overcoming adversity and achieving dreams through higher education
Our alums remind us that returning home isn’t easy, and successes are sometimes interrupted by setbacks. Ongoing support is key to making sure the good days outnumber the bad. Our new Odyssey Beyond Bars Success Coach, Mike Exum, helps students navigate the inevitable struggles of reentry and provides a voice of encouragement in tough times.
Caption: Books from the OBB Library collection on their way to prisons around the state “Freedom begins with a book.” — Reginald Dwayne Betts, a formerly incarcerated Yale-educated lawyer, poet and founder of Freedom Reads Peter and Lauren from the Odyssey Beyond Bars team were on a tour of Dodge Correctional in May when they stopped …
“We make a choice each moment that affects the rest of our lives and the lives of everyone around us. The decision is about whether we are the situation we are in — or if the situation we are in is a stepping-stone leading to where we want to be.” – Eric, a student in …
Caption: Students from OBB’s English 100 course at Oakhill, spring 2022 In May, Odyssey Beyond Bars (OBB) concluded an incredible semester of growth in which we offered courses in three new prisons, in addition to multiple courses at Oakhill Correctional. I had the joy of touring the state and attending final class sessions for each …
Odyssey Beyond Bars (OBB) is now operating in four prisons across the state, and as we and other prison-based programs expand, we often encounter the same question from our students as they contemplate their academic journeys: “What’s next?” For some lucky students, the next steps are clear. The prison where they live might offer an …
“This experience has enabled me to look outside the box that I’ve kept myself securely in for so long. I am not just a number or a lost cause like society has labeled me. I am a survivor, a resilient, strong woman.” –Emma, “inside” student from Professor Carmen Heider’s Inside-Out course Each Tuesday, students from …
“You’re only remembered by what you did in your time on earth, and I want to be remembered as a valiant man that despite his mistakes and hardships took a horrific situation and turned it into a story of resilience and victory.” –Mark, a student in English 100 at Oakhill this fall Hooray! Odyssey Beyond …
We enter fall and the holidays with keen excitement, thankful to be back to in-person teaching and meeting classrooms full of new students. Some programs suspended during the pandemic are resuming, like UW–Parkside’s Shakespeare Prison Project at Racine Correctional, with strong demand among students. And new technologies developed during the pandemic are allowing more people …
“What English 100 did for me, I want to do for others. I blossomed in that class. I want others to experience that.” —Dominee Meek, Odyssey Beyond Bars alum (fall 2019) Dominee was in the final years of his nearly 28-year incarceration when he took Professor Kevin Mullen’s English 100 course at Oakhill Correctional in …
“Reading and reflecting on writings at this magnitude has allowed us to respond and be heard, to be a part of the community […] and to be more than just numbers in a system or pictures on our relatives’ wall.” —Randy, student in Afro-American Studies 155 (spring 2021) On a bright afternoon in early May, …