overcoming adversity and achieving dreams through higher education
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, …
We wind down the 2020-21 academic year proud of our students and what we have accomplished in the face of adversity. When the pandemic interrupted our face-to-face instruction, Odyssey Beyond Bars (OBB) rose to the occasion, developing new digital teaching tools to engage our students and adding to the courses we offer at Oakhill Correctional Institution. …
“We often search for scars which lay bare on the outside, never considering the more hurtful scars present on the inside. Having served nearly 25 years of incarceration, I know firsthand that the hidden scars are the ones that can hurt the most . . . In reading this, I found myself reflecting on how …
“Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook. And a lot of times our parents only gave us what their parents gave them, and so this is an opportunity for us to learn things that we didn’t necessarily receive from our parents.” — alum from Parenting Inside Out, a nationwide program for incarcerated parents Five million children …
“I never thought I’d ever be a writer. I wasn’t even good at writing letters. But then I took English 100, and wow, it really helped my communication and writing. I have overcome my fear of reading in a group, too. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to finish what we started, but man, …
“He who opens a school door closes a prison.” —Victor Hugo Spring 2021 is a time of triumph and hope for UW’s students in prison. After enduring outbreaks of COVID-19, long periods of lockdown and the suspension of classes, things are starting to open back up again. The infection rates are dropping and students have …
Last fall we were so excited to offer the first credit-bearing course in a Wisconsin prison in over 100 years. (This Isthmus article from February 2020 describes the fall program and its moving December graduation ceremony at Oakhill Correctional Institution.) With all prisons closed to visitors and internet access difficult to arrange, we worried that Odyssey Beyond Bars …
The UW Odyssey Project, First Unitarian Society, and MOSES Team invite you to a viewing of College Behind Bars, a film by Lynn Novick, as part of the First Friday Film Series on August 7 at 6:30 p.m. Join us as we “explore the transformative power of education through the eyes of a dozen incarcerated men and women trying …