Week 1 : July 14–19
Date
Time
Description
Sunday 07/14
7pm
Welcome Dinner
Monday 07/15
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Introductions, Welcome, and History
To begin, we will introduce ourselves and take a look at what we’ll be doing in the weeks ahead. We will share a brief history of the field of college-in-prison and the specific story of BPI, and how BPI fits — and doesn’t fit —into the world of higher ed. Together, we will reflect on our hopes and plans for this work: a look at where we’ve each been and where we’re all going.
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Paradoxes of College-In-Prison
Workshop Leaders:
This workshop engages the rich, necessary contradictions inherent to the endeavor of college-in-prison and how we think about those contradictions in practice.
5:30–7:30pm
Dinner
7–9pm
Kingston shopping trip
Tuesday 07/16
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Language and Thinking: Bard’s Introduction to College
In this session we encounter Bard’s Institute for Writing and Thinking methodology and Bard’s Language and Thinking (L&T) first-year experience. All Bard students begin their first year with this intensive introduction to reading, writing, and thinking for college. It aims to disrupt their expectations and reorient their thinking about what it’s like to do rigorous, collaborative intellectual work. We will learn by doing, going through a quick but intense version of a day in L&T so that participants can get a sense of what the workshop makes possible.
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Academic Overview and Writing Curriculum
Workshop Leaders:
This session will detail the specifics of the BPI curriculum, its goals and reasoning — including relationship to main campus requirements and approach, with an eye toward applying some core principles to curricular development at your own college. In doing so we will elaborate upon the L&T experience and how it leads into Bard’s writing-based process.
6:30pm–7:00pm
Dinner
7pm–9pm
Planning for Degrees and Majors
Workshop Leaders:
Beginning by reflecting on your home institution’s degree requirements and the hallmarks of its undergraduate experience, we will discuss strategies for applying core principles to curricular development at your own college. We will also think together about how to build stackable credentials between AA and BA degrees, choose majors to offer, and think through the problem of replicating main campus degree requirements and the depth and breadth of main campus course offerings at a very different scale in prison.
Wednesday 07/17
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Academic Resources I: Advising, Research Support and Libraries
Workshop Leaders:
- Academic Resources support students outside the classroom in responding to the myriad challenges of college work — conceptual, logistical, personal, and professional.
- BPI students rely on research support directed by a professor on staff who manages a team of work-study students who find and print out materials for them in response to requests that may be as specific as an article citation derived from the JSTOR index, or as broad as a general request for information on the Cultural Revolution in China.*
- At every BPI site there is a college library, which may be comprised of several bookcases inside the college classroom or could be an entire room full of shelves, with study tables and a whiteboard on wheels. How do we build, organize, and protect the library? Who is responsible for it?
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Academic Resources II: Academic Advising & Peer Tutoring
Workshop Leaders:
- Academic Resources support students outside the classroom in responding to the myriad challenges of college work — conceptual, logistical, personal, and professional.
- Academic advising focuses on helping students navigate their trajectory through the college, from course selection to complicated conversations with faculty; strategizing with them around academic challenges, both intellectual and logistical; and staying focused through the conflicts that can arise between student life and everything else.
- Peer tutoring is central to the BPI experience. Like their counterparts on the main campus, students inside may take a for-credit course to learn basic principles and practices of effective, student-centered pedagogy. Those who go on to become writing and math tutors are a crucial force in the collaborative learning ethos and practice that define the college community inside. This community extends to include undergraduates from the main campus, similarly trained through the college’s Learning Commons, who come in weekly to the prisons. This session situates the hows and whys of tutoring within the big picture of the college inside. In addition to hearing from those who train and manage both categories of tutors (those inside and those coming in from outside), we will talk with alum who have worked as tutors about the ways in which tutoring figured in their own educational trajectory.
6:30pm–9:00pm
Extracurriculars: Building community gardens in prison and the BPI Public Health Specialization dinner and conversation
Thursday 07/18
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Faculty Recruitment and Hiring
Workshop Leaders:
Sharing strategies for identifying good candidates, spotting dangers, and bringing faculty into the work.
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Faculty Orientation
Workshop Leaders:
What information is most important for faculty to have prior to the start of a semester? What kind of support is most helpful throughout? We invite workshop participants to build components of their own faculty handbooks, consider strategies for effective faculty communication before and during a semester, and reflect on challenges and successes of teaching and of supporting faculty.
6:30–8:30pm
Alumni Careers and Dinner
Workshop Leaders:
Join in a conversation with BPI alumni who work on the BPI team in various capacities including portfolios that cover: government affairs and advocacy, reentry and housing, continuing education, working with young people in the juvenile system, and directing a Microcollege.
Friday 07/19
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Introduction to BPI Admissions and Essay Reading
Workshop Leaders:
Admissions is the first encounter with the college; we engage with prospective students exactly as we do those who are enrolled — with respect, rigor, and deep interest. The admissions process crystallizes the BPI model; in this session we will explore both process and philosophy.
We will spend time reading and scoring admissions essays so that participants gain a hands on experience with the BPI method. What are we looking at, what are we looking for, and how do we decide who gets an interview?
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Admissions Interviews: Philosophy and Practice
Workshop Leaders:
In this workshop we will explore the art of the admissions interview, watching and then practicing together how to engage with prospective students so that they show us what kind of student they could be, and how we show them something about what it would be like to be a student at Bard.
5pm–7pm
Dinner
7pm–9pm
Conversation between Jessica Neptune ’02 and Patrick Stephens ’17 about the History of Incarceration and Restorative Justice
Workshop Leader:
Join Jessica Neptune and Patrick Stephens for dinner and a conversation as we pause our focus on practice to zoom back out and critically engage the imagined purpose and function of prisons over time. Jessica will explore the long history of the institution of the prison, cycles of failed reforms, and the idea of rehabilitation before Patrick turns to his work in restorative justice.
Week 2 : July 22–26
Date
Time
Description
Monday 07/22
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Thinking about Fundraising
Workshop Leader:
The first in a series of conversations with BPI’s development team, this workshop lays the groundwork for shaping your program’s philosophical approach to fundraising. We will discuss how to get comfortable asking for money and explore our assumptions and challenges related to fundraising.
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Grant Writing and Fundraising Development Strategies and Planning
Workshop Leaders:
Conversations with BPI’s development team continue in this session as we explore strategies for how to plan fundraising that includes grant writing, cultivating small donors, and development communications strategieson an annual basis. The team will share insights and guidance related to the nuts and bolts for building out the vision, capacity, and infrastructure to seek out, obtain, and retain support from donors and foundations.
6:30pm–7pm
Dinner
7pm-9pm
Consortium Report Out
Tuesday 07/23
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Working with Corrections
Workshop Leaders:
This conversation will cover tips and strategies for negotiation with the DOC. What does the college need from the DOC? What to consider in an MOU? How to navigate central office and facility level leadership. Taking up space in the prison. Classification and movement. Recruitment of future students. Defining what’s “college business.”
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Cultivating College Community Inside: A Conversation with Alumni
Workshop Leader:
While site directors, faculty, and other college representatives work to find, hold, and extend space for the college within the prison, we know that it is students who create and sustain the world of the college inside. We will talk with alum about what students do to build community and protect the college under challenging circumstances, and how we can best support them in doing so.
5pm–7pm
Dinner and Conversation with Site Directors
Workshop Leaders:
The daily work of sustaining the college inside: supporting students, communicating with prison staff, and managing faculty. Site directors share stories and strategies for creating possibilities and responding to the challenges that arise every day.
Wednesday 07/24
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Planning for Pell
Workshop Leader:
In this session we will explore the new Pell PEP regulations and steps required to apply to become a PEP eligible site and moving from Second Chance Pell into becoming a PEP. We will discuss how to work with students for the successful completion of the FAFSA, as well as how to approach the question of tuition and student accounts with the college administration. This year BPI Dean Megan Callaghan and Director of Budget and Financial Aid Rupali Rifenburg will be joined by fellow member of the cohort, Sheila Meiman of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Data and Filemaker
Workshop Leader:
In this workshop we will explore BPI’s Filemaker system as a tool for day to day program management as well as for data collection, reporting and program evaluation: What to track and why and how. We will explore what to consider when building out a database, categories and definitions for data collection and reporting, and some principles in thinking about the boundaries and ethics of research in the field of college in prison.
4pm-5pm
CCS Bard: Hessel Museum of Art tour (optional)
5pm-7pm
Dinner
Thursday 07/25
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Reentry: Getting Started
Workshop Leaders:
We will experience BPI’s introduction to reentry and learn about the history of reentry at BPI and thoughts about how to get started in offering reentry support in your program. We will also look at BPI’s reentry workshops inside: what do students need most as they prepare to leave prison and what can we provide? How do we guide them toward resources? We will build connections between BPI’s reentry work on the inside and the BPI ConnectED Workshop.
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
One-on-one Office Hours
5pm–9pm
Dinner & Panel Conversation with Foundation Program Officers
Friday 07/26
8am–10am
Breakfast
10am–12pm
Bookends of a Student’s Encounter with the College: New Student Orientation and Commencement Planning
Workshop Leaders:
This workshop will explore how we build on the admissions experience to inspire, challenge, and situate students to succeed in the college by inviting students into a long term relationship with the college. Max will conduct an orientation just as we do inside, with participants in the student role.
We will then switch gears and jump to the other bookend of students’ formal time with the college and discuss commencement planning, strategies, and principles and how to reproduce the ceremony in ways that bring the college into the prison and underscore the momentousness of the occasion. Commencement planning stands with student orientation as two core moments in which the program messages the centrality, power, and salience of the college as the relevant institution in student’s lives.
12:30pm–2pm
Lunch
2pm–4pm
Beyond Reentry, Building out Alumni Support and the ConnectED Workshop
Workshop Leaders:
Alumni staff leaders of BPI’s ConnectED Workshop lead us through a session and then describe the content and experience of the six-week workshop for recently released alumni/ae, which covers housing, continuing education, engaging with technology, wellness, career development, and navigating social services.
5pm–9pm
Farewell Party