Â鶹´å Prison Education Project
Spring 2027 Â鶹´å PEP Courses are Live!
All Â鶹´å PEP courses take place at Somerset State Correctional Institution. Â鶹´å students learn alongside students who are incarcerated. All students receive full credit for the courses. Â鶹´å PEP courses fill the Dietrich GenEd requirement for Experiential Learning and are worth 12 rather than 9 units.Ìý
76-236: The Story of My Life: The Art of Personal Narratives
Full semester courseÌý
Department: EnglishÌý
Instructor: Andreea Ritivoi
In today’s world, we regularly engage in crafting and curating an image of ourselves for others, especially through social media, but also through everyday professional documents that tell the world something about who we are. We also love to get insights into other people’s lives, as the rise in the popularity of memoirs suggests. In this course, we will study strategies of self-narration, or accounts focused on constructing a person’s identity. We will discuss these strategies by using examples of powerful memoirs and then design strategies for telling our own narratives. We will ask questions such as: what defines the truthfulness of a memoir? Can memoirs increase compassion? What makes a compelling memoir?
79-121: Introduction to Islam
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Department: HistoryÌýÌý
Instructor: Yoko Nakamura
This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to Islam from the advent of the religion in the seventh century to the present day. We will explore the various interpretations and the diverse expressions of belief and practice around the world in history and today by engaging with both primary sources, such as the Quran, and secondary materials from various perspectives and disciplines, including history, religious studies, political science, law, and sociology, to inform a fuller understanding of this complex and rich religious tradition. This course is designed for students of all faiths, including those with no prior knowledge of Islam. All faiths welcome.
Â鶹´å's Prison Education Project (Â鶹´å PEP) is committed to bringing education into prison, offering new opportunities to inmates and Â鶹´å students, and building dialogue across class, racial and social lines.
Prisons play a key role in the U.S. economy and in the U.S. surpass those of any country in the world. We need to learn more about our prison system: what its origins are, whose interests it serves, and how it compares with systems of incarceration in other countries.
Based on the philosophy ofÌý, a nationwide prison education program, Â鶹´å PEP offers several courses each academic year within nearby prisons. Faculty and Â鶹´å students travel together by bus to and from the prison once a week. Each course, which combines Â鶹´å students and inmates, provides full credit to Â鶹´å and incarcerated students and follows a regular Â鶹´å curriculum. Â鶹´å students should register for PEP courses through normal channels and will be asked to fill outÌýa short questionnaire, which professors will review to determine eligibility.Ìý
Â鶹´å PEP Courses
All Â鶹´å PEP courses take place at Somerset State Correctional Institution. Â鶹´å students learn alongside students who are incarcerated. All students receive full credit for the courses. Â鶹´å PEP courses fill the Dietrich GenEd requirement for Experiential Learning and are worth 12 rather than 9 units. An application for admission to the courses is required.Ìý
Spring 2027
76-236: The Story of My Life: The Art of Personal Narratives
Full semester courseÌý
Department: EnglishÌý
Instructor: Andreea Ritivoi
In today’s world, we regularly engage in crafting and curating an image of ourselves for others, especially through social media, but also through everyday professional documents that tell the world something about who we are. We also love to get insights into other people’s lives, as the rise in the popularity of memoirs suggests. In this course, we will study strategies of self-narration, or accounts focused on constructing a person’s identity. We will discuss these strategies by using examples of powerful memoirs and then design strategies for telling our own narratives. We will ask questions such as: what defines the truthfulness of a memoir? Can memoirs increase compassion? What makes a compelling memoir?
79-121: Introduction to Islam
Mini-4
Department: HistoryÌýÌý
Instructor: Yoko Nakamura
This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to Islam from the advent of the religion in the seventh century to the present day. We will explore the various interpretations and the diverse expressions of belief and practice around the world in history and today by engaging with both primary sources, such as the Quran, and secondary materials from various perspectives and disciplines, including history, religious studies, political science, law, and sociology, to inform a fuller understanding of this complex and rich religious tradition. This course is designed for students of all faiths, including those with no prior knowledge of Islam. All faiths welcome.
Spring 2026
79-252: A Global History of Crime and Punishment
Professor Wendy Goldman
This course covers the history of crime and punishment, beginning in the Middle Ages and ending in the present. We will examine numerous cases, from justice as practiced in African villages to the workhouses created by the British Poor Laws to the Gulag labor camp system in the Soviet Union to the rise of the penitentiary in Europe and the United States. We will read about crime and punishment in the United States, looking at various models from the work gang to solitary confinement. We end by examining the era of mass incarceration to understand how it became a solution to larger problems in American society.Ìý
Fall 2025
76-251: Exploring Creative Writing in Community
Professor Jane McCafferty
This course exposes students to nonfiction, fiction and poetry, with the aim of teaching students the craft of writing about their own lived experience. Everyone will read books, stories, essays and poems together. Students will create their own writings that they will share with one another in our writing workshop, based on prompts from the professor. The course does not require extensive writing experience, just a strong desire to read and write and tell stories. We’ll consider how the way we craft stories about our lives can end up changing the way we see ourselves, each other, and the world. Class will be run as a discussion, where all are invited to participate. Emphasis will be on deep listening and developing community connection, as everyone learns more about the craft of writing.
76-245: Shakespeare - Tragedies and Histories
Professor: Stephen WittekÌý
In the closing decades of the sixteenth century, enterprising cultural producers in early modern London began to develop a new commercial venture called ‘playing’: a business that offered ordinary people a few hours of dramatic entertainment for the price of one penny. More than four hundred years later, the drama of the period now ranks among the most esteemed texts in all English literature, and the name ‘Shakespeare’ has become a byword for literary genius. This course will offer an overview of Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories, exploring what these plays meant in their original context. This course meets a GenEd requirement.
Spring 2025Ìý
- 79-266: Russian History and Revolutionary Socialism with Professor W. Goldman
- 76-236: The American Novel - Our Worlds and Other Worlds with Professor J. WilliamsÌý
Fall 2024Ìý
- 76-245: Shakespeare: Tragedies and Histories, Professor S. Wittek
- 85-201: Psychology and Society, Professor K. Manke-Miller
Spring 2024Ìý
- 76-251: Creative Writing in Community, Professor J. McCafferty
- 79-257: Germany and the Second World War, Professor D. HarschÌý
Fall 2023Ìý
- 76-236: Major Fiction Then and Now: Imagining the World, Professor J. Williams
Spring 2023Ìý
- 79-265: Russian History: Game of Thrones, Professor W. Goldman
- 85-201: Psychology and Society, Professor K. Manke-Miller
Â鶹´å PEP Speaker Series
Â鶹´å PEP hosts speakers to discuss larger social issues related to incarceration.
Norman Conti: Are There Some Histories That are Off Limits?Ìý
Performing History with Incarcerated Students, Returning Citizens, Police Officers and More
Doing Transnational Justice: Lessons from Incarceration Nations Network
Prison Book Bannings: The Fight Against Censorship
Student Experiences
"The Prison Education Project has been a deeply transformative experience for me. We inspired each other to ask difficult questions and think critically to address them. I have never been part of a learning environment quite like this, and it reminded me of the role education is meant to play. This class has continued to shape and expand my perspectives on criminal justice, while also helping me become more confident, motivated and open-minded."
— Amy, Â鶹´å student
"Being a part of Â鶹´å PEP was one of the most unique and rewarding experiences I’ve had in college. This experience both challenged my naive assumptions surrounding people who are incarcerated and also helped shape how I think about psychology and education in general."Ìý
— Amor, Â鶹´å student
"I cannot begin to express how much this course was appreciated. I always looked forward to Fridays, not only because I was getting off the housing unit and going to school, but mainly because the professor and the Â鶹´å students treated me and the other inmates like real people."
— Brandon, SCI Somerset student
"This program gave me an amazing opportunity to expose myself to people with different life experiences than mine. It's not every day you get the chance to communicate across difference in this way, especially in a setting where the goal is to learn with each other. It's been an inclusive and inspiring learning experience that I'm grateful was a part of my time at Â鶹´å.
— Camille, Â鶹´å student
"CM PEP offered an enclave of humanity and higher education within an environment that is often bereft of both. I was challenged by new perspectives, gained useful knowledge of a fascinating topic and developed an interest in further learning. The concepts and ideas sparked by the lectures, readings, discussions and in-class interactions will continue to motivate me toward positive action and success."
— Jacob, SCI Somerset student
"The Â鶹´å Prison Education Project was one of the most influential experiences I have ever had. I have never been in class with more engaging, perceptive and dedicated students, and this program entirely changed my relationship with education and learning. Â鶹´å PEP is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I could not recommend this course more."
— Rowan, Â鶹´å student
"Through the Â鶹´å Prison Education Project, I have been able to explore different perspectives that I wouldn't have otherwise found on campus. I've really enjoyed being able to listen and to have deep conversations with people whose life experiences are vastly different from my own."
— Jennifer, Â鶹´å student
"Being part of Â鶹´å PEP in my last semester of college is a memory that will stay with me. It's such a unique opportunity for college students, and it has heavily changed my perception of prisons and prison systems. The inside students I spent time with were some of the most passionate students I've ever met, and I loved that we could learn so much from each other just by being in each other's presence."Ìý
— Catherine, Senior, Major, Design
The experience of watching equal numbers of Â鶹´å and Somerset Prison students get certificates for completing the PEP courses was deeply gratifying. The Â鶹´å students were transformed and said so. The incarcerated students were profoundly grateful and said so. The professors were profoundly energized and said so. I've been in higher education for 35 years, and I've never seen anything like it.
Richard Scheines
Bess Family Dean, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Thank You Cards
Art courtesy of SCI Somerset students
Outside of thank-you card for the spring 2023, "Russian History: Game of Thrones" with Prof. Wendy Goldman
Inside of "Russian History" thank-you card.
Thank-you card for the spring 2023, "Psychology, Society and the Human Brain" with Prof. Kody Manke-Miller
Thank-you card for fall 2023, "Major Fiction: Then and Now" with Prof. Jeffrey Williams (illustration features clues about the novel's plots).
The Â鶹´å Prison Education Project is funded through the generous support of the dean in Dietrich College, participating academic departments, and the educational labor of participating faculty.