tag: Higher education in prisons
Past Event
February 24, 2021
Kurtis Tanaka at Mapping the Future of Technology in Prison Higher Education
On February 24, Kurtis Tanaka will be moderating a session with Open Campus and Ascendium Education Group on the future of technology in postsecondary education in prison. For more information, please follow this link.
Past Event
March 1, 2021
Meagan Wilson, Mike Fried, Julia Karon at 2021 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison
On March 1, Meagan Wilson, Mike Fried, and Julia Karon will present at the 2021 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison. Their session will focus on the development of a research infrastructure for higher education in prison by articulating the need for this research infrastructure, providing an overview of existing efforts in this area, identifying the informational gaps a research infrastructure might help fill, and providing strategies for building such an infrastructure. For more information, please visit this…
Blog Post
December 16, 2020
Three questions for Toya Wall
Ascendium Education Group
In October, Ithaka S+R announced that we are embarking on a new project funded by Ascendium Education Group that will allow us to expand our current work on increasing access to quality educational resources for higher education in prison (HEP) programs. For our quarterly newsletter, we recently asked Toya Wall, a senior program officer at Ascendium, about the challenges facing postsecondary education in prison and her organization’s focus on increasing access for incarcerated learners. 1. Could you tell…
Blog Post
October 19, 2020
Increasing Access to Quality Educational Resources to Support Higher Education in Prison
New Project Announcement
We are excited to announce a new project funded by Ascendium Education Group that will allow us to expand our current work on increasing access to quality educational resources for higher education in prison (HEP) programs. This grant will support both Ithaka S+R’s growing research focus in the field as well as JSTOR Labs’ innovative work on increasing access to academic resources for incarcerated students. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it abundantly clear that both HEP programs and…
Blog Post
October 6, 2020
Ithaka S+R Is Hiring
Two New Analyst Job Openings
Are you passionate about higher education and the arts? Our work helps these organizations and their support providers—including libraries, publishers, scholarly societies, and museums— enhance scholarship, instruction, community engagement, and student success. Ithaka S+R is hiring for two new positions that will work on some of our most exciting research and advisory projects. Both roles will work collaboratively on research projects that lead to publications including grant-funded research…
Blog Post
May 7, 2020
How Will Postsecondary Education in Prisons Need to Change in Light of COVID-19?
Reflections from an interim report on technological equity for incarcerated college students
The rapid shift to online or distance instruction in the COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most pressing and challenging issues for the field of higher education. This sudden, mass migration to online learning has crystallized issues of equity and access, as not all students, instructors, or even institutions are equipped to make this leap. Lacking regular access to computers, and with virtually no access to the internet, incarcerated college students, and the programs that serve them,…
Research Report
May 7, 2020
Advancing Technological Equity for Incarcerated College Students
Examining the Opportunities and Risks
Higher education programs that teach in prisons take on a near impossible task: to provide their students with a high-quality education, equal to anything beyond the prison walls, while working under strict constraints. Incarcerated students rarely have access to learning resources typically taken for granted on the outside—computers, books, and internet access are all heavily restricted by various state Departments of Corrections (DOC)—and instructors must work with and around DOC security protocols while planning and teaching their classes. While innovative…
Blog Post
March 20, 2020
When Online Isn’t an Option
Higher Education in Prisons During a Pandemic
As the announcements of campus closures continue unabated, colleges and universities across the country are struggling to figure out how to adjust their teaching and learning practices, with many moving their courses online. But what does this mean for students who are incarcerated? Building on Ithaka S+R’s ongoing research on how technology can be leveraged towards increasing access to higher education in prisons and more equitable learning experiences, today we are taking a look at how the COVID-19…
Blog Post
March 3, 2020
Facilitating a Student-Based Approach to Higher Education in Prison Research
New Project Will Convene Diverse Stakeholders Around a Postsecondary Prison Research Infrastructure
Updated on December 2, 2020, from a previous post published on March 3, 2020, to reflect adaptations made to the project in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, discourse surrounding postsecondary education in US prisons has grown substantially in both academic and political circles. Despite disagreement among stakeholders in this space over the specific goals of Higher Education in Prison (HEP), there is widespread agreement that quality HEP programming holds significant promise for incarcerated individuals and…
Past Event
March 12, 2020
Unbarring Access to Higher Education in Prison
Danielle Cooper and Meagan Wilson at SXSW EDU
This event has been cancelled. On Thursday, March 12, from 2:00-3:00 pm, Danielle Cooper and Meagan Wilson will be discussing “Unbarring Access to Higher Education in Prison” as part of a panel at SXSW EDU in Austin, Texas. They will be joined on the panel by Terrell Blount (Laughing Gull Foundation) and Jody Lewen (Prison University Project). For more information about the conference, please see the SXSW EDU website. About the panel Access to higher education in prison has…
Past Event
November 16, 2019
Danielle Cooper and Kurtis Tanaka at the National Conference on Higher Education in Prison
On Saturday, November 16, ITHAKA is hosting a breakfast session to share an update on “Providing Offline Access to High-Quality Library Resources in Prisons”at the 2019 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison in St. Louis, Missouri. With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, in 2019 ITHAKA launched an initiative to help improve higher education in prison and reduce barriers for student research. In this session, Danielle Cooper and Kurtis Tanaka will provide an update on the project’s research…
Blog Post
October 15, 2019
Prisons, the Higher Ed Market, and Second Chance Pell
Both houses of Congress are debating a set of bills to update portions of the Higher Education Act, the key federal postsecondary education law. The long-overdue refresh has been held up by disagreements over levels of funding, accountability, and how to handle sex discrimination under Title IX, among other issues. Whenever the HEA finally does come up for reauthorization, the move to restore Pell grants to the incarcerated is expected to make the final draft. Legislators who care about improving…
Past Event
November 16, 2019
Towards a Higher Education in Prison Research Infrastructure
Rayane Alamuddin and Meagan Wilson Host Meeting at the 2019 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison
On Saturday, November 16, from 1:00 – 2:00 pm, Rayane Alamuddin and Meagan Wilson are hosting “Towards a Higher Education in Prison Research Infrastructure,” at the 2019 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, please see the conference website. About the meeting The lack of an adequate research infrastructure surrounding postsecondary prison programming greatly limits our ability to facilitate empirical research evaluating the quality of higher education available to incarcerated students.
Blog Post
May 30, 2019
Mass Incarceration, Second Chance Pell, and the State of Postsecondary Education in Prison
Last week, the US Department of Education announced an expansion of its 2015 experimental initiative that provides federal Pell Funding to eligible incarcerated students. The announcement builds off other 2019 bipartisan policy initiatives — at both the federal and state levels — that aim to increase postsecondary access for the 1.5 million of adults currently held in American prisons. Given that reentry statistics suggest more than 95 percent of incarcerated adults will eventually be released, and…
Research Report
May 30, 2019
Unbarring Access
A Landscape Review of Postsecondary Education in Prison and Its Pedagogical Supports
Postsecondary education in US prisons is a growing topic in both academic and political circles. While much of the discourse surrounding higher education more broadly focuses on students’ educational and employment outcomes, the conversation around postsecondary education in prisons often centers on the societal benefits of this programming, with a strong focus on reduced recidivism rates – the rates with which formerly incarcerated individuals engage in criminal acts that result in their re-arrest, re-conviction, or re-incarceration. With 1.5 million people…
Past Event
April 27, 2019
Opportunities, Threats, Disruptions, or Challenges Facing Prison Higher Education
Catharine Bond Hill Presents at Bennington College Conference
On Saturday, April 27, Catharine Bond Hill is presenting on “Opportunities, Threats, Disruptions, or Challenges Facing Prison Higher Education” as part of a panel discussion at Bennington College’s Conference on Freeing the Mind and Building a Future: The Role and Future of the Liberal Arts in Prison Education. The panel will run from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm. For more information, and to register for this free conference, please visit the conference website.