By Tim Prudente Contact Reporter The Baltimore Sun
Theresa Adams learned in psychology class that her impulsive nature likely landed her in prison. She took the class at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, where she also tackled calculus, studied Spanish and recited Shakespeare while serving seven years.
“I could have completed a degree during that time,” the 58-year-old former inmate says.
Inmates will now have that chance. Goucher College will soon start offering Bachelor of Arts degrees in American studies at the Jessup prison facilities for men and women, officials announced Thursday. The liberal arts college in Towson will be Maryland’s only school to offer a bachelor’s degree wholly within prison.
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“Goucher’s willingness to grant the bachelor’s degree puts them in the first tier of leadership in this issue of taking education in prison seriously,” said Max Kenner, who founded the prison education program at Bard College in New York. “Too many universities recognize the problems we face in criminal justice and the crisis of mass incarceration but hesitate to fully commit to do something meaningful,” he said.
Goucher joins 15 to 20 colleges across America offering bachelor’s degrees behind bars, Kenner said.
The program comes as a federal program is expanding inmates’ access to college. The U.S. Department of Education started an experimental program this year to restore student aid for prisoners.
The Second Chance Pell Pilot Program marks the first time inmates can apply for federal student aid since a 1994 crime bill banned prisoners from the benefit. The ban shut down prison college programs across the country, Kenner said.
“You had lots, then you had nothing — an overnight transformation of what it meant to be in prison in the United States,” he said.
A small number of colleges continued sending professors into prisons but relied heavily on donors to pay for books, staff and other expenses.