The death of George Floyd in 2020 brought on a wave of social justice and prison reform, including at Carnegie Mellon. History professor Wendy Goldman saw a problem within the prison system in our country and wanted to bring awareness and address racial and class disparities. She decided to institute an educational program within a prison, creating a cohort of students from Carnegie Mellon and a southwest Pennsylvania prison. With the help of Dietrich College dean Richard Scheines, this idea became a reality. Eight faculty members were trained through a program called “Inside Out,” which helps teach educators how to lead classes within prisons for students of higher education institutions and people who are incarcerated. Though Covid-19 delayed its launch, by Spring 2023 it was a full-fledged program.
Although the CMU Prison Education Project (PEP) has only been active for about a year, the responses from both students at Carnegie Mellon and the prison demonstrate the value of this program. Several Carnegie Mellon students said that PEP has given them new perspectives that they “otherwise wouldn’t find on campus.” Many had ideas of prisons that were vastly different from the reality that they discovered upon taking one of these classes. For example, in discussing the novel “Fathers and Sons” by Ivan Turgenev, Carnegie Mellon students learned of the honor culture that was not only present in the book, but also in the prison. Incarcerated people made connections to an aspect of the novel to which the Carnegie Mellon students couldn’t quite relate.
Carnegie Mellon students who have taken the class have said that they have no regrets and that it was “one of the most influential experiences” they’ve ever had. On the program website, one Carnegie Mellon student wrote that the course “was one of the most unique and rewarding experiences I’ve had at CMU, as I was able to engage in profound discussions with people I do not normally interact with on a daily basis — students who were ostensibly so different from myself but filled with compassion and expressed just as much enthusiasm, if not more, for psychology as I did.” The student said the class was unlike any they had taken, “providing a distraction-free learning experience where we could all come together and dive deep into the material [and] openly share our thoughts with one another.”
According to the program website, students from the prison have also said they appreciate this program. One wrote that it “offered an enclave of humanity and higher education within an environment that is often bereft of both. I was challenged by new perspectives, gained useful knowledge of a fascinating topic and developed an interest in further learning.” The program offers incarcerated students the opportunity take a college-level course and engage with the world outside the prison.
Next semester, two classes will be offered for students of all years and majors. One is 76-251, Creative Writing in Community, taught by English professor Jane McCafferty. The other is 79-257, Germany and the Second World War, taught by History professor Donna Harsch. Classes are on Fridays and students take an hour-and-a-half bus ride to the prison, SCI Somerset. If this program sounds like something that you might be interested in, you can check out the website by searching “CMU Prison Education Project.”
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