Thirteen incarcerated students at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women will be the first cohort to receive Tulane University degrees this August after graduating from the College-In-Prison Program. The School of Professional Advancement and Operation Restoration, an organization to support women impacted by incarceration, are partners in the program and work together to provide women with resources for a successful transition out of prison.
On May 17, the Tulane graduation commencement will be livestreamed at the prison for the 12 incarcerated students from the first cohort. Marko Salvaggio, director of the College-In-Prison Program, said that some Tulane University School of Law students wanted the graduating students to walk in a ceremony outside of the prison, but the program could not get it approved by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections.
The first cohort consisted of 20 students when it was formed in 2018, but six students have since dropped the program. One student from the cohort, Stephanie King, has been released and completed her courses early in December. Since her release, King has the opportunity to walk with the Tulane SoPA graduates in May.
King received encouragement and support from the program and she said being a student “was a growing experience, and it was a self esteem booster.” She most enjoyed learning about art history, ecology, biological anthropology and literature.
The second cohort began in 2019 with 20 students, four of whom have been released and are scheduled to graduate next year. The program prioritizes women serving life sentences and determines eligibility through reviewing applications, which consist of a placement test and an essay question.
“We very much believe that people should have access to programs regardless of their sentence,” Operation Restoration’s higher education administrator, Tracy Pratt, said. “By providing higher education to those who are facing life or long term sentences, we can actually help change their lives and inspire their families on the outside.”
Prior in-prison disciplinary issues do not prevent students from being accepted into the program. Active students are not automatically withdrawn from the program if disciplinary issues arise outside of their courses, as well.
Each incarcerated student is given a laptop that has access to the learning management system Moodle, Microsoft platforms, restricted JSTOR journals and web conferencing via LearnMax. This enables students to take virtual classes and message their professors without having use of the internet in its entirety.
“I think that there’s concerns with what they can access within JSTOR, even though we know it’s mostly a bunch of peer-reviewed academic articles,” Salvaggio said. In light of the JSTOR restrictions, he hopes the prison’s education director will “find that there’s no risk to safety in any way, and that that barrier will eventually be removed.”
The College-In-Prison Program requires two classes per semester and each professor must complete four to six in-person hours of teaching at the prison per 15-week course. The rest of the coursework is completed online.
“I love teaching these women. I look forward to going to see them. I would have zero problem if they made everything in-person,” Laura Marks, senior professor of practice of English, said, who works for both Tulane and the SoPA prison program.
Marks finds that the students successfully complete their asynchronous work, even amidst the stresses and responsibilities an incarcerated woman is subject to in a prison environment.
Professors are available for messaging via Moodle and communication is accessible for students. “Everybody always did bend over backwards to be accommodating and helpful when I was ready to throw in the towel,” King said.
The students especially enjoyed reading Victorian-Gothic literature, Stephen King’s work and coming-of-age novels. “They’re always wanting to do stuff about vampires,” Marks said.
Students vary in age, race, gender representation and socioeconomic status. “I know some people who have talked to me about this have made some pretty swift assumptions about the demographics of my classroom, and it just doesn’t line up,” Marks said. “There is just such a wide range of different people … It’s really lovely.”
There are expectations of respect and privacy with regard to the teacher-student relationships. Students are not to disclose private information, and professors are expected to remain uninvolved in the personal lives of their students.
“Within the boundaries of those rules, there is a huge capacity for what feels like friendship, camaraderie, mentorship,” Marks said. Relationships are still fostered over a desire to learn and a shared interest in the course topics, enabling a figurative escape from the confines of incarceration for the students.
Rehabilitative education is a method of combating hyperincarceration, which is especially influential in Louisiana, as it has the second-highest incarceration rate nationally. Research finds prison education programs reduce recidivism by nearly 15%.
“I really, really wanted a job that I spent more time in academia, but continued to do the work of my heart, which is addressing problems caused by mass incarceration,” Pratt said.
Pratt’s work at Operation Restoration assists incarcerated women in Louisiana as they face obstacles when reentering society due to their criminal record. Part of this initiative is achieved through the education they receive in the College-In-Prison program.
The students who have been released had a successful transition out of prison. “All of our students are working. They all have secure housing … They’ve had lots of interesting opportunities on the outside,” Pratt said.
On-campus Tulane students have the opportunity to be involved with the College-In-Prison Program by joining the Newcomb Prison Project. This is a student-run club that engages members in criminal justice. Tulane students can assist the incarcerated students in conducting research and finding materials that are not available within the prison.
“In the facility itself, they’re known as inmates or are offenders, and we don’t use that language … Our students are students, and that is what we call them,” Pratt said.