Category: News

Winter 2024 Inside Out Courses

Posted on by screemer

We will have two Inside-Out classes in Winter 2024, applications due Monday, November 13th. Submit your application via Google form here.

There is an optional informational session with the Prison Education Program coordinator and recent Inside-Out students in Room 282 in the Law School at 4pm on Wednesday, November 8th. Please come learn about the program, even if you aren’t able to take a winter term class!

Inside-Out classes take place inside a prison, with an equal number of campus-based students and incarcerated (“inside”) students. Classes are discussion based and have had an incredibly positive impact on both the outside and inside students. Because of the drive time to Salem and the process of entering and leaving the institution, the total time involved is 4pm – 10pm one day each week. The class itself goes from 6:00-8:30. Learn more about Inside-Out class offerings. The two winter term classes are:

GEOG 445 “Culture, Ethnicity, and Nationalism” with Professor Shaul Cohen on Mondays at the Oregon State Penitentiary
SOC 410 “Structural Inequality in the US: Schools, the labor market and the criminal justice system” with Professor Ellen Scott on Wednesdays at the Oregon State Correctional Institution

Many past participants have reported that these classes are some of the most interesting, engaging, and transformative they have taken.

Please email uoprisoned@uoregon.edu with any questions!

New Series of PEP TV

Posted on by screemer

This week PEP TV Season 5 is being sent out to the 12 prisons in the Oregon state prison system. PEP TV compiles recorded guest lecturers, tutorials, and faculty talks on a broad range of subjects and sends these to all Oregon prisons to be shown on their TV channels. Our intention is that all 12,000+ people who are incarcerated here might access something educational and interesting that strikes a chord or leads to deeper conversations. PEP TV was created early in the pandemic with support from The Mellon Foundation, and we hope will continue to grow over time. 

Season 5 includes twenty-two segments with a wide range of topics from budgeting seminars created for our program by the University of Oregon Financial Wellness Center, to academic talks about environmental changes from the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, and speeches about current events from Jeff Merkley, the United States Senator for Oregon. PEP TV is deeply rooted in the Humanities and a diverse range of topics and perspectives. 

View the full PEP TV Season 5 Guide

Start of a New Year at the Prison Education Program

Posted on by screemer

Another year is off to a start at the Prison Education Program! This year the PEP is excited to have its largest group of interns it has ever had–a whopping 14 in total to help us tackle our many projects and programs. To kick off the school year, our intern and professional staff team met to learn about the work the PEP does, to generate ideas for the year to come, and to start building community together.

The day consisted of lots ice breakers including a wagon wheel (one-on-one conversations between each intern) and sharing lunch together. We also had a thorough discussion of Sister Helen Prejean’s work Dead Man Walking and interns shared updates from summer projects.  Lots of brainstorming for upcoming projects, outreach, fundraising, and events occurred throughout the day.

The PEP is looking forward to the year to come!

Entrepreneurship Workshop Series Held at Coffee Creek

Posted on by kdwyer6
Our program has hoped to expand our offerings of business classes and workshops for years. Entrepreneurship is particularly valuable for people who are incarcerated, as self-employment is a way to avoid barriers in the job market and is a way to utilize people’s creativity and skills.
This weekend we concluded a three-part workshop on entrepreneurship with Professor Doug Wilson from the Lundquist School of Business. He integrated business fundamentals while sharing stories, answering questions, facilitating small group discussions, and doing a deeper dive into some of the particular industry areas that were of interest to our participants. Our final session had a record-breaking 33 participants, including both some regulars in our classes and people we had not met before. The workshop was held at Coffee Creek Minimum, meaning our participants were women either serving short sentences or nearing release after long sentences. They therefore brought high levels of motivation and thought to the topic, and some had detailed existing plans that we were able to discuss as a group. Another theme that emerged was the widespread desire to engage with the nonprofit sector—either directly or via a kind of for-profit/charitable collaboration to work with people experiencing poverty, in addiction recovery, and otherwise giving back to communities of people who are struggling. Discussing nonprofits from an entrepreneurial angle was particularly interesting and rewarding.
We are scheduled for workshops at CCCF the third Saturday of every month. In addition to entrepreneurship, we have offered a communication workshop and one on math and logic. We look forward to broadening the scope of topics over time, and also know that entrepreneurship will be a welcome topic at the other institutions.

Communication Workshop at OSCI

Posted on by kdwyer6
Not-for-credit workshops have been part of our program offerings for years, but they have been slow to restart since the pandemic. We are delighted, therefore, to have been invited by two OSCI groups – New Horizons and the Asian Club – to hold a two-part communication workshop. Last Friday we held part 1 and were thrilled to have 28 people join us, about half of whom were completely new to our program.
As we say in the workshops, communication is one of the most sought-after “soft skills” for employers, and one of the key abilities for interpersonal relationships in daily life. Using a series of activities, participants practiced public speaking, active listening, written persuasive communication for different audiences, and offering constructive critique. Public speaking is a profound source of anxiety for most people, so a supportive environment in which to practice is of enormous importance.
One takeaway from the workshop was the interpersonal connection between participants as they practiced these skills together. When debriefing the session, several people mentioned having spoken with people they had never had a real conversation with before, and feeling a sense of camaraderie in the room.
We look forward to Part 2 this coming Friday!

Guest Talk on the Nahuatl Language for the OSP Latino Club

Posted on by kdwyer6
On Wednesday, our program was pleased to attend the monthly meeting for the OSP Latino Club. Juan Carlos Gonzalez Zacarias, a UO alum and current member of staff presented his research on the Aztec culture and Nahuatl language to over 140 members of the club. Among other highlights, he spoke about the importance of language and identity, the challenges of preserving a language, and the various communities in Mexico that speak Nahuatl dialects to this day. In spite of the common belief that Spanish is the only language spoken in Mexico, there are in fact 68 official languages for the country, with Nahuatl as the second most widespread.
Juan Carlos received multiple questions and comments from the crowd, and an enthusiastic response from the club leaders as part of their growing efforts to create and support educational opportunities for their members.
At the conclusion of the event, the club president invited members to share if they spoke languages other than Spanish and English. We were treated to greetings in multiple languages and dialects, from Turkish to Hebrew, and then were surprised and delighted to discover two members of the club were native Nahuatl speakers! An additional pleasant surprise—a new club member is Deaf and speaks American Sign Language, and Juan Carlos surprised us all by engaging in a conversation in sign.
When our program is invited to events like this we are always glad to contribute to the educational life of people at OSP beyond what we can offer in for-credit college classes. Just like the UO campus offers a broad range of programs and speakers to our campus community.
Artwork by Juan Carlos for his upcoming book project

Classes Inside, Summer 2023 

Posted on by kcarls10

Summer schedules mean that we aren’t able to offer Inside-Out classes, but we continue to be present in the prisons through in-person and packet/correspondence classes.

This summer we have 102 students in four prisons taking six classes. As usual, we are delighted to have a cadre of brand-new students: 24 who are new to our program, half of whom have never taken a college-level class before. Receiving applications is such a joyful part of the process—we have students who are pursuing a goal they never thought was possible, people continuing educations that hold enormous value to them, and others who are attempting something brand-new.

We also have a growing group of students taking classes at the graduate level: eight of our summer students have bachelor’s degrees, either through our program or through previous study. As usual, it is a particular pleasure to support their continued scholarship. It also adds value to the student community inside as people are able to watch their peers aspire to continuing to achieve academic success even after a traditional graduation.

Here’s to a good summer for all!

Remarks from Jamie Bufalino for Kevin’s GSS Graduation

Posted on by kdwyer6
Remarks by Jamie Bufalino, Department Head for General Social Sciences
6/22/2023
It is my great privilege to be here today to celebrate Kevin’s achievement of the bachelor’s degree in General Social Sciences from the University of Oregon.
The general social sciences program allows students to develop social scientific reasoning by analyzing various types of texts addressing a particular social issue or institution. One of the benefits of the program’s topical focus is that students take courses from many different departments and examine a single problem from a multitude of different perspectives. They apply numerous different methods, qualitative and quantitative, to considering some of the most pressing challenges facing U.S. society and the world today.
Along with many other UO students, Kevin has taken courses concentrated on issues related to crime, law and society.  Each student’s path to a GSS degree is unique, but Kevin’s path mirrors that of many students in that he has taken courses from across the social sciences and been taught by some of UOs most dedicated teacher-scholars. He has completed courses in sociology, political science, anthropology, geography, planning, public policy, and management family and human services, among others.
I’d like to invite us to reflect on the intellectual journey you have taken and to bear witness to your hard work as well as the effort of those who have nurtured and supported you, many of whom are here today. While each person’s intellectual journey is unique, there are common experiences shared by students pursuing a liberal arts degree. For instance, it allows us to take leave of our everyday reality and explore new worlds of ideas, uncover the complexity beneath previously unexamined truths, discover the inner workings of the systems the influence our society, and critically reflect on the interplay between our society’s highest ideals and its daily practices. It connects us with other people in profound ways by allows us develop insight into and empathy for people whose experience differs from our own. Some of those people are our instructors and our classmates, some the authors and subjects of the works we examine. And ideally, it allows us to turn our gaze inward on reflect more deeply on our own lives.
Embarking on this intellectual journey is an act of courage. It requires us to submit to an ongoing process of seeing beyond ourselves, and that process changes us forever. Kevin, your dedication to your studies over many, many years and your incredibly strong academic record bring us to this moment. This degree, then, is exemplary of your incredible commitment to expanding your understanding of the world around you. It also highlights your meaningful participation in the intellectual community of the prison education program, including your fellow students and your instructors who have benefited from your many insights.
In my years directing the GSS program I have found the prison education program to be a transformative experience for both inside and outside students. As we celebrate your accomplishment today, I want to thank you are the profound impact you have made on those who have made this journey with and also thank Katie and Shaul and everyone who makes it possible for students to come together to learn from one another.
Congratulations!!

Sister Helen’s Virtual UO Visit

Posted on by kcarls10

On May 11th, our program had the honor of virtually welcoming Sister Helen Prejean to the University of Oregon. Sister Helen joined students, faculty, and community members in Lillis Hall via Zoom, as she had just arrived back to Louisiana after sharing time with Richard Glossip in Oklahoma prior to his scheduled execution. She spoke to a group of over 100 attendees with high spirits following Glossip’s stay of execution, remarking that she did not even need a plane to fly back to Louisiana; her hopes and happiness carried her home.

Sister Helen inspired us all with her remarkable stories of resilience, perseverance, positivity, and passion. She discussed news and updates following her time with Glossip, thanking those who worked so tirelessly on his case. Prejean told stories of wonderful and devoted people she met through her career, and shared with us some snippets of her path to where she is today. 

“I was in over my head, and it made me learn. You have to have knowledge, you have to read, and you have to be a part of a community. You can’t do it by yourself. Justice is a long haul, you don’t see overnight changes. But the gift you get is the people you meet along the way… that’s the gift that rewards us.” 

Senator Michael Dembrow, who joined us online, opened the question-and-answer portion by speaking to Sister Helen about prison education in Oregon. She was excited to hear about the work we are doing here, and was happy to hear of Dembrow’s support. Sister Helen took a moment to recognize the value of Inside-Out courses, and urged the audience to take advantage of opportunities that humanize those who are incarcerated. 

“Learning is what keeps you alive, and keeps fueling your heart.”

Sister Helen took time to respond to several UO students and professors as they asked questions about her line of work, the criminal justice system, and broader issues of human rights. One student asked what someone who is passionate about this work, but might not know how to get involved or make changes should do. To this, Sister Helen responded with an invitation to keep learning, keep connecting with people, and keep that fire inside you. 

“How do you know you’re doing what you need to be doing? Your heart keeps firing up. As you meet people, and as you learn about this, as you wake up, and as you grab hands with the community to work for change.” 

The work Sister Helen Prejean engages in is not easy. She is often with people during some of the hardest times of their lives; and yet, she still manages to lead with kindness, love, and a touch of Southern humor. We are greatly appreciative of her for making time to share her wisdom and insight with our community. 

“To be awake to human rights is not darkness, it is light. You are lucky to be young and beginning to be awake. You could have spent your whole life not being awake. To be awake is a great grace. You have agency in your life, you’re not stuck behind bars, you have some agency and some freedom to do some good in the world. And that’s the light.”

Watch Sister Helen’s talk here.