Model
UNC Asheville’s Prison Education program offers credit-bearing courses and other learning opportunities to a cohort of students incarcerated at the Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institute. Students engage with UNCA professors and community members on-site as they work to fulfill UNCA’s liberal arts core.
We work with community partners to meet our students’ eventual needs for housing, employment, childcare, and other resources. The Prison Ed Program’s advisory board provides guidance on future initiatives. Our staff is working on educational opportunities for both our campus and our community.
As the first iteration of the program came to a close in August 2023, the UNCA PEP is undergoing a new vision to continue the program.
History
Our Prison Ed Program builds on the knowledge that prison education lowers the rate of long-term recidivism by 46% percent, according to the Prison Studies Project. During the last three years, our cohort of students have completed nearly 50 credit hours. These courses range from humanities, introductory Spanish and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies to basic statistics, personal finance and business management. They have earned credits in the Honors Program, trained as peer writing consultants, and taken part in our university’s undergraduate research symposium.
We look forward to their being able to continue their college educations upon release. Meanwhile, the faculty and staff of the Prison Ed Program collaborated with community partners such as the Buncombe County Re-Entry Council and Justice Resource Center. These partners’ support will be critical to our incarcerated students once they have completed their sentences and are allowed to return to life outside.
While our work is informed by that of the faculty, staff, and students involved in similar programs across the country, the current Prison Education Program is not the first of its kind at UNC Asheville. Many current and former UNC Asheville faculty members taught a wide variety of credit-bearing courses at carceral institutions across Western North Carolina, including the Craggy Correctional Center, the Foothills Correctional Institution, and the Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women, in addition to the Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institution. We will celebrate the achievements of the faculty and students who took part in this earlier program in future editions of our newsletter.
Future
The first of our students was released from Avery-Mitchell early in 2021 and in the Fall 2021 joined UNC Asheville as a full-time on-campus student. On May 6th, 2023, Micah Hayes graduated from UNCA and became the first PEP student to graduate post-incarceration. This success reminded us of the importance of our mission to assist our students beyond incarceration as they re-enter the community outside and continue to pursue their educational goals.
The second student of the original fifteen, Mathew Myers, was released from Avery-Mitchell in May of 2022. And Jason Kitchen was released in August of 2023.
As the original cohort of students at AMCI is slowly but surely disbanding, other future opportunities for the Prison Ed. Program are upon the horizon. There is a plan being developed by six staff members to decide what the future of the plan looks like.
Ultimately, we hope to further engage our students and community. You can find more information about volunteering here.