PEI Newsletter - March 2019

“

He who opens a SCHOOL DOOR closes a PRISON.

”

VICTOR HUGO

IMPORTANT DATES April 5, 2019 Graduation applications due May 30, 2019 First day of classes Spring semester Graduation: Dates will be announced.

Graduation information: Students: Please be sure that your graduation application is filled out if you plan to complete your degree in winter or spring 2019 and turned in by April 5, 2019. If you plan to walk on our Central Campus, please contact your navigator as soon as possible. All balances must be paid before you can receive your diploma and official transcripts.

For more information: PEI Office Jackson College Bert Walker Hall room 130 Jackson, MI 49201 517.796.8413

www.jccmi.edu/pei

SPRING 2019 ISSUE 1 | VOLUME 1

PRISON EDUCATION INITIATIVE @ JACKSON COLLEGE

Teaching in PEI brings unexpected joy There’s a great scene in the prison movie Brubaker where Yaphet Kotto looks at Robert Redford and says, “I’m getting ready to tell you something.”

He’s not the star of the movie, but it’s a star line and a star moment. The camera fixes on him and we all just wait. There’s a gravity in those three or four seconds of waiting that I would give anything to possess right now as I write these lines. I’m getting ready to tell you something...

Dr. Todd Butler asked me five years ago if I would be willing to teach a class in prison for Jackson College. I said yes without really thinking about it.

(Honestly, if I had thought about it at all, I might have said no. Prisons are terrible places after all. I’ve seen a lot of movies where bad things happen in prison. This might have been too real an experience for the old me.) Luckily, I just said yes.

See, I rather fancy myself as a person who wants to make a difference, and I’m always bragging about being able to teach anywhere. (I once taught a class in a sweltering stairwell in Brazil, so I figured, how much harder can a class in a prison be?) The bottom line is, at some point you have to put some skin in the game. So my answer was yes and there was no getting out of it.

I had a chance to think about it and got progressively more scared as the first day neared. That fear (useful as always) stayed with me until I walked into class at the Parnall facility and realized that

I was standing in front of the greatest students of my teaching career. They were (and they are still) the hardest working, the most engaged and engaging students with whom I have ever worked.

Teaching in the PEI has been one of the most profound experiences of my life.

You will probably strive in vain as an educator to ever have this sort of impact on a class again. But try you will. And everyone will benefit from your attempting the impossible. This program improved my own teaching style, made me more resourceful, taught me patience and resilience. It’s five years now and I’m still growing from this experience.

I recommend this program to any teacher who feels he or she has more to give and more to learn. The only hard part is going through security and getting to your class. Once you are inside, you will find yourself in the most welcoming teaching environment you can imagine. I have laughed my head off with my PEI students, shed tears, and listened rapt while they read their essays and lead discussions in my

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continued from page 1 classes. They have seen a lot of things in their lives. They have suffered. They have made bad choices and now only wish to turn their lives around. Is there anything more admirable?

The most common career choice for my PEI students, once they get out, is that of social worker. Many of them want to start their own non-profit organizations to help other people either avoid a life of crime or adjust to life outside prison. They really want to give something back. (Just last Saturday I asked one of my students how he became such an accomplished poet.

He told me it was the first thing that he had ever done to make his mother proud of him — so he decided to stick with it.)

Anyway, don’t just take my word for it.

Try a semester in the prisons yourself and see if it doesn’t affect you as strongly as it has affected me.

PEI is growing!

We are pleased to say that the Jackson College Prison Education Initiative is expanding! In February 2019, PEI launched a new location at the Central Michigan Correctional Facility (STF) in St. Louis! The first semester at STF begins with 11 course offerings in a cohort model for 50 new students.

Each new student at STF will be working towards completing two degrees: Associate of Arts as well as an Associate of Applied Science in Business Administration.

From the very beginning, we knew that STF would be a successful launch because of the commitment to programs and education by the warden and his administration. STF is centrally located, about 100 miles north of our Jackson College Central Campus.

The PEI staff along with our MDOC partners are committed to making STF another one of our successful satellite campuses. The targeted student population goal at STF is 150 students each semester and 30 semester course offerings.

Learning about one’s self part of PEI My experience with the P.E.I. program has been phenomenal and life changing. I believe that anyone who has an opportunity to be a part of this program should utilize it to the fullest and learn about themselves. Ten years ago I truly believed I was not smart enough to succeed in college. I learned through this program just how detrimental that negative internal dialogue is to one’s future.

“I really enjoy being at Milan and working with these guys! They are into the material and into getting their lives on track. What a blessing it is to be a part of PEI.” DEL BELCHER, ADJUNCT INSTRUCTOR

“Your staff is energized and extremely helpful, and it’s (the program) oriented toward success.”

RAY COLE, PEI STUDENT

I never knew that I was capable of growing and realizing things about myself that I was previously unaware of.

I never knew that I could write and as it turns out it is fun and exciting as well as limitless. I would have never learned this if I did not have the opportunity to be in the P.E.I. program.

Through this program I have grown as an individual but most of all I have learned valuable skills to be a productive member of my community when I return. Through my selfdiscovery and the education I am getting, I have become a better person but most of all I now see a future that I did not see before.

My self-concept and self-esteem are strong where they once were nonexistent. Just the opportunity to go to college is enough to build in those areas and make you feel good about yourself and that’s the key to success in any environment. That feeling of success permeates throughout your life.

JAMES JUSTICE, PEI student

Mission Statement: To provide educational opportunities for incarcerated students by helping them to identify and achieve their goals.

Vision: PEI equips students with the essential life skills necessary for positive reentry, life success, and sustainability through higher education.