The liberal arts are techniques for freedom.
Guest post by Joey McCarthy I would like to say that I felt honored to be able to hear John Peacock’s reading about his life, and how he came to find out his true heritage and roots. Like John Peacock, I am also Irish and Indian mixed. My whole life I was led to believe […]
Guest post by Donald Gross (R.I.P Douglas Scott Arey) Wow! This particular lecture had to be one of the most, if not the most informative lectures that I have ever had the pleasure of participating in. I would never have guessed in a hundred years that a Q and A during the lecture would be […]
Guest post by Sean Almond in response to class visit by conceptual artist Hugh Pocock I enjoyed the presentation you gave here at JCI. Your work and thoughts really opened my eyes to new concepts of what art is, or could be. I thought that your piece “Volume” was brilliant. To utilize the museum’s own […]
Two months ago, the Attorney General Lorretta Lynch and the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to Jessup to announce a plan to offer Pell Grants to some prisoners again. They gave us until October 2nd to find a university partner to offer credit-bearing programs. I’m very pleased to announce that the University of Baltimore […]
This excellent article by Beth Schartzapfel, Staff Writer at the Marshall Project, refers to the JCI Prison Scholars program, and includes quotes from scholars Josh Miller and Vincent Greco. Obama is Reinstalling Pell Grants for Prisoners
Joshua Miller, one of our long-time instructors in the program, has been moving through the application process for the Open Society Institute – Baltimore Community Fellowships program (to support our work at JCI). Yesterday he received word that he has made it through the first round, and is being invited to submit a full proposal. […]
The City Paper feature article on the JCI Scholars Program got lots of attention and good press. And in this week’s issue is a letter from program scholar Doug Arey. Thanks again to Baynard Woods for the great article. Published: May 14, 2014 Your recent cover story (“Heart of Darkness,” Feature, May 7) was about […]
Yesterday, we held the Program’s summer “registration fair.” I was joined by Rachel Donaldson and two new instructors, Mark Lindley and Henry Schwarz, along with almost one hundred and fifty incarcerated men who were potential students. Registration is something that we started doing this Spring, in efforts to institutionalize the course selection/assignment process a bit […]
Our founder Drew Leder and one of our faculty, Mikita Brottman, are featured in a City Paper feature article this week! Congrats to them, and check out the article! (Though, to be fair, to get to our classrooms we actually cross a yard with quite a wide expanse of sky framed by razor wire!) […]
Mr. Greco, the clerk to Ms. Schroeder, the JCI Librarian who organizes most of our logistics on the JCI side, has recently compiled some summary information on our program over the past few years, that I think is pretty impressive. In a nutshell, since 2010, folks involved with the JCI Scholars Program, and a number […]
Drew Leder writes: Why do I teach in prison? Well, I’ll give an answer (that might not seem so interesting) – because prison teaching is itself interesting. In oh so many ways. The men who I work with, some 30-40 in my classes, not counting 5-10 of my undergraduates I bring with me, are passionately […]
The Daily Nous put up a nice discussion of teaching philosophy in prisons the other day. Drew Leder, Joshua Miller, and I were interviewed for it, in addition to some folks from other programs. All the bits except the questions to me are worth a read!