Dear Friends, At BPI, our team takes pride in describing this work with language like proximity, community, and human touch. Yesterday, however, we made the difficult decision to temporarily suspend BPI operations within the prisons. The demand to ‘isolate’ contradicts every impulse. However, there is now an imperative to… Read More
BPI Blog
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BPI Alumnus Joe Williams ’13 Honored in Brooklyn
Congratulations to BPI alumnus Joe Williams '13 who was honored tonight at the Annual Black Leadership Celebration in Brooklyn, hosted by Councilman Antonio Reynoso and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez in recognition of his work in the community. Williams completed his Associate’s Degree with BPI in 2011… Read More
BPI Alumni Announce New IWT College Behind Bars Workshop for Teachers at UFT Film Event
BPI alumni Dyjuan Tatro and Giovannie Hernandez joined a United Federation of Teachers screening of College Behind Bars as part of UFT's Black History Month Film Series on February 27th and proudly announced to the audience of teachers that Bard College will be offering… Read More
College Behind Bars Coming to Holyoke Microcollege
Friday, March 20, 2020 1:30-3:30 p.m. Holyoke Library Community Room 250 Chestnut Street, Holyoke Please join us for a screening of highlights from the documentary film COLLEGE BEHIND BARS, about students in the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), one of the most rigorous prison education programs in America. The screening… Read More
BETTER ANGELS PODCAST Max Kenner: how prison education gives hope
BPI's Executive Director Max Kenner sat down with Sarah Brown on the Better Angels Podcast, originally posted on Their World and reproduced below. “I think you’re exactly right that mass incarceration is a symptom, if not the most prominent system of structural racism in the… Read More
The Bard Prison Initiative: Education, Incarceration, and Public Health
In January 2020, BPI faculty and alumni Robert E. Fullilove EdD, Anibal Cortes MPH '08, Richard Gamarra MPH '14, and Hancy Maxis BA '15 jointly authored an article in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) describing the value of college in prison and… Read More
Access to higher ed for incarcerated students is essential to criminal justice reform
As College Behind Bars puts a spotlight on the issue of college in prison, 25 years after the removal of Pell Grants for people in prison, BPI Alumnus Darren Mack '13 shares his thoughts on higher education’s role in criminal justice reform and the… Read More
20 Years of Bard Behind Bars
At a recent orientation session for newly enrolled Bard students at Taconic Correctional Facility, I found myself thinking about my own undergraduate experience and the ways Bard connects people across campuses and decades. We were there to talk about the extended world of the… Read More
An Insider’s Perspective
With fresh pens, sharpened pencils, and brand new composition notebooks, we took our seats in the classroom for the first day of Language and Thinking—not as inmates, but as classmates. The stress and tension that seem to burst through every crack and crevice of… Read More
Changing the Face of Tech
On Wednesday, September 18th, BPI Restart Fellow and coordinator, Ornell Caesar '16 joins fellow BPI alum Antoine Patton '12 and Jenn Schiffer for Changing the Face of Tech: a Tech & Reentry Gathering. This first gathering has been organized in partnership between Restart and… Read More