WEEK 2: JULY 25–29: Workshop Descriptions

The 4th Annual BPI Summer Residency


Monday 7/25

A Conversation with Site Directors
Workshop Leaders: Amy Shapiro. Pamela Wallace, Amanda Vladick, Zach Swartz-Weinstein and Robert Tynes

Join BPI site directors to talk about the work on the ground. Site directors, all of whom began as faculty, will share their insight and experience. How do they approach the ethics and logistics of managing a site in partnership both with students and corrections? What’s the one thing they wish they’d known when they started the job? How do they approach tough conversations – with faculty, with students, with administration?

Cultivating College Community Inside
Workshop Leaders: James Kim, Tammar Cancer, and Shawn Young

The daily work of sustaining the college inside: supporting students, communicating with prison staff, and managing faculty. Site directors and alums share stories about building and extending community inside, the possibilities and challenges that emerge every day.


Tuesday 7/26

Practitioner Wellness: Sustainability, Compassion Fatigue & Secondary Trauma
Workshop Leaders: James Kim, Delia Mellis, Joe Williams

This workshop explores some strategies for acknowledging, coping with, and building resilience in the face of our students’ historical and ongoing traumatic experiences. How do we support their well-being and our own?


Wednesday 7/27

Development Strategies and Planning
Workshop Leaders: Ellen Henneberry and Kate Cox

Conversations with BPI’s development team continue in this session as we explore strategies for how to plan fundraising on an annual basis. The team will share insights and guidance related to the nuts and bolts for building out the vision, capacity, and infrastructure to seek out, obtain, and retain support from donors and foundations.

Working with Corrections
Workshop Leaders: Megan Callaghan, Robert Tynes

This conversation will cover tips and strategies for negotiation with the DOC. What does the college need from the DOC? What to consider in an MOU? How to navigate central office and facility level leadership. Taking up space in the prison. Classification and movement. Recruitment of future students. Defining what’s “college business.”

Alumni Advocacy and Government Affairs (Note: this event has been postponed and will be rescheduled as a virtual event later in year.)
Workshop Leader: Dyjuan Tatro

Join in a conversation with BPI’s Senior Government Affairs Officer to learn about alumni-led efforts to build government support and new funding streams for college-in-prison and develop relationships and familiarity between elected officials and your program. Dyjuan Tatro will go over how and why he created a government affairs role at BPI, what he has accomplished in this role over the years, and tips and strategies for engaging elected officials in college-in-prison work including possibilities for direct funding and political support. We will also explore potential pitfalls and what to watch out for.


Thursday 7/28

Reentry: Getting Started
Workshop Leaders: Shawn Young and Jed Tucker

We will experience BPI’s introduction to reentry as first-year students do and then learn about the history of reentry at BPI and the reentry workshops inside: what do students need most as they prepare to leave prison and what can we provide? How do we guide them toward resources? We will build connections between BPI’s reentry work on the inside and the BPI Transitional Workshop.

Transition Home: The BPI Transitional Workshop
Workshop Leaders: Alicia Williams, Nikko Vaughn, Daniel Cho

Alumni staff leaders of BPI’s Transitional Workshop (TW) lead us through an introductory TW session and then describe the content and experience of the six-week workshop for recently released alumni/ae, which covers housing, continuing education, engaging with technology, wellness, career development, and navigating social services.


Friday 7/29

Commencement Planning: Theory and Principles
Workshop Leader: Megan Callaghan

This workshop offers a framework for thinking about and planning commencements in prison including what to expect for budgets and logistics, working with DOCs, thinking about families and guests, coordinating with the college and how to reproduce the ceremony in ways that bring the college into the prison and underscore the momentousness of the occasion. It serves as a bookend counter-part to the Student Orientation workshop in an approach to institution building that messages the centrality of the college as the relevant institution in students’ lives.

Getting Home
Workshop Leaders: Reggie Chatman and Patrick Stephens

A conversation with two alumni who have recently returned home, discussing the specifics of their experiences and aspirations for what comes next.

 


« Week 1 Workshop Descriptions About The BPI Summer Residency

 

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