tag: Justice initiatives
Past Event
March 16, 2023
Serving 500,000 New Students
Planning for Pell Restoration for Incarcerated College Students
Effective July 2023 incarcerated people will again be eligible to receive Pell grants to support their education, ending a 29 year ban. How will academic libraries support an estimated 500,000 newly eligible students in prison? This panel at ACRL 2023 brings together practitioners and researchers from a public, academic, and college in prison program library to discuss how libraries are currently providing services, and to share strategies for providing library access to college students who are currently incarcerated. Recognizing the…
Past Event
December 13, 2022
Inspiration, Knowledge and Curiosity While Incarcerated
On Tuesday, December 13 at 7:00 – 8:30 pm, Ithaka S+R’s Kurtis Tanaka will participate in a San Francisco Public Library panel on “Inspiration, Knowledge and Curiosity While Incarcerated.” Panelists will share best practices and insights from their own endeavors and will highlight the role of information access in maintaining inspiration in carceral contexts. Incarceration does not foreclose peoples’ ability to think, dream, create, envision, and learn individually and collectively. Join facilitators working to ensure access to the resources…
Blog Post
September 13, 2022
Reflections on the 2022 Correctional Education Association (CEA) Conference
As the professional association for Department of Corrections (DOC) education staff, the Correctional Education Association conference is an important opportunity for sharing and learning about the latest trends, trailblazers, and trials facing those who provide education in prisons. With the restoration of Pell grants for incarcerated college students now less than a year away, we were eager to hear how DOC education leadership and staff were responding to this major shift in the field.
Blog Post
September 7, 2022
Comments on the Department of Education’s Proposed Regulations for Pell Grant Restoration for Incarcerated People
Effective July 1, 2023, incarcerated people will once again be eligible to receive Pell grants to support their education, ending a 29 year ban. Below we publish Ithaka S+R’s letter to the Department of Education, outlining our concerns and providing recommendations that would help ensure that people who are incarcerated in the United States are provided the opportunity to participate in and benefit from a quality education.
Past Event
June 24, 2022
Library Services to the Justice Involved (LSJI) Roundtable
ITHAKA is proud to be sponsoring the Library Services to the Justice Involved Roundtable at the ALA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. When: Friday, June 24, 2022 at 10:30am – 11:30am Where: Washington Convention Center, 152B Kurtis Tanaka (Ithaka S+R), Stacy Burnett (JSTOR Labs), and Anne Ray (Reveal Digital) will be in attendance. About the roundtable:…
Past Event
June 23, 2022
Ithaka S+R at ALA
Meet up with Nicole Betancourt, Melissa Blankstein, and Kurtis Tanaka
If you are headed to the ALA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, we encourage you to meet up with the Ithaka S+R staff who will be in attendance: Nicole Betancourt, Survey and Research Operations Analyst, runs our local surveys program. Connect with her on Twitter or via email if you would like to reach out about running a survey of your faculty or students in the 2022/23 academic year.
Blog Post
February 16, 2022
Understanding Educational Space Needs in Prisons
New Project Announcement
Across higher education, classrooms and study commons have been reimagined to foster student engagement and learning. But for higher education in prison programs, it can prove challenging to find spaces optimized for education, much less space designed to support their educational needs. Access—or the lack of access—to classrooms, libraries, and scientific and computer labs, can play determining roles in the quality of higher education programming. With many competing demands for space, Departments of Corrections (DOC) may be inclined to look…
Blog Post
January 18, 2022
Turning on the TAP
Restoring Tuition Assistance for Incarcerated Students in New York
In her first State of the State address since taking office, New York Governor Kathy Hochul outlined an agenda that included repealing the 27-year ban on college tuition assistance, also known as TAP, for incarcerated students. In 1995, when the ban was first instituted, incarcerated students accounted for less than 1 percent of TAP funding state-wide. The ban dovetailed with the 1994 Crime Bill’s elimination of federal Pell grants for incarcerated students and…
Past Event
November 11, 2021
Kurtis Tanaka at the 2021 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison (NCHEP)
Kurtis Tanaka is presenting at two sessions during the 2021 National Conference on Higher Education in Prison (NCHEP). The conference will take place from November 11-14. An Untapped Resource: Why and How to Partner with Your Institutional Library Speakers: Rebecca J. Bott, Education Justice Project; Josh Honn, Northwestern Prison Education Program; Kurtis Tanaka, Ithaka S+R Higher education in prison programs routinely struggle to provide incarcerated students with timely, equitable access to library materials and services. This meeting will…
Past Event
October 1, 2021
Kurtis Tanaka at San Francisco Public Library’s Banned Books Week
On Friday Oct 1, Kurtis Tanaka will present during San Francisco Public Library’ Banned Books Week on preliminary findings on technology, media review policy, prison censorship and self-censorship. For more information, please visit this site and read the abstract below: Abstract Kurtis Tanaka, of Ithaka S+R, presents preliminary findings from an ongoing research project on technology, media review policy, prison censorship and self-censorship. A key selling point of many technologies in the prison space is the ability to monitor…
Past Event
April 13, 2021
Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper, and Kurtis Tanaka at ACRL 2021
Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper, and Kurtis Tanaka will present on-demand programs during the 2021 ACRL Virtual Conference. For more information on their individual sessions, please visit this link. Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper will discuss the impacts of Big Deal cancellations on patrons. Please see the abstract below: “No deal, no problem? The Impacts of Big Deal Cancellations on Patrons” Libraries are increasingly questioning the value of their Big Deal subscriptions, leading to a number of prominent cancellations…
Past Event
March 3, 2021
Kurtis Tanaka at 2021 Conference on Higher Education in Prison (NCHEP)
Kurtis Tanaka will be presenting more on his research on higher education in prison on March 3 and March 5 at 2021 Conference on Higher Education in Prison. For more information on the individual sessions, please see below. Registration information is available here. Paper: Amplifying Technological Equity Time: Wednesday, March 3, 1-2pm EST. Abstract: This paper will share research on the technology and information supports available to incarcerated students and their instructors. By sharing this research,…
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…
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…
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…
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…