News
Pitt Magazine Feature on the Pitt Prison Education Project
To get to class each week, Matthew Broocke and 15 of his peers boarded a van in Pittsburgh and traveled nearly 50 miles south, beside the winding path of the Monongahela River, to a place few...
Write Now! A Guide By and For Incarcerated Writers
In 2019, inside student Pierre and others said "we don't want to hoard knowledge, we want to share the wealth." So when Covid-19 hit and in-person classes were suspended, professors Cory Holding...
Closing Ceremony of Pitt Literature Course Held at Laurel Highlands
On Dec. 9, 2019, SCI Laurel Highlands held the closing ceremony celebrating the successful completion of an Inside Out Literature course entitled "Imagining Social Justice," led by University of Pittsburgh faculty member Prof. Shalini Puri. Deputy Superintendent for Facilities Management Robert Snyder, who delivered some closing words, as well as Principal Martha Boyer and several teachers in the GED program, were present at the occasion.
Poems from prison: Students share incarcerated voices
The performative sparring was part of an event called Clear & Present Stranger: Words from Incarcerated Writers, which packed City of Asylum on Wednesday night, with more than 100 people in...
‘Prison Sounds’ courses explore music born in and about incarceration
Music department faculty member Adriana Helbig has turned her knowledge of music from around the world and of hip hop’s infusion into different global cultures into four new “Prison Sounds”...
Guest Performer Presents to Laurel Highlands Inside-Out Class
The Pitt Prison Education Project brought Lacresha Berry, a New York City actress, director, writer and teacher to SCI Laurel Highlands. For the Inside-Out course, "Imagining Social Justice," Berry performed a snippet of "Tubman," her one-woman show. "Tubman" highlights what would happen if Harriet Tubman was a student in a Harlem pubic school today.
Inside-Out Graduation Ceremony Held
On April 16, the most-recently offered 12-week Inside-Out course "Literature of the Americas: Maps of the Missing" held its graduation ceremony. The "graduates" were 16 outside undergraduate students from the University of Pittsburgh and 15 inside SCI Fayette inmate students.
First Pitt Seed Project Awards Fund 23 Projects for ‘Transformation’
The inaugural Pitt Seed program has awarded up to $50,000 each for 23 proposals from Pitt faculty and staff members. These projects, chosen from 171 applicants, are designed in a manner that “...
Pitt professors pursue new projects with Pitt Seed grants
Pitt is investing in change this summer, beginning with projects from professors at the University. The first-ever Pitt Seed Project awarded a total of more than $1 million to 23 programs designed...
Undergraduates Learn Alongside Inmates in Pilot Year of Prison Education Initiative
A capstone seminar course — with more writing and a narrower focus than a typical college class — can be daunting for any student.
The course can be even more challenging with no internet...
Education and incarceration: teaching classes in prisons
After serving two years in prison, and later being arrested in front of her 4-month-old daughter, Sarah Womack turned to prose and poetry to stage her comeback.