Women's Prison College Program
Donation protected
Hello,
For the past four years a small group of volunteers has been running an amazing college program at the Indiana Women’s Prison—with essentially no funding. My name is Kelsey Kauffman and I am the volunteer director of the program. On behalf of our students and volunteer faculty, I am writing to ask if you could help us sustain and expand the program.
We have a very supportive prison administration and an excellent volunteer faculty drawn from the best colleges and universities in central Indiana. But what makes our program really remarkable is our students. Let me tell you about them.
Most of our students start classes lacking basic college skills and have a history of failure in school. Our pre-college program is designed to provide skills and confidence in a setting that is joyful, collaborative and intellectually engaging. Our students more than make up for any academic deficiencies by being among the most highly motivated and appreciative students most of us have ever had the pleasure to teach.
When they are ready, they can move to the college program (now accredited by Holy Cross College, South Bend, IN), which provides academically rigorous associate's and bachelor's degrees. Those who have completed their B.A. can join our post-college program, one of only two we know of in any prison in the country. Though our graduate courses are not yet accredited, they are taught by top professors in the nation either in person (mostly Indiana University graduate faculty) or via videoconferencing. The results have been spectacular. For example:
+++Some of our graduate and undergraduate students are doing groundbreaking research on the history of prisons, gynecology and eugenics.
+++At least 20 of our graduate and undergraduate students presented at conferences in 2015-16, with presentations at 8 conferences last semester alone and more to come this fall, including the American Studies Association in November. (Here are links to presentations three of our students made via videoconferencing to the American Historical Association earlier this year.)
+++An article authored by two of our students won the George C. Roberts Award for the best paper published in the previous year’s Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences.
+++The students are also making brilliant contributions on public policy issues, including testifying live (via video conferencing) before a powerful joint legislative committee at the Indiana General Assembly, which endorsed their policy proposals unanimously.
+++The American Historical Association published an article by one of our students, Michelle Jones, on the challenge of doing history research while in prison. And check out this Slate article on their work.
We’ve done all this and much more for four years with close to a zero-dollar budget. To sustain what we have and continue to grow, we need help from supporters in the free world:
+++Our most pressing need is to raise $5,000 in the next few weeks so that our fiscal sponsor (Gobin Memorial Methodist Church) can pay one of our volunteer teachers to become part-time director for our rapidly expanding pre-college program.
+++Also very important to us in the next few weeks is to raise $1,000 to keep the education building open one evening a week this semester. This timeslot is golden as all our students are available then and we could offer many more courses.
+++Currently we have to strictly ration paper and pens, which is frustrating for our students, and annoying for our teachers who sometimes receive assignments written on scraps of paper in pencil. A mere $10 would provide adequate paper, pencils, and pens for one student for an entire year.
+++Anything we raise beyond that we would spend on books and our antiquated computers (some of which operate on floppy disks).
We would be grateful for donations of any size, from $10 for paper and pens for one student to $100 to buy used textbooks for an entire course to $1,000 to keep our building open one night a week for the entire semester. Although we can’t do a Kickstarter donate-and-reward style fundraiser, we do have permission to offer a beautiful quilt, handmade at the prison, to anyone donating $1,000 or more.
Tax-deductible contributions can be made on this GoFundMe page or via check made out to Women's Prison Ministry and mailed to
Gobin Memorial Methodist Church
307 Simpson St.
Greencastle, IN 46135
+++++++++++++++
If you’ve read this far, you may be asking why you should support prison education when there are so many other pressing needs. Here are some of the reasons we care so much about it:
The United States incarcerates more people than any other country on earth. With less than 5% of the world’s total population, we have 25% of the world's prison population, including one-third of all women in prison in the world! Mass incarceration primarily affects poor people and, disproportionately, people of color. And it isn’t cheap. In 2010, the U.S. spent more than $80 billion on prisons at the federal, state, and local levels.
While we oppose mass incarceration in all its forms, we also recognize that prisons today offer an extraordinary opportunity to provide quality higher education to historically marginalized groups--if we will only seize it. A liberal arts education can be transformative for men and women in prison in ways that are beneficial not only to them, but also to their families and to the communities of which they are a part—including their prison and college communities. Furthermore, studies show that taking higher education courses markedly reduces the likelihood of returning to prison once released—and the vast majority of people in prison will one day be released.
Finally, a program like ours focuses not just on acquiring skills and knowledge. It also prioritizes giving incarcerated women a voice, for our sake every bit as much as for theirs. Our students have proven time and again—whether on academic issues or public policy matters—that they have truly original insights and analytic abilities that we have too long ignored or disdained, yet desperately need.
Thank you for reading this message. We--especially our students--would be grateful for any donation to the program!
With gratitude,
Kelsey Kauffman and the faculty and students of the
Indiana Women’s Prison Higher Education Program
For the past four years a small group of volunteers has been running an amazing college program at the Indiana Women’s Prison—with essentially no funding. My name is Kelsey Kauffman and I am the volunteer director of the program. On behalf of our students and volunteer faculty, I am writing to ask if you could help us sustain and expand the program.
We have a very supportive prison administration and an excellent volunteer faculty drawn from the best colleges and universities in central Indiana. But what makes our program really remarkable is our students. Let me tell you about them.
Most of our students start classes lacking basic college skills and have a history of failure in school. Our pre-college program is designed to provide skills and confidence in a setting that is joyful, collaborative and intellectually engaging. Our students more than make up for any academic deficiencies by being among the most highly motivated and appreciative students most of us have ever had the pleasure to teach.
When they are ready, they can move to the college program (now accredited by Holy Cross College, South Bend, IN), which provides academically rigorous associate's and bachelor's degrees. Those who have completed their B.A. can join our post-college program, one of only two we know of in any prison in the country. Though our graduate courses are not yet accredited, they are taught by top professors in the nation either in person (mostly Indiana University graduate faculty) or via videoconferencing. The results have been spectacular. For example:
+++Some of our graduate and undergraduate students are doing groundbreaking research on the history of prisons, gynecology and eugenics.
+++At least 20 of our graduate and undergraduate students presented at conferences in 2015-16, with presentations at 8 conferences last semester alone and more to come this fall, including the American Studies Association in November. (Here are links to presentations three of our students made via videoconferencing to the American Historical Association earlier this year.)
+++An article authored by two of our students won the George C. Roberts Award for the best paper published in the previous year’s Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences.
+++The students are also making brilliant contributions on public policy issues, including testifying live (via video conferencing) before a powerful joint legislative committee at the Indiana General Assembly, which endorsed their policy proposals unanimously.
+++The American Historical Association published an article by one of our students, Michelle Jones, on the challenge of doing history research while in prison. And check out this Slate article on their work.
We’ve done all this and much more for four years with close to a zero-dollar budget. To sustain what we have and continue to grow, we need help from supporters in the free world:
+++Our most pressing need is to raise $5,000 in the next few weeks so that our fiscal sponsor (Gobin Memorial Methodist Church) can pay one of our volunteer teachers to become part-time director for our rapidly expanding pre-college program.
+++Also very important to us in the next few weeks is to raise $1,000 to keep the education building open one evening a week this semester. This timeslot is golden as all our students are available then and we could offer many more courses.
+++Currently we have to strictly ration paper and pens, which is frustrating for our students, and annoying for our teachers who sometimes receive assignments written on scraps of paper in pencil. A mere $10 would provide adequate paper, pencils, and pens for one student for an entire year.
+++Anything we raise beyond that we would spend on books and our antiquated computers (some of which operate on floppy disks).
We would be grateful for donations of any size, from $10 for paper and pens for one student to $100 to buy used textbooks for an entire course to $1,000 to keep our building open one night a week for the entire semester. Although we can’t do a Kickstarter donate-and-reward style fundraiser, we do have permission to offer a beautiful quilt, handmade at the prison, to anyone donating $1,000 or more.
Tax-deductible contributions can be made on this GoFundMe page or via check made out to Women's Prison Ministry and mailed to
Gobin Memorial Methodist Church
307 Simpson St.
Greencastle, IN 46135
+++++++++++++++
If you’ve read this far, you may be asking why you should support prison education when there are so many other pressing needs. Here are some of the reasons we care so much about it:
The United States incarcerates more people than any other country on earth. With less than 5% of the world’s total population, we have 25% of the world's prison population, including one-third of all women in prison in the world! Mass incarceration primarily affects poor people and, disproportionately, people of color. And it isn’t cheap. In 2010, the U.S. spent more than $80 billion on prisons at the federal, state, and local levels.
While we oppose mass incarceration in all its forms, we also recognize that prisons today offer an extraordinary opportunity to provide quality higher education to historically marginalized groups--if we will only seize it. A liberal arts education can be transformative for men and women in prison in ways that are beneficial not only to them, but also to their families and to the communities of which they are a part—including their prison and college communities. Furthermore, studies show that taking higher education courses markedly reduces the likelihood of returning to prison once released—and the vast majority of people in prison will one day be released.
Finally, a program like ours focuses not just on acquiring skills and knowledge. It also prioritizes giving incarcerated women a voice, for our sake every bit as much as for theirs. Our students have proven time and again—whether on academic issues or public policy matters—that they have truly original insights and analytic abilities that we have too long ignored or disdained, yet desperately need.
Thank you for reading this message. We--especially our students--would be grateful for any donation to the program!
With gratitude,
Kelsey Kauffman and the faculty and students of the
Indiana Women’s Prison Higher Education Program
Organizer and beneficiary
Kelsey Kauffman
Organizer
Greencastle, IN
Carol Hamm
Beneficiary