米奇·霍格有任务了. 阿尔茨海默氏症根本没有机会.
BC受托人, 她的父母都死于这种致命的疾病, 已经成为全国最主要的治疗筹款人之一了吗.
Clockwise from left: Student Christian 米兰达; program director 帕特里克·康威; professor Julia Devoy; student Nurudeen Alabi; and professor Cherie McGill photographed in Gasson Hall.
照片:凯特琳·坎宁安
2024年冬
打印
邮件
The first time Christian 米兰达 stepped on the 电子游戏软件 campus as a student, 他53岁，刚从监狱里释放出来. 那是2023年2月一个寒冷的早晨, but the Boston native barely noticed as he looked up at the stately tower of Gasson Hall. “就好像我回到了18岁, 高中刚毕业,他最近回忆道.
这可能是米兰达第一次来山庄, 但他与大学的关系早在三年前就开始了. 米兰达, 谁曾因毒品指控被定罪, was serving a twenty-year sentence at the 麻萨诸塞州 Correctional Institution in Shirley, 麻萨诸塞州, 也就是MCI-Shirley. In 2020, 米兰达 was one of sixteen MCI-Shirley inmates accepted that year into the 电子游戏软件 Prison Education Program.
The program, known as the PEP, was launched in 2019 with funding from an anonymous donor. It became a member of the Bard Prison Initiative’s Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison, 全国监狱教育项目网络. 每个星期, participants in the PEP take roughly ten hours of classes with university faculty, 参加办公时间和辅导课程, 完成任务和小组项目, 并参加课外活动. 有了足够的学分, they become eligible for a bachelor’s degree in Applied Liberal Arts issued by the university itself.
到目前为止, 63名囚犯进入了PEP, 哪个是免费参加的, 和 first diplomas will be awarded at a graduation ceremony inside MCI-Shirley this fall. 三个学生, 包括米兰达, have been released from prison mid-program and are continuing their education at BC’s Woods College of Advancing Studies.
“When we’re thinking about how to live out our mission at 电子游戏软件, 其中一部分是与MCI-Shirley这样的社区进行接触,教务长兼院长大卫·奎格利说, 谁帮助启动了这个项目，并在其中教了几门课. Some of the earliest examples of Jesuit education took place in prisons in the sixteenth century, 他指出. “It’s wonderful for me as a historian to think about how Jesuit work over the centuries has connected with the incarcerated and tried to open up possibilities and give hope to those in prison.”
在MCI-Shirley, a medium- and minimum-security men’s prison, interest in the PEP has been high from the start. 将近100名囚犯申请了首届班, 提交个人陈述和学术论文, 最终有16人被录取. 每年秋天，招生团队都会挑选一个规模相近的新学生.
Nurudeen Alabi was serving a seventeen-year sentence after a manslaughter conviction when he heard about the PEP in 2019. 他问伊莎贝尔·莱恩, 当时的项目主管, what made it different from other prison education programs he’d been part of. 她告诉他, 尽一切可能, the PEP courses would contain the same material taught to students on campus in Chestnut Hill. “这就是我想要的，每个教授都是这样做的，”阿拉比说. “我感觉自己真的在大学校园里.”
Alabi completed ten classes as part of the program prior to being released from MCI-Shirley in 2022. 每节课都在监狱的教室里进行, 米黄色的墙壁上装饰着不列颠哥伦比亚省的横幅和一幅装框的圣乔治的肖像. 伊格内修斯. Alabi enrolled last year in Woods College, where he’s majoring in business. Thanks in part to the forty credits he earned in prison, he expects to graduate in 2025. “它改变了我的生活轨迹，”阿拉比说. “我在波士顿市中心长大, 教育不是什么大事, but being in the PEP showed me that there’s a life outside of your neighborhood, 你的城市, 你的国家, 教育能带给你.”
四年后, the program’s offerings have grown from three classes in introductory philosophy, 代数, and writing to an eight-course catalogue that mirrors the Woods College Applied Liberal Arts curriculum. Students take a mix of liberal arts courses and professional classes designed to familiarize them with the modern work landscape. A course in entrepreneurship taught by former Zipcar executive Brian Harrington ’89 has become one of the program’s most popular classes, with students designing and pitching an original business idea for their final presentation.
Clockwise from top left: Doctoral student Babatunde Alford; program director 帕特里克·康威; instructor Brian Harrington; and doctoral student Marisa Lally. 照片:马萨诸塞州惩教署
Christian 米兰达 had been asking for college-level courses to be taught at the prison for years, and sitting in classes like Harrington’s with fifteen other students provided the intellectual challenge he’d been craving. “这让我重新集中了注意力，”他说. He also loved the shared sense of purpose felt by everyone inside the MCI classroom. 任何竞争对手都被留在门外, 米兰达说, 为富有成效的课堂讨论和小组项目腾出空间. “就像一个家庭，”他说. “The program forced you to be in such close proximity that you realized you had more in common than not.”
教职工30余人 来自校园各个角落的人都报名参加了PEP的教学, submitting PowerPoint slide deck lesson plans to the Department of Correction for approval and driving an hour west to MCI-Shirley every week for classes. 通过金属探测器后, they teach three-hour sessions before making the return trip to Chestnut Hill.
“我一生中从未见过比他们更有动力的人,” said BC Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students and Programs Julia Devoy, 他是一名应用心理学家，曾在PEP中教授两门课程. “They don’t have internet or e邮件 or Google Slides and yet their projects are just beyond what you could imagine. 你可以看到学习的欲望.”
奎格利于2022年春季签约在PEP任教, 作为教务长，他要兼顾教案和评分. 他的课, 美国历史上的政治与思想, 探索重要的政治文件, 包括托马斯·潘恩的作品 常识 和 联邦党人文集. “如果你6点15分进去, 上课时间, 问了一个问题, 男人们会把它抬到9:15,奎格利回忆道. “这是我职业生涯中最伟大的教学经历之一.”
帕特里克·康威, MA’12, 博士的22, who has worked in prison education for more than a decade and took over as program director in 2021, 对项目的发展感到兴奋吗. Three BC PhD students now visit the prison once a week to offer academic support, 一个新的PEP学生委员会正在提出自己的想法, such as a tutoring group that helps fellow prisoners study for the GED or enroll in the community college program. “他们真的很关心PEP，”康威说. “We’re putting in a lot of effort to make this happen, but the students play a huge part. 他们在电子游戏软件投入了大量资金.” 
