So, you know, the - in the Greek, liberal arts education literally means education worthy of a free man. Let's listen. You know, one of the great things about being in BPI and one of the great things about this education happening in the educational space is that it really, really motivates people to be the best selves and to go on after this opportunity. And I'm wondering - I'm going to ask Sebastian. At BPI, we are committed to investing in people, reinventing institutions and making genuine education more accessible. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. The recent PBS series, College Behind Bars , chronicles Mr. Halls eventual parole and release in 2015. They spoke with FRESH AIR's Dave Davies. DAVIES: And if you're in class when it's time for a count, what happens? I'm interested in your take on this - whether vocational programs should be there. I can give them different types of advice. WebCollege Behind Bars is the inspiring, emotional, deeply human story of men and women struggling to earn college degrees while in prison for serious crimes. NOVICK: I was just going to chime in one other thing, which is I've heard Dyjuan, Sebastian and the other students, as well as Max, say that, you know, it also just sort of changes the culture of the whole facility and that, you know, there's something positive going on and that people don't want to get in trouble so that they have an opportunity to be there, to stay there and to potentially be involved in the program. Read BPIs open letter here. YOON: Sometimes, it takes 40 minutes. behind prisons It focuses on the lives and academic careers of College-in-prison, which had been common in prisons across the country, collapsed. "We reduce people to what they have done," Israil said. Then, he enrolled in the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), a program of Bard College offering higher education to people incarcerated in six New York state prisons. 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. TATRO: No. Novick directed the four-part documentary "College Behind Bars," which airs tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations. Hall served his time at the Eastern Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in southeast New York. WebCOLLEGE BEHIND BARS, a four-part documentary film series, tells the story of a small group of incarcerated men and women struggling to earn college degrees and turn their lives around in one of the most rigorous and effective prison education programs in the United States the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). Tell me how the experience compared with what you expected. As a result, the number of college-in-prison programs in New York fell from over 70 to 4. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. YOON: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. As public funding of college-in-prison returns to the field the question shifts from Will there be college-in-prison? This is FRESH AIR. So there was this kind of seamless movement from one setting to another. And I just want to - after the euphoria of graduation, I mean, you certainly - you know, you had this terrific asset, this college degree that a lot of ex-offenders don't. Webj bowers construction owner // college behind bars where are they now. After returning home, BPI alumni become independent taxpaying citizens. When he entered prison in 1998, the "get tough on crime" legislation had halted college programs. They love the Bard Prison Initiative. TATRO: You know, this - I'm the first person in my family who's ever gone to college. You have to go back to your cell. TATRO: You know, I'm not taking it back to my cell and going to sleep with it. You have this big smile on your face when you're leaving the auditorium and the mess hall. DAVIES: And your dad went through some really tough times, sent you to Korea when you were little 'cause he was trying to find a way to keep things together. They appear in the PBS documentary "College Behind Bars," directed by Lynn Novick. Max Kenner, when he started it, was an undergraduate at Bard and just saw this need and, you know, convinced the college that it would be something that they should try to do. It's about a program in which professors of Bard College give college classes in six correctional institutions. There is currently only a pilot program introduced by President Barack Obama's Education Department, involving 10,000 inmates across 64 institutions. 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. How much noise is there, and does that make it hard to read, Dyjuan? It was seeing what happens when students are first confronted with material that seems really daunting, and they have to learn to think critically and express ideas that are kind of uncomfortable and that over time you see them - they're - you know, their thinking and expression becomes sharper and more sophisticated. She also holds an honest, full-time job at food manufacturing company Kens Foods, which she appears incredibly proud of, as she should be. 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. I was a very precocious child. Regrettably, though, we have no other information on her because she has kept her distance from all social media platforms and the public eye in general since 2014. However, the teen mothers decision to go out on an armed robbery spree with her baby daddy on December 8, 2017, is what eventually landed her in the state facility. "I would hope the viewer sees the effort many people put into personal transformation and the role of education in personal transformation," Hall said. DAVIES: Yeah. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. A new PBS documentary series tells the story of one program that's offering a rigorous liberal arts education inside maximum security prisons with encouraging results. And I got there, and I took the entrance exam and sat in my cell and waited for the acceptance letter. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR. He worked 11-hour shifts, so he was mostly at work. YOON: Two more years after my bachelor's degree in 2017. And it helped me understand my place in the world and activated me as a civically minded person. People were invested in this. At present, Preston remains incarcerated in the Wakulla Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Florida. I went on to work for Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney on his attorney general campaign here in New York. By signing up for BPI emails, you are agreeing to receive news and updates from BPI. The new PBS documentary College Behind Bars follows the students of the Bard Prison Initiative, a full-time, degree-granting program in six New York prisons. Carisa was then arrested on a domestic battery charge in November 2019, with a $600 bond, yet it seemingly went nowhere. A post shared by Carli Meisberger (@carli.imel). In August 2022, BPI joined colleagues across the field in issuing public comments in response to the Department of Educations proposed regulatory language. I mean, both - from the documentary, it seems that both of you had supportive families. IE 11 is not supported. "I discovered I had ideas about things that I never knew I had," he said. So, now that its been a while since season 2 first introduced us to the inmates at the LaPorte Juvenile Correctional Facility in Indiana, lets find out all about their current standing, shall we? I mean, I think there are a lot of powerful stories in these documentaries of these students. So it's just - it's really an open question. And the paradox here is that I was someone getting that type of education while I was in prison, but the education itself is what liberated me. TATRO: And so I got to walk across the stage on Bard's Annandale campus with the other 400 students in my year in 2018. Hall recalls hearing a school administrator say, "'From this point on, you should not look at yourself as a prisoner in this institution but as a student in a bigger institution.' And that's - Pell grants are supposed to be based on economic need. But that means a lot that weren't - probably some applied and did not get in. Having myself attended college while incarcerated, I can attest to the importance of theReadMore, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 18, 2022 And I think the answer is no. "College Behind Bars" airs tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations and will be available for streaming. Let's get back to the interview FRESH AIR's Dave Davies recorded with Lynn Novick, director of the new PBS documentary "College Behind Bars," and Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, two graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative. But one of the things that was also great - there are instances where the other prisoners would accommodate us, where they would say, you know, the Bard guys are working at this table; let's go over here and make noise, or, like, the Bard guys are in the room - in their rooms studying. 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. 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