BPI alumnus Alex Hall ('17) authored an essay describing the societal and personal value of a rigorous liberal arts education in the series Education Against All Odds. The full essay, reproduced below, can also be found on David Bryne's Reasons to be Cheerful website here.… Read More
BPI In Action
Content Type: News
Reversing the Tide
Ellen Condliffe Lagemann is the author of Liberating Minds: The Case for College in Prison (The New Press, 2016), from which this article contains excerpts. She was formerly the Levy Institute Research Professor at Bard College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Bard Prison… Read More
What a Soccer Star Teaches Us About Criminal Justice
BPI alumnus Alelur Duran ('18) authored an essay urging criminal justice movements to push beyond reforms aimed only at non-violent drug offenses arguing "It will be a shame if our country’s criminal justice system continued to treat people with nothing but prison sentences by… Read More
A ‘Second Chance’ After 27 Years in Prison: How Criminal Justice Helped an Ex-Inmate Graduate
Goucher College partnered with BPI to create the Goucher Prison Education Partnership (GPEP) in 2011. Now a national leader in the field, GPEP currently enrolls about 100 incarcerated Goucher students across two prison facilities in Maryland. This article, reproduced below, first appeared in the… Read More
Washington University graduates its first class of students in prison
Faculty at Washington University in St. Louis worked together with BPI to design and launch the Washington University Prison Education Project (PEP), which joined the Consortium in 2014. In 2019, PEP students celebrated the program's first graduation with the ten students earning Associates degrees… Read More
How maximum security inmates took on Cambridge in a debate about nuclear weapons — and won
The three students from the University of Cambridge, wearing black suits and clutching sheaves of papers, stepped onto the wooden auditorium stage under the warm yellow lights. As members of a storied debate team, they had competed the world over but never in a… Read More
Marian University to offer classes at Indiana Women’s Prison
Sixteen women at the Indiana Women’s Prison (IWP) on the west side of Indianapolis are now pursuing college degrees through Marian University. The opportunity is provided through the Women’s College Partnership, a joint venture between Marian and the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). Marian University has… Read More
A Consequential Myth
BPI alumnus Jule Hall ('11) authored an essay on the realities of race in America. The full article reproduced below first appeared in Philanthropy New York. Hall is a program officer in the Unit for Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice at the Ford Foundation. A… Read More
Trapped Bodies, Freed Minds
The Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound (FEPPS) joined the Consortium in 2014 and received several years of seed funding from BPI. FEPPS provides a rigorous college program to incarcerated women in Washington and creates pathways to higher education after women are released from… Read More
‘Could I Make It In College?’: His Journey to a Bachelor’s Degree Started Behind Bars
Goucher College partnered with BPI to create the Goucher Prison Education Partnership (GPEP) in 2011. Now a national leader in the field, GPEP currently enrolls about 100 incarcerated Goucher students across two prison facilities in Maryland. Founded in 1972, the Villanova Graterford Program at SCI… Read More