of the reason it is critical for incarcerated people to have a voice in academic conversations about prison: only they know in depth the realities of incarcerated life. Only they have some of the true keys for analyzing what reform should look like, or if “reform” is in fact the answer.

The goal of including incarcerated voices in academic conversations about incarceration was what led us to start planning this conference. Students and alumni inside the prison applied to be on the conference committee, and together a small group of us collaborated on a call for papers, which hubristically announced this as the first academic conference to be held inside a prison—this is not the case, as it turns out, but we were excited to start receiving dozens of submissions, both from our students inside and from outside scholars from across the U.S. In the end we received almost 100, so many that we realized, to some of the committee members’ dismay, that we would have to send out some rejections.

We were also eager to help our student participants prepare for this professional opportunity, in which they were on panels with academics far more experienced in writing and presenting: volunteers Chris Alfonso and Debbie Mayer stepped up to help student presenters with research and writing; Prison University Project Board member and volunteer instructor James Dyett assisted student speakers with public speaking skills and student panel moderators with facilitation strategies. Our students did magnificently.

These and other concerns filled our sometimes twice-weekly meetings. We disagreed, argued, and spent hours upon hours talking through complexities of panel configurations. I’m filled with admiration for the dedication, hard work, and brilliance of my co-planners—Chris Alfonso, Wayne Boatwright, Noble Butler, Clark Gerhartsreiter, James King, Timothy Thompson, Jesse Rothman, and Jesse Vasquez, many of whom had never attended a conference, but all of whom approached the planning with passion, seriousness, and a spirit of collaboration. The theme of the National Conference on Higher Education in Prison in Indianapolis this November is “Building a Movement,” but we demonstrated with our own sister conference that the movement truly starts inside.

Amy Jamgochian is Prison University Project’s Academic Program Director.

Please note that the Prison University Project became Mount Tamalpais College in September 2020.

Filed Under: Campus & Community, Campus Events, Conferences, Events, MTC News, Research & Outreach

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