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
BPI Blog
Tag: Liberal Arts
PBS chronicles 12 [incarcerated students] who value education in ‘College Behind Bars’
BPI alumni Jule Hall and Salih Israil, who are featured in College Behind Bars, spoke with Patrice Gaines along with the film’s director, Lynn Novick. This article, reproduced below, first appeared in NBC News. The film fills the screen with stories about human transformation as… Read More
The Right to Learn Behind Bars: Encouraging College in Prison Reduces Recidivism and Helps Society
BPI alumnus Dyjuan Tatro ’18, government affairs officer for the Bard Prison Initiative, recently penned an op-ed on the value of investing public funds in college in prison. This article, reproduced below, first appeared in the New York Daily News. Read the full article below: The… 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
Op-Ed: Some of My Proudest Accomplishments Happened in Prison. How Should I Talk About Them?
When my day begins with my phone buzzing 10 times in a row, it’s usually a bad sign. This time was different. My friends were going wild because a follow-up story about our debate team’s 2016 victory against Harvard University was trending on Apple… Read More
Op-Ed: Former incarcerated student: Society owes men and women in prison chance to return whole
PBS documentary shows how higher education helped me remove the shackles of incarceration. College degrees in prison can do the same for others. I am choosing to publicly out myself as a convicted felon in this column. Let me tell you why. In March of… Read More
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
Leveraging the Liberal Arts Behind Bars
From Vermont Quarterly: The University of Vermont. When eleven UVM undergrads in the course “Justice Studies” arrive for a weekly class meeting, they are required to leave their keys, cellphones, and other personal belongings at the door before walking through a metal detector under the… Read More
Easter Message from Cardinal Dolan
“A classical liberal arts education, which Bard College and the Bard Prison Initiative provides, is saying we are liberated from being shackled by the “out there” and when we look within you see a whole realm of existence and life. Where you live, how… Read More
BPI’s 12th Commencement on January 24, 2015
BPI celebrates its 12th commencement at Eastern Correctional Facility, with commencement speech by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Arch Bishop of New York. January 24, 2015 Produced by Winton / duPont Films and posted on Vimeo. Read More