UW-Green Bay and UW-Madison will be jointly launching a new prison education program to offer people incarcerated the opportunity to earn an associate degree this fall.
Oakhill Correctional Institution in Oregon, which is near Madison, will have UW-Green Bay, UW-Madison professors, and graduate students providing lectures and courses, said Jillian Jacklin, a UW-Green Bay professor and visiting professor for the Social Justice and Democracy and the Prison Education Coordinator for this program. She said the program also would offer several different enrichment education opportunities, such as yoga. Jacklin is working on hiring and curriculum development.
Wisconsin is joining states such as California, New York, and New Jersey in increasing its focus on prison education programs. According to a Wisconsin Public Radio article by Rich Kremer in January 2022, there has been a substantial push over the past few years toward developing prison education to reduce recidivism rates. Tommy Thompson, a former governor and former interim president of the University of Wisconsin System, announced the “Prison Education Initiative” in the UW System in 2020. To help finance the initiative, Gov. Tony Evers and Missy Hughes, Secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., announced in December 2021 a $5.7 million grant toward the initiative.
Another financing for the new program comes from a federal workforce development grant announced by UW-Madison Associate Professor Rosemary Russ and Peter Moreno, Director of UW-Odyssey Beyond Bars. Jacklin said that the grant requires that 200 students by the end of the two-year period for the grant need to have a certificate or something that demonstrates that they have taken courses that make them more workforce ready.” While UW-Madison does not offer associate degrees, UW-Green Bay does, according to Jacklin, so incarcerated students can earn a two-year associate degree while gaining experience to enter the workforce.
Jacklin said the Department of Corrections also has received a grant under the larger Workforce Development grant for the program “to create the types of technologies and facilities and spaces to make this happen for the students. “Partnering between institutions of higher education here in Wisconsin and institutions of incarceration is very crucial in order to make this be successful for workforce development,” Jacklin said.
UW-Odyssey Beyond Bars, part of the UW-Madison Odyssey, began in fall 2019, providing UW-Madison’s English 100 to a class of 15 students incarcerated at Oakhill. Around the same time, in February 2020, several UW-Green Bay professors began to discuss ways to teach UW-Green Bay courses at Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI).
Other UW-Green Bay professors, such as Dr. Derek Jeffreys, had been teaching at GBCI through the institution’s chapel, providing several non-credit courses more oriented around enrichment. According to Jeffreys, UW-Green Bay had a prison education program. “Many years ago, decades ago, we had faculty teaching over at the prison, and… when the funding disappeared, we no longer had that. So I went on my own and offered classes like I would here in philosophy, in religion, all kinds of fun topics.” Jeffreys said. In fall 2022, Jeffreys offered a course on the concept of forgiveness. And Jacklin had taught at the Dane County Jail as a volunteer yoga instructor offering a once-a-week class to women incarnated there from Fall 2011 to Spring 2019. “There was something that I was getting from teaching yoga inside the jail that was very rewarding because the students were so sincere and wanted to be there and were choosing and recognizing that it was really a gift,” Jacklin said. “There was a lot of gratitude, and I would have a woman say things like, “You know I was a heroin addict, and this feels better than heroin to me.”
This desire to help others who wanted to participate and learn would prompt Jacklin and other Democracy and Justice Studies professors Nolan Bennett, Andrew Austin, and Allison Staudinger to develop more courses for the incarcerated. Meanwhile, Professor Kaden Paulson-Smith had been talking to UW-Odyssey Beyond Bars, which had started to expand to other campuses. “There has been an effort to move to other institutions. Now, there is a section taught at Racine Correctional Institution. There is a section of English 100 taught at Columbia Correctional Institution,” Jacklin said.
UW-Green Bay and the Green Bay Correctional Institution then followed suit in spring 2022 when UW-Odyssey Beyond Bars approached Charles Rybak, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, about offering English 100 at the facility. “He took a brave leap and said that he would teach the course,” Jacklin said.
English 100, which is equivalent to the UW-Green Bay’s course, Writing Foundations, launched with a class of eight students taught by Rybak with two tutors, Jacklin and OW- Odyssey program manager Lauren Surovi. Surovi and Jacklin got four of the students each and tutored them virtually, with Rybak teaching them virtually for half of the semester, then teaching them in person for the remainder of the semester. Jacklin said, “…We did that in the spring of 2022, which was amazingly powerful. The writing capabilities, the story capabilities, the community building capabilities, the love of those students for each other and for the instructors is very palpable.”
In fall 2022, Rybak asked Jennie Young, an UW-Green Bay English professor, if she would be interested in teaching English 100, and she agreed. Meanwhile, Jennifer Fandel, associate director of UW-Odyssey Beyond Bars, had reached out to Paulson-Smith and Jacklin to see if they wanted to tutor again. Both agreed.
Young said one of the biggest adjustments was the lack of technology. “I used to teach a LOT normally, so it’s been a bit of a challenge to go completely old-school in that way — the only resources are the readings in the text and the writings that students produce,” she said. “The thing I like about that, though, is that with no distractions, the class discussions remain laser-focused on reading and writing, and that feels very pure.”
Similar to Jacklin, Young found a rewarding feeling as she taught. “My experiences in the classroom working with students have been really wonderful,” Young said. “My students are bright and engaged and committed to the educational process in a way I’ve not experienced before.”
On April 4, 2023, seven students graduated from the course. Students received a diploma cover and a copy of the Oracle, a UW-Odyssey Beyond Bar’s publication of their writings that they completed during the course. The students have also earned their three credits, which can be applicable to most of the UW-System universities, including UW-Green Bay.
Young said, “The benefits to the students are significant. These classes provide intellectual experiences that nurture group relationships and personal development, and that help students hone skills that are transferable to other courses and to future jobs.”
“One of the things that we’re definitely going to need is all sorts of community partners,” Jacklin said. “We have to start building these types of relationships that are interested in helping people re-enter society. People with records often really struggle to find those things that we often take for granted.” Young said, “Resources matter, and when people have no resources, it is very difficult to provide a stable life for children; when children’s lives are chaotic from day one, it is exceedingly difficult to escape the chaos.”
For information about prison education’s impact and the program, visit the UW- Odyssey website: https://odyssey.wisc.edu/beyondbars/about-odyssey-beyond-bars/.
