BPI 2022 Education Fellowship Symposium

BPI’s fellowships provide an opportunity for alumni and other formerly incarcerated people to deepen their expertise in areas of career advancement. These 10-month-long programs connect formerly incarcerated professionals to careers where their unique combination of education and lived experience makes them vital members of the workforce. Fellows participate in monthly cohort-wide learning and networking events alongside individualized instruction and advising in the form of one-on-one engagement with experts in the field.

This past Fall, BPI launched its Education Fellowship to support alums in building skills integral to this field, providing professional development support for their future educational and/or career endeavors. At the Symposium, Fellows presented their work on issues important to building greater educational access, opportunity and equity and engaged in a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Brian Jones, Director of NYPL’s Center for Schools and Educators.

A central question that has motivated the work of the inaugural Education Fellows this year was how do we create and achieve deeper, long-lasting educational equity and justice for communities — often communities of color — who continue to be marginalized by our larger systems and established a rigorous, hopeful, and supportive cohort that was invested in this question and each other. The inaugural fellowship cohort represented the New York City area, Ecuador, and Upstate New York.