Vermont College to Participate in Prison Education Program
Funding will allow expansion of Bennington College prison program
By Patrick McArdle - June 25, 2016
BENNINGTON — Bennington College was the only Vermont college or university selected for the national Second Chance Pell pilot program which will allow eligible inmates to pursue higher education with the goal of preparing them for careers and to support their family when they’re released.
The college began a program, the Prison Education Initiative, which offers college-level courses, last year at Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, N.Y., which houses 1,600 inmates.
Bennington College President Mariko Silver said in a statement that education was “fundamentally transformative.”
“This work has a tremendous impact — for individuals, their families, and society — and allows us to extend Bennington’s educational philosophy into a world where it is most needed,” Silver said.
The new federal program, in which almost 70 colleges and universities will participate, will allow Bennington to offer Pell Grants to up to 56 students.
The Prison Education Initiative serves more than 20 people now with courses providing transferable credits in literature, social sciences and history. With the Second Chance Pell pilot, the initiative will be able to expand its curriculum in fields like computer systems, environmental science and policy and digital design.
Annabel Davis-Goff, a longtime faculty member at Bennington and director of the Prison Education Initiative, said college staff members had to find private funding for their program and thought it was “thrilling” when they learned the federal government was going to contribute.
Speaking by telephone in Dublin, Davis-Goff, when asked if the program would allow Bennington to expand its work, said, “It certainly will.”
“Once you get the grant, which you certainly can’t count on, you go back to the drawing board a little bit and redesign your program,” she said.
Being eligible to award Pell Grants to students will allow Davis-Goff and David Bond, associate director for the Center for Advancement of Public Action, to be “more ambitious” about the future of the Prison Education Initiative.
Davis-Goff said the initiative offered three courses in the spring and will offer a summer course and a college preparation course before starting the fall courses and exploring the possibility of adding a computer laboratory.
After two sessions, in the fall and spring, Davis-Goff said she continues to be impressed with how quickly the men in the initiative progress in their education.
“We had a very strong program. We’ve (raised) the bar as far as admissions are concerned, and we have more qualified students coming in. We’re very hopeful to expand at a much higher rate than we ever anticipated,” she said.
The college was notified about its inclusion in the pilot on Thursday. Davis-Goff said there would be a meeting next month in Washington, D.C., to learn more about what will be involved as participants.
In a statement, the U.S. Department of Education said the goal of the Second Chance Pell pilot was to find out if more prisoners would take advantage of the educational opportunities if financial assistance were available.
An Education Department spokesman said Friday the first year of the pilot would be supported by an estimated $30 million in Pell Grant funding.
In a statement, the U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. praised the institutions that will provide positive options for inmates.
“The knowledge and skills they acquire will promote successful reintegration and enable them to become active and engaged citizens,” he said.
Davis-Goff said programs like the initiative — which she said was developed with assistance from Bard College in New York — are important because about 95 percent of people who are incarcerated will be released.
“Although it is vitally important to cut down the number of people going into prisons in the first place, for those who are there, when they come out, you want them to be able to earn a living and, obviously, a college degree or associate’s degree makes all the difference there,” she said.
The Second Chance Pell grants are expected to serve about 12,000 people. The inmates must be qualified students who are incarcerated and are likely to be released within five years of enrolling in coursework.