The Bard Prison Initiative Education Fellowship is in full swing. This year we have four dedicated and creative cohorts. They are working at various junctures in the educational space, but their mission to foster more equity, more social and emotional awareness in the public… Read More
BPI Blog
Content Type: News
International Congress on Higher Education in Prisons in Argentina, April 2023
BPI is pleased to announce that through support from the Open Society University Network (OSUN) and in partnership with Incarceration Nations Network (INN), we have funded an International Congress on Higher Education in Prisons that will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina this spring.… Read More
Community Updates: Gardening Across BPI’s Campuses
The gardens at Fishkill, Taconic, and Woodbourne are all put to bed for the winter. We had a challenging season, with little water and a lot of heat, but students at all three facilities worked in solidarity with the plants they were growing, all… Read More
With First Graduates, EPI Celebrates Six Years of Transformative Education
John Yang ’23 began his studies with the Emerson Prison initiative, and now is a junior on the Boston campus. Screen shot from EPI videoFrom the very first class he took as an Emerson student, John Yang ’23 said he learned a new way… Read More
Community Voices: Dean Ansell’s remarks at Emerson Prison Initiative’s First Commencement
On September 27th the Emerson Prison Initiative held a historic celebration: the first Emerson College BA ceremony at MCI Concord and the first BA ceremony ever held at the facility. These amended remarks were given that day by Amy Ansell, Dean of the Marlboro… Read More
Community Updates: Gardening Across BPI’s Campuses
This is a summer to remember: several strings of days in the 90s and drought hitting the Hudson Valley, “severe” in many places. This, only a year after the wettest summer in the past four years. And this, during a summer full of dire… Read More
BPI Completes Fourth Annual Summer Residency
The BPI Summer Residency is a professional development opportunity that provides hands-on, experiential training in the hows, whys, and whats of BPI’s approach to college-in-prison. This July, emerging college-in-prison educators and practitioners from California, Oregon, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Missouri, New York, and Hawai’i as well… Read More
Augustana College joins the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison
Earlier this year, BPI proudly announced its newest member of the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison: the Augustana Prison Education Program (APEP). BPI launched the Consortium in 2009 to facilitate the further establishment of college-in-prison nationwide. The Consortium currently represents fourteen colleges… Read More
Alumni Opinion: The Importance of TAP Restoration
The restoration of access to New York’s need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for college-in-prison is monumental. Receiving an education behind bars permanently changed my life in many ways. A year into receiving my associate degree through the Bard Prison Initiative, there was no doubt… Read More
TAP: A Long Time Coming
Incarcerated students' ability to access New York's Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) has been restored in New York State after 26 years of a senseless and destructive ban. This victory is a long time in the making. With BPI's Senior Government Affairs Officer Dyjuan Tatro '18… Read More