- This event has ended.
Arguments for the value of prison education generally focus on larger social benefits, such as reduced recidivism. Arguments might also be made, however, for the less quantifiable but no less transformative outcomes for individuals themselves. Professor and poet Jill McDonough (University of Massachusetts Boston) has seen this transformation firsthand, teaching literature and creative writing in Boston University’s Prison Education Program for fourteen years and volunteering in several prisons and juvenile detention facilities. Arthur Bembury was one of McDonough’s students at MCI-Norfolk and is now Executive Director of Partakers, a non-profit organization devoted to helping volunteers mentor incarcerated students. Together, they will lead a conversation on the fundamental role of education in the prison system. McDonough will share her experiences as an instructor and read samples of her incarcerated students’ poetry. Bembury will reflect on prison education and his work with Partakers, opening the conversation to the audience and inviting them to ask questions and offer ideas.
Co-sponsored by the Higgins School of Humanities, the Department of English, and the Hiatt Center for Urban Education at Clark University
Date: October 5, 2017
Time: 4:30 p.m.