education Justice Project

engaging with the mellon-funded artistin-residence. curriculum and Instruction, as the new advisor and student experience coordinator. michelle is no stranger to the odyssey Project, having served as an intern during her time as an undergraduate at Illinois. (For more about michelle, see page 23.) azlan guttenberg smith, an m.F.a. candidate in creative writing, will serve as the critical thinking and Writing ta. Kelli mcQueen, Phd candidate in musicology and medieval studies, will join us as the mellon Public humanities Fellow. also, thanks to mellon support, the odyssey Project welcomes new interns Isabella marquez (english, Political science and Latina/o studies) and olivia Fleming (communication and Psychology). Finally, Justin hendrix, odyssey alumnus and a current student at Parkland college, will fill the newly developed role of odyssey mentor. his work will support students as they navigate their path through the odyssey Project. assistant director for education and outreach dr. alaina Pincus maintains oversight of the program, assisting hrI in growing and sustaining it as a resource for the champaignurbana community. together, we look forward to welcoming our new 2020–21 cohort of students, coVId-19, or no.

to learn more about the odyssey Project—and how you can contribute to its future—visit go.illinois.edu/odyssey.

eJP staff members delivered soap and hand sanitizer to prisons. It will come as no surprise that this year has been a challenging one for the education Justice Project (eJP), as it has been for so many of us. In early march, eJP suspended operations at the danville correctional center (dcc), a medium-security prison where for the past eleven years the project has offered for-credit college courses and a myriad of programs to incarcerated men. the prison is only thirty-five miles from the university of Illinois campus, but to program coordinators and teachers the distance felt enormous as they were forced to cut off contact with their students.

thankfully, eJP’s members and staff quickly found ways to adjust. Bi-weekly newsletters sent into the prison have provided students with updates on their courses, as well as useful information about the coronavirus and keeping healthy. this enabled them to finish the semester, though it took many additional weeks. though eJP’s annual spring convocation will not take place at the prison, a convocation newsletter will soon make its way into dcc to honor our students and their accomplishments this year.

eJP has also expanded its statewide advocacy for incarcerated people, partnering with the Illinois coalition for higher education in Prison to provide soap and hand sanitizer to prisons across Illinois. eJP’s reentry guide Initiative produced a special reentry guide for people being released during the pandemic and has distributed thousands to date.

though eJP has decided not to return to danville for the fall semester, students will have the opportunity to take paper correspondence courses. the eJP also hopes to produce instructional videos that can be screened at the prison.

as one eJP student recently wrote, the eJP and its members are built on perseverance and tenacity. “We’re used to new normals so one more will be more than welcome,” michael harrell wrote. “But as long as we’re capable we will persevere.”