The Prison Education Program is recruiting student interns for the 2022 – 2023 academic year. Our interns help us with all elements of our program, providing support for in-person classes inside the prisons, distance learning, in-person events, communication, research, logistics support, etc.
Our program was enormously impacted by Covid – we stopped all in-person activities in March of 2020, and were only able to restart on an extremely limited scale in March 2022. In spite of this, our program continued to offer classes, run book donation drives, participate in statewide organizing for higher education, advise inside students, and pursue other goals in support of both on-campus and incarcerated students. Usually our interns would be recruited from students who have taken Inside-Out classes and therefore have experiences in the prisons. However, we have few–if any–students who have had those experiences due to the pandemic. We therefore are seeking students who are passionate about this kind of work, will be flexible in a changing work environment, have the emotional maturity to work in difficult spaces, work as a team but also be able to do independent projects, and are able to abide by a range of rules that make our work possible.
We seek people who have experience with leadership but also students who have not yet found their ‘niche’ and are seeking an opportunity to grow and engage in new ways.
Position Description
Interns with the Prison Education Program provide essential support to our projects. The range of tasks varies widely. General areas include:
- Administrative (preparing readings and other materials, data entry, preparing class folders)
- Communication (website, LinkedIn, newsletters to distribute to email list and in print inside the prisons)
- Project support (assisting a faculty member with a particular program, requiring a broad range of skills)
- Classroom support (transportation logistics, student communication, support in in-class activities, etc)
Time requirements vary depending on current projects and prison schedules. However, we ask students to plan to commit to at least 3 hours per week of pre-scheduled meetings and/or work sessions, and at least another 3 of independent work. If we are able to hold in-person programs again, programs in the prisons will be in addition to this.
You will work most closely with Katie Dwyer, the Program Coordinator, who will help supervise and direct the intern group. The 2022-2023 intern cohort will be 4 or 5 individuals. You will also work with other PEP faculty, formerly incarcerated leaders, and other members of the campus and broader community.
Stipend
We are able to offer interns a $500 stipend per term in partial recognition of their work.