News

Celebration of Course Completion: Buncombe County Detention Facility

Spring 2025

A note from our Director, Leslee Johnson

On Monday, February 17th, 2025, our program celebrated the completion of our first college-credit bearing course at Buncombe County Detention Facility with the students and Buncombe County officials. Officer Michael Holton, programming supervisor at BCDF, and Buncombe County Detention Facility as a whole provided crucial support and hard work in making HUM174, a class that transfers across community colleges and universities as a general ed humanities elective, a reality. We are all excited to continue this relationship in which UNC Asheville’s Prison Education Program offers college credits to Buncombe County detainees. Sheriff Quentin E. Miller was in attendance to congratulate students and voice support for the value and continuation of offering college classes to incarcerated individuals in Buncombe County.

The students who completed the course with top grades – Mr. Brown, Mr. Cordell, Mr. Kitchen and Mr. Malone – consistently showed up with energy, dedication, creativity, and sharp intelligence to work, learn and to teach me, each from their own perspective and imagination. We covered a lot of ground from within the classroom. Students dug deep into origin stories of the past, and crafted their own origin stories, influenced by ancient religions and cosmologies. They mined the present through research – everything from media bias on race, to hate speech, to indigenous sovereignty, to the role of religion in social justice movements – and they projected future visions of a world from their imaginations, informed by what they’d learned, creating science fiction pieces rooted in ancient wisdom and possibilities both hopeful and just. As their instructor, I had a hard time keeping up, sometimes! As Director of UNCA’s PEP and instructor of the first course, it was a pleasure to serve in this capacity, and to work towards continuing this collaboration, supporting the academic and professional futures of these and future students.

Students were presented students with their official transcripts, and a certificate of completion of HUM174 that names what they’ve accomplished:

• Explored identity, society, and advocacy through global cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions, connecting historical perspectives to personal growth and modern challenges.
• Analyzed works of influential thinkers from Africa, India, and the Americas to understand their impact on contemporary thought, media, and creative expression.
• Developed critical thinking skills to discern cultural influences in popular media and refine personal perspectives.
• Engaged in creative and reflective writing, artistic composition, and rhetorical analysis to enhance self-expression and lifelong learning.
• Produced original works to communicate ideas effectively with consideration given to various audiences.
• Strengthened communication and advocacy skills to support continued education, career development, and positive social engagement.
• Completed two writing assignments and one research project with an annotated bibliography, demonstrating research proficiency, analytical depth, and academic writing skills.