And I remember walking in and seeing men like me in prison uniforms, except that they were speaking Mandarin. By Megan Heintz. College Behind Bars is a production of Skiff Mountain Films and is directed by Lynn Novick. Few completed high school; most earned their GED in prison. That degree really means something when they leave this program with their degree from Bard. "College Behind Bars" airs tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations. Episodes. Josie Duffy Rice and co-host Derecka Purnell are joined by Dyjuan Tatro '18 andReadMore, The Bard Prison Initiative is a revolutionary program that provides a rigorous college education to men and women in prison. (Video Courtesy ESPN, Monday Night Countdown. And what's incredible is that you can also serve as tutors, so you're constantly working with other students who are trying to obtain their associate's degrees or bachelor's. DAVIES: Sebastian Yoon, tell us what it was like getting started in these classes. NOVICK: Yeah. Ill take care of the preliminaries, brush my teeth, get dressed, and I shoot straight to the Starbucks two blocks away. Meg & Tomas Bergstrand; Regina K. Scully; The Lise Strickler & Mark Gallogly Charitable Fund; a fund at The New York Community Trust; Patty Quillin through the Meadow Fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation; Barbara & Richard Novick; Chicken & Egg Pictures; The William H. Donner Foundation; Hartley Film Foundation; Bertha Foundation; The Harnisch Foundation; Compton Foundation; and Lisa Philp; and members of The Better Angels Society:
And, you know, we came to feel that it was important for them to - and they also felt it was important for them to explain themselves, how they see themselves, where they've been, where they are, through the lens of the education that they've been getting and their perspectives that have shifted over time. I remember telling my professor that, how can I complete an eight-page paper if I feel like I could complete it in only two? So you can be in class midway, and if the bell rings because the count was off or if there's a security problem, then you have to go back to your cells. Helping prisoners go to college helps New York, Press Release: TURN ON THE TAP NY PRAISES GOVERNOR HOCHUL FOR INCLUDING TUITION ASSISTANCE FOR INCARCERATED NEW YORKERS IN BUDGET, WBAIs On the Count The Prison And Criminal Justice Report, BPI and College Behind Bars in The Appeal, College Behind Bars with Max Kenner and Sebastian Yoon. College Behind Bars, the four-part documentary about the transformative power of education, premiered nationwide on PBS in November 25, 2019. They have both been to prison. Since its first cohort in 2001, BPI students have earned over 52,000 credits and more than 550 Bard College degrees. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And, you know, one of the just greatest moments there is that when the BPI students were getting up to walk the stage, the president of the college, Leon Botstein, said - you know, he said these are some of our most distinguished and greatest students, and the whole student body stood and gave us a resounding round of applause. Hold on. By signing up for BPI emails, you are agreeing to receive news and updates from BPI. DAVIES: There was a time when higher education in correctional facilities was pretty common. And then I came to crave it more and more. Adjust the colors to reduce glare and give your eyes a break. DAVIES: Yeah. The fifth annual BPI Public Health Fellowship Symposium featured the 2021 Public Health Fellows virtual presentations of their projects captured in the video above and the conversations linked below. How can we have justice without redemption? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. College Behind Bars is the inspiring, emotional, and deeply human story of men and women struggling to earn college degrees while in prison for serious crimes. YOON: My family has been super supportive of me, as you'll see in the documentary, especially my father. College Behind Bars is a production of Skiff Mountain Films, in association with Florentine Films and WETA-TV. You can learn the math skills you need pretty quickly if you're motivated. Lacy Aaron Schmidt was just 14 when he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Alana Calahan, in Columbia County, Georgia. To learn more about the restoration of TAP, read Jessica Neptunes the Director of National Engagement blog post here & Executive Director, Max Kenners, letter to our supporters here. BPIs newest initiative, the Bard Microcollege, expands yet further the scope and impact of this work, delivering high-quality liberal arts education to communities outside of prison through partnerships with community-based institutions. After serving 22 years in prison, he is making up for lost time, with a job at the Ford Foundation, good coffee and a long soak in the tub. how to remove headrest chrysler 200; super license points tracker 2022; did bette davis play the piano in deception; fiat ducato motorhome for sale on ebay; where is curly bill buried And I think the answer is no. And they are ready, and they are prepared, and they've done all the reading, and they've read the footnotes, and they've read the ancillary reading, and they are - you know, you better know what you're doing. And with time, as we become scholars, the idea that we should be limited to just vocational training just becomes absurd. One of the Bard professors said, you know, I don't have all these multimedia tools that you do in a big institution, but when you're in a class where everybody's done the reading, you don't need them as much. You got this education, and you're trying to help people now. What you see at the end is a testament to the power of education, and why it remains such a dangerous and underrated weapon against a racially and economically unjust status quo in this nation., The powerful new miniseries suggests we might find hope in the transformative effect of higher education., [A] nuanced look at education in the prison industrial complex., An important educational call to arms. Let's start with a clip from the documentary. Were they all like that, Lynn? Please consider giving a gift to support BPIs groundbreaking work to redefine college access in America and to counter the harm of mass incarceration. Lynn Novick, Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, welcome to FRESH AIR. Who has access to educational opportunity? DAVIES: Sebastian Yoon, what about connecting with your family? So just to have normal kind of conversation, people have to literally yell back and forth. I was in a poor, disadvantaged community, and I ended up at a very young age in gangs. NOVICK: Yes, indeed. Rodney, Sebastian and Giovannie embark on yearlong senior, The debate union faces Harvard. Are they right about that, Dyjuan? College Behind Bars was filmed over four years at two different prisons by Novick and producer Sarah Botstein, allowing the show to follow what happens to students in BPI: some transform,. James Wiley. College Behind Bars is perhaps one of the best documentaries that Ive seen about criminal justice in the past 5 years. The ONLY thing I could find was the recent murder of the pregnant (at the time of filming) CO Breann Leath who apparently . And it's just really, really - has been so emotional for me to see their reaction and have their support through all this and be able to share so much positivity with them after having gone through so much darkness in life. It's two different systems, right? - and wait until you get the all clear? It is a marvelous new film by @KenBurns, @LynnNovick, and @sbotstein! College Behind Bars is an intimate look at the lives and experiences of a dozen BPI students and their families that confronts and challenges conventional wisdom about the purpose of both education and incarceration. BPI was proud to partner with College and Community Fellowships #TurnOnTheTapNY campaign to restore access to New Yorks state-level need-based student grants, the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for incarcerated students. SEBASTIAN YOON: When I first got into the Bard Prison Initiative, I honestly had low expectations of the program, and I think that's because, in general, as a prisoner, I had low expectations on life. And I was bullied a lot. So how long does this take? And I said, that's what I'm going to do, and I was in a different facility at that time - easier said than done. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're discussing the new four-part PBS documentary "College Behind Bars." But while I was receiving that education, as I said, it was liberating. Who among us is capable of academic excellence? That kind of thing. Its about two miles away. One of the things I used to do is kind of put my headphones on with classical music, and that's how I would get my reading and get my work done. No, I'm done. What Happens When Incarcerated People Get a World-Class Education? Today, BPI enrolls over 300 incarcerated students full-time in programs that culminate in degrees from Bard College; it offers extensive support for its alumni in and around New York City; and, it has developed the BPI Summer Residency, an intensive, experiential, and hands-on series of workshops on the nuts and bolts of college-in-prison for new and emerging practitioners led by BPI staff and alumni. College Behind Bars first premiered Nov. 25, 2019 on PBS and has since then become popular among Netflix audiences. I'm an uncle. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. A new PBS documentary series follows prisoners who earn college degrees while serving time. Having myself attended college while incarcerated, I can attest to the importance of theReadMore, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 18, 2022 DAVIES: Dyjuan Tatro, what was your graduation experience like? Our associate producer of digital media is Molly Seavey-Nesper. Hes a regular at the local Starbucks, where he takes his coffee with cinnamon, not too much sugar.. So currently, I work as a program specialist with the Democracy Fund of Open Society Foundations, which is one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the world. I mean, Dyjuan, I think you had a brother who had been - a younger brother who'd struggled and had been incarcerated at some point. We will continue our conversation after this short break. So that was, like, really, really kind of humbling to see that type of support from the general population. I sit in there for about 30 minutes with my phone on the side playing music. Last week, the New York State budget included a major victory for educational equity, ending a 26-year-old ban on access to need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) grants for incarcerated students. Our guests today are Lynn Novick, who directed the documentary, and two graduates of the program, Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro. Shot over four years in maximum and medium security prisons in New York State, the four-hour film takes viewers on a stark and intimate journey into one of the most pressing issues of our time our failure to provide meaningful rehabilitation for the over two million Americans living behind bars. There are counts. I have two brothers - one older, one younger. You tend to have these open cell blocks, and people are locked in their cells. And so, you know, I think we always need to consider that we're not talking about people in prison getting a degree in isolation, you know? And that's not to say that it's not challenging, but that is to point to the fact that, if we support people transitioning back in society in the right way, they'd be capable of almost anything, you know? "College Behind Bars" airs tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations. The bipartisan restoration of Pell Grant eligibility to incarcerated students is a clear political endorsement of the value of college-in-prison, signaling to New York that it is past time to also restore TAP. This is a full-time and long-term and total commitment. You know, I'm a brother. The BPI student body mirrors that of the prison system at large: students come from communities with the fewest quality educational opportunities that are most impacted by crises of hyper-policing and mass incarceration. Because when people ask that question or that question's being asked, that's usually the implicit assumption, that they are only capable of this level of education. TATRO: You know, I'm not taking it back to my cell and going to sleep with it. Since its first cohort in 2001, BPI students have earned over 52,000 credits and more than 550 Bard College degrees. I don't see myself as a person. Lynn Novick's 'College Behind Bars,' four-hour PBS documentary about the Bard Prison Initiative and the impact of educational programs as part of prison reform, is provocative and inspiring. Prison has the worst coffee, oh, my goodness thats one of the things I think anybody would tell you. And then they're like, strip. The vast majority of people in this country that are incarcerated are going to be returning to society. After returning home, BPI alumni become independent taxpaying citizens. DAVIES: Yeah, it was interesting. After the federal Pell ban in 1994, New York implemented a ban on TAP eligibility in 1995. My mother left me and my siblings when I was 5, so my dad raised us three - my older brother and my sister - by himself. I thought it was incredibly well done in all ways. In the fall of 2015, a maximum-security prison in New York invited Harvards debate team to compete against a squad of three incarcerated men. 2026. At BPI, we are committed to investing in people, reinventing institutions and making genuine education more accessible. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. fevereiro 17, 2023; Posted by nene leakes father alan; 17 . If this kind of opportunity were widely available and the sort of foundational skills made possible, a lot more people could take advantage of it. This is the thing we know how to do, and we happen to do it here. Your support helps make this possible. I worked as a cook. When incarcerated students from the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) Debate Union beat a team from Harvard, their victory made headlines around the world. College Behind Bars (two hours) begins Monday at 9 p.m. with Parts 1 and 2 on WETA and MPT. How College in Prison Turns Around Lives and Saves Taxpayers Money, Knowledge & Redemption, A Conversation with Lynn Novick and Jule Hall, Incarcerated People Can Do More than Beat Harvard in a Debate. Accuracy and availability may vary. And today, there are 300 students in six facilities in New York state, mostly men, but there's one facility for women as well. While my clothes are in the washer, because its right across the street from me, Ill run back upstairs and start cleaning my apartment for the week. Justice in America Episode 29: Schools in Prison 56 views, 2 likes, 3 loves, 4 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from New&Living Way Gospel Temple: Sunday service I can give them different types of advice. And that had been true for over a generation, and it was well understood and accepted that education was an essential part of criminal justice and of rehabilitation. college behind bars where are they now. GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guests will be Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, the former Wall Street Journal reporters who formed Fusion GPS, a private research company. How Jule Hall, Graduate of the Bard Prison Initiative, Spends His Sundays, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/nyregion/jule-hall-college-behind-bars-pbs.html. But for the men gathered on this October afternoon, it. They've earned college degrees and are now employed. Part of our job is to provide grants and support to other organizations and individuals who are working towards social justice reform. We can remove the first show in the list to add this one. Learn more about this important amendment to the Merit Board rules, and its disproportionate impact on incarcerated women, on our blog. And this is a moment from the film after the graduation ceremony, which we just saw, where I guess, Sebastian, you got your degree and, Dyjuan, you were attending but you're reflecting on what it's like to finish this joyous event and then leave the prison auditorium and then return to the housing unit where you will be rudely searched and then go back to your cells. When I look at the scenes of the classroom in the documentary - it's a four-part documentary, and there are a lot of scenes - these classes are a lot more orderly and focused than I remember any of my college or high school classes being. These programs transform the negative impacts of criminal punishment and create radical inroads of access and opportunity to higher learning. 1. TATRO: Sure. DAVIES: We're talking about the new PBS documentary "College Behind Bars" with Lynn Novick, the director, and with Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, two formerly incarcerated graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative. And one day, we went to a karaoke bar, and a fight erupted, and somebody ended up losing his life. I mean, it's a wide range of liberal arts curriculums. I had to show my passion. Sebastian Yoon, your father was in the audience, right? The Residency leads to an ongoing community of practice that builds on over a decade of cultivating a nationwide network of leading universities and colleges in the field, through the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison. This past is constantly being resurrected. In his senior project, BPI student Rodney Spivey-Jones 17 traces the long history of struggle against anti-Black racism in America. This film is about the transformative power of education while also confronting and challenging conventional thinking about the purpose of both education and incarceration. I'm going to ask each of you to give me your first impressions here. The College: Comprehensive Academic Engagement. And I will say this - when we started the project, sometimes people would say to us, oh, most people in prison will say that they're innocent and they didn't do the crime that they're there for. On November 24, 1990, James Wiley armed himself with a shotgun and brutally shot down his stepmother and two brothers in their home in Thermopolis, Wyoming. I'm a math major, went on after that to do some project management and data collection for a tech company and then started thinking about how I could get back in the world. By creating an account, you acknowledge that PBS may share your information with our member stations and our respective service providers, and that you have read and understand the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. DAVIES: You know, getting a liberal arts education is - it is a lot of work, and it expands one's horizons in a whole lot of ways. That was not our experience at all. And there's - I'll just let the listeners know there's an emotional moment here where you start to speak of your family, and you have to stop and compose yourself. You know, that is not the type of thing you expect to be happening in a prison. TATRO: And, you know, I'll just add that we have been - we have done screenings in prisons from California to Massachusetts. YOON: Yeah. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. What was that time like for you? The numbers that I remember from the documentary was that at - there were about 890 or so in the institution, 110 in the program, which is a pretty good number. We will continue our conversation after a short break. I just wanted acknowledgement and this feeling of power and security. 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