Dear Friends,
Once again the Cornell Prison Education Program had a banner year. With a second grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2019-2021), and generous support from the community, we continue to grow and achieve new things. If you have not done so, please consider making a gift to our program. Here are some highlights of 2019 and a year-in-review photo gallery.
Milestones
All four of the prisons in which we work had reason to celebrate this year; three prisons hosted graduations while a fourth has launched our latest degree-granting program. The Class of 2019 was the largest in CPEP history, with 12 graduates at Auburn CF, nine at Cayuga CF, and two at Five Points CF, for a total of 23. For the first time in 25 years, there is now a degree-granting college program at Elmira Correctional Facility, where 42 students are pursuing an Associates in Liberal Arts through our partnership with Corning Community College (SUNY). This partnership also includes, for the first time, Ithaca College professors who are offering one course per semester.
Photo Gallery
Below is a gallery of images from 2019 — click any image to access the entire gallery:
Curriculum Enhancements
Prison Partners Library Research (WRIT 1100), a new course designed and overseen by Cornell Librarian Heather Furnas, aims to mitigate some of the barriers that incarcerated students face when seeking access to academic materials. The campus-based course trains Cornell undergraduates in the art of academic research while they provide resources to students writing their capstone projects for the Certificate in Liberal Arts program in prison.
Other new curricular offerings from 2019 included an Introduction to Immunology, Spanish and Arabic language courses, an Introduction to Business, a course on Goethe, a course on Black Women Writers, and an Introduction to Criticism and Theory.
Extracurricular Developments
Beyond the core curricular developments of the program, we saw the resurgence of the debate team and literary journal Writer’s Bloc at Auburn CF, a folk concert featuring social critic and cultural icon Ani DiFranco at Cayuga CF, and new computer labs built at Auburn and Five Points CF. If you haven’t had a chance, we recommend you read the latest edition of Writer’s Bloc, which is a literary journal written by incarcerated CPEP students and edited by Cornell’s legendary English Literature and Creative Writing professor Ken McClane. See images of the debate team and computer labs in the gallery above.
For the tenth year running, our Guest Lecture Series brought inspiring and informative speakers inside to share authoritative knowledge on various subjects with our students. This year’s roster included Stephanie Morales on her transformative work as a District Attorney in Virginia, Esta Bigler of the ILR School’s Labor and Employment Law Program, singer/songwriter Ani di Franco, Cornell Vice Provost Katherine McComas on the communication of risk, Cornell Vice Provost Gary Koretzky MD on immunotherapy approaches to cancer, Silicon Valley-based Cornell alumna Tsehaynesh Abebe on personal finance and causes of poverty, Science and Technology Studies professor Suman Seth on the history of medicine and race, and others.
Engaged Cornell
Over 200 men in the correctional system took college courses through the Cornell Prison Education Program this year, but let us not forget that CPEP is a signature initiative to engage Cornellians and educate the next generation of criminal justice reformers. This year 102 Cornell undergraduate and graduate students tutored and taught in our prison classrooms.
Each year I ask you, our community, to please consider supporting our program in this season of giving. With your support, we have been a leader in restoring higher education in prison and a model of effective community engagement at Cornell University. We are deeply grateful for your support.
With sincere gratitude for another great year,
Robert Scott
Executive Director
Cornell Prison Education Program