Schools Offering College Courses to Inmates - New Jersey

Program Website: http://www.princeton.edu/pace/home/programs/prisonereducation

Contacts:
Andrew Nurkin
Senior Program Coordinator
Pace Center, Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
609-258-9746
anurkin@princeton.edu

Jill Knapp
Professor of Astrophysical Sciences
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
609-288-3824
gk@astro.princeton.edu

Program Description: Mark Krumholz started the program, now called Prison Teaching Initiative, partly because of his experiences as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught math and science courses at San Quentin State Prison in a long running program that offered about a dozen classes per semester. PTI has grown slowly since, and now offers 9-10 courses per semester which supplement other courses taught by paid instructors from Mercer County Community College. The College of New Jersey has recently joined the partnership.

Degrees Offered: 1-year business certificate, 2-year AA degree

Programs Offered: Algebra, including prep classes, English, Philosophy, Physics, and Calculus. These courses supplement other classes taught by paid instructors from MCCC and TCNJ

Unique Features: The Princeton teaching and administration are done almost entirely by volunteers from Princeton and local academic institutions, especially Rutgers University and the Institute for Advanced Study. All of the courses are accredited and open to all incarcerated students regardless of sentence, age or offense. Save for some administrative support from the Pace Center, the program has no funding and is supported entirely through volunteer work and private donations from members of the Astrophysics department and arranged by the Pace Center to supply books, materials etc. Course credits are transferable throughout the New Jersey two and four-year college system, and many students have completed degrees after release.

Headquarters: Princeton, NJ

Correctional Facilities Served: Garden State Youth Correctional Facility and Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility

Population Served: Incarcerated individuals

Number of Students: About 100 per year

Graduates to Date: Many certificates. No “inside” degrees yet, many outside.

Year Founded: 2005

Founders: Mark Krumholz, Jenny Greene, Jill Knapp

College/University/Organization Partnerships: Princeton University; Mercer County Community College, (since 2010) The College of New Jersey

Partnership for Religion and Education in Prison (PREP)

Program Website: http://www.drew.edu/theological/current-students/prep

Contacts:
Margaret Quern Atkins
PREP Coordinator
Drew Theological School
mquern@drew.edu
#856-952-5140

Program Description: PREP is a theological educational program that creates opportunities for a joint theological learning environment between theological students and students within State correctional facilities. Based in several models of prison educational programming across the country, PREP forges new partnerships between places of theological learning, organizations with educational programs in the prisons, and correctional institutions. PREP uses contextual education and tenets of practical theology as it offers Drew’s theological students, faculty, and practicing ministers a chance to connect with the outside world through meaningful pedagogical methods. Through combined classrooms, a diverse student body can interact and engage with one another in meaningful academic discourse.

PREP is the application of a model that was initiated in Nashville, TN in 2002. Harmon Wray, a restorative justice author/trainer; Dr. Richard Goode, a Lipscomb University history professor; and Rev. Janet Wolf, an ordained United Methodist pastor and professor at American Baptist College, have been inviting students from seminaries, colleges, and congregations to come with them inside prisons to enlarge their definitions of theological education by learning theology with and from those who are incarcerated in Nashville, TN. For six years, students from Vanderbilt Divinity School have come into the prison to join students from Riverbend Maximum Security Institute for seminary courses.

Degrees Offered: N/A

Programs Offered: The program brings incarcerated students and Theo students together in college-level theology courses taught by Drew faculty. To date, Drew’s faculty members from the divisions of Biblical Studies, Church History, Theology and Philosophy, Church and Society, and Pastoral Theology have indicated interest and/or completed training to teach these combined class courses at the prisons.

Unique Features: N/A

Headquarters: Clinton, NJ; Newark, NJ

Correctional Facilities Served: Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women (Clinton); Northern State Prison for Men (Newark)

Population Served: Incarcerated students and theological students from Drew

Number of Students: N/A

Graduates to Date: N/A

Year Founded: 2008

Founders: Margaret Atkins (Theology ’07)

College/University/Organization Partnerships: Drew’s Theological school

Funding: State-funded; NJDOC has agreed to pilot PREP in Edna Mahan Women’s Correctional Facility and Northern State Prison.

The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) Center for Prison Outreach and Education