MARYSVILLE, Ohio — Incarcerated women were enthusiastic as they gathered outside the building to attend a course on black feminism.
Last month, a class of 11 convened in a room at the Ohio Correctional Institution for Women (ORW), mostly empty except for the chairs and a large desk with a computer for the administrator. there were.
“We are all hungry for knowledge,” one inmate, Amber Swain, told The Hill.
The course is one of several offered at the prison, as the school looks to strengthen its prison education degree program following the implementation of Pell Grants for inmates last summer. It will be part of a discussion with a group of Ohio State University professors on Monday.
Mary Thomas, director of the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project at The Ohio State University, told the class that the conference is an opportunity for professors to learn as much from them and vice versa.
“Ohio State University just received accreditation as a new degree-granting facility at the Ohio Correctional Institute for Women. The degree will be a Bachelor of Arts in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. “We plan to submit an application to the U.S. Department of Education for Pell Grant funding at the site,” Thomas said. “We are currently seeking funding opportunities for the start of next academic year, potentially starting in the fall semester of 2024.”
Last summer, the Department of Education announced that it would once again allow Pell Grants to be given to prisoners who had been barred from receiving them since 1994.
Thomas said the process is time-consuming and labor-intensive, as individual education programs must receive numerous approvals from the prison, the schools they work with, the state government and finally the Department of Education.
“I know of programs that are waiting for approval from the government. [Department of Education] For five months,” she told The Hill.
Efforts to provide POW grants to prisoners of war began when the Second Chance Pell experiment began in 2015 during the Obama administration. Under this program, a limited number of inmates were given federal funds to receive education.
Then, in 2020, Congress voted to repeal portions of the 1994 Pell, allowing access to subsidies to be significantly expanded. When the FAFSA Simplification Act was passed in 2020, it defined what a prison education program is and what qualifications a program must have to earn that title.
The first step for inmates to qualify for Pell grants is for the classes they attend to be approved as a federal Prison Education Program (PEP), and applications for that approval began in July.
However, the Department of Education has so far approved only one school as a PEP, California State Polytechnic State University Humboldt's Pelican Bay State Prison Bachelor of Arts in Communication, but hopes to approve 50 more schools by 2025.
A spokesperson for the department said more resources would soon be available to assist with PEP applications for the program.
“The Department expects to have data on PEP once participating schools offering approved programs enroll in PEP and report information about confined and incarcerated students. “We expect to be able to report PEP data in the coming months,” the spokesperson said.
During that time, Ohio State University offered free courses to ORW women, but they were in high demand and had to go through an interview process to be selected.
Swain said she has also taken courses in gender studies, African American history and creative writing at OSU, which “not only help me when I get out” but also “help me forget social norms” while in prison. He emphasized that it is useful.
ORW students range from women serving a few years in prison to women serving life sentences. The group has read four to five books about black feminism since August.
Arianna Cannon, who has been incarcerated for 15 years to life, said, “Everything we adapt, we pour into our communities,” and their education “is a result of the people we meet and interact with in our lives.” “It's affecting people who live in the country,” he said.
Research has shown that educational programs reduce recidivism rates, and Thomas explains how they can influence prison culture and create a more stable environment, even for people serving life sentences. Emphasis was placed on what can be produced.
“The Pell Grant expansion is just beginning to repair some of the damage caused by the near-total elimination of higher education programs in prisons since 1994,” said Mark Howard, a professor of government law at Georgetown University. ) said in a recent discussion. on prison education with the Brookings Institution. “For nearly 30 years, incarcerated people have had very limited access to college and few means to pursue higher education. We can’t even begin to measure the negative impact of decades of opportunity loss. .”
During an ORW class, the women were asked by OSU African American studies professor Tie Morris to work in groups and discuss with other representatives from the school what topics they would present at the workshop. I was disappointed.
As they moved their chairs back in a circle, the women came up with a variety of ideas, discussing topics such as mass incarceration, transphobia, homelessness, climate change, and classicism.
They seemed anxious about having to present in front of the professor, with one inmate exclaiming, “How am I going to tell the teacher?” which was met with general agreement.
After reading “Dreams of Freedom: Black Radical Imagination'' by Robin D. Kelley, the women regrouped to discuss what “Dreams of Freedom'' meant to them. Freedom Dreaming is defined by focusing on what a person wants to be in the future and what tools they need to make it a reality.
“Nobody had ever asked me that question before,” said inmate Daniel Ennis, referring specifically to the life he wants for his daughter.
“I closed my eyes and realized not only what I could do here and now, but what I could do in the future,” Ennis said.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
