Originally posted on andscape.com
The Higher Education in Prisons Program at Morehouse, through the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership, is not degree-granting, but it has been expanded greatly in recent years, including this academic year, when it advanced from teaching courses in the regional and state correctional systems to teaching in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. The program provides faculty and students to teach and assist in the facilities.
The motivation for participants on both sides is often clear to them all, said Justin McClinton, the program’s faculty leader, a professor of leadership studies and a Morehouse alum.
“I mean, it’s a jarring experience you have – the jailers working in the federal penitentiary that are HBCU graduates, to bring in me as a professor who’s an HBCU graduate, to teach incarcerated men that are also HBCU graduates,” McClinton said. “All three of us are here, part of this same kind of network but in very different roles. And it’s playing out in this really interesting way. It can be powerful oftentimes.”
The history of Morehouse and the mission of HBCUs have driven participation by teachers and students, support by the administration and the willingness of the prisons themselves to participate.
“Morehouse carries social cachet and capital, and it wants to use that wisely,” said Kipton Jensen, the program’s coordinator. “And as you know, as MLK’s [Martin Luther King Jr.’s] alma mater, it has a kind of moral authority when it comes to issues of social justice and leadership.’’
However, even a school with the prestige of Morehouse wrestles with financial issues, he said.
“Faculty are overworked and stretched thin, so it really takes a labor of love for them to teach in addition to their other classes, at least at colleges where teaching on the inside does not count toward their teaching load on the outside,” Jensen said. “A lot of that is volunteer work.”
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