With MHC support, 44 women at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl recently completed college-level courses and received academic credits from two Mississippi institutions for higher learning.

On July 22, eight students completed the second credit-bearing course in a pilot project sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council in partnership with the Prison Writes Initiative and Hinds Community College. This is the second course this cohort has  completed-an English Composition II course, which was preceded by English Composition I last spring, for which they earned academic credits with Hinds Community College.

On Aug. 12, 36 women completed courses in psychology and English Composition II, earning academic credits from Mississippi College.

Professor Laura Hammons, who instructed the Hinds Community College courses, said the experience of teaching college-level courses in a restricted environment like a correctional facility is extraordinary, for instructor and students alike. "People who have been intellectually starved by confinement come to life when given a chance to learn," Hammons remarked. "Their journey is one of discovery of who they really are. They give up their old ideas about being bad students. It is transformative for the students and highly gratifying for the instructor."

MHC intern and senior English major at Tougaloo College, Jeremy Middleton, who assisted Hammons as part of his summer experience with the Council, noted, "When you remove the barriers and restrictions that separate the confined from the civilians, we all share the innate attribute of curiosity-and what fuels that is an intellectual connection."

Hammons led her students in engaging with numerous important literary works, discussing pertinent themes, and producing powerful handwritten compositions. Their work is handwritten because the students are pursuing higher education in an environment with extremely limited access to the usual educational tools, like computers or the Internet.

"Visiting just one class session, it was heartwarming to witness the genuine connection Professor Hammons shares with her students," said Middleton. "Their classroom, albeit behind barbed-wire fencing, felt like a typical English course. Such texts as Frederick Douglass's 1888 speech on women's suffrage reflects the relevance of the course content. The students' thirst for knowledge is both evident and inspiring."

The Mississippi College courses were led by Professors Autumn Norris, Alexis Smith, Mignon Kucia and Rick Parker, as part of the Prison-to-College Pipeline Program, created by Dr. Otis Pickett of Mississippi College and Dr. Patrick Alexander of the University of Mississippi. The Prison-to-College Pipeline Program, also supported by the Mississippi Humanities Council, is in its fourth year of college-level instruction at CMCF, where some students have now earned as many as 15 academic credits with Mississippi College.

Looking ahead, with a growing demand for more of these courses inside correctional facilities across the state, the Mississippi Humanities Council is working to identify ways to connect educators and educational institutions with this population of Mississippians, who have demonstrated remarkable motivation to use education as a path toward restoring lives interrupted by incarceration. The Council currently supports two prison education programs operating at CMCF, Alcorn County Regional Correctional Facility and at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Several other efforts are under way in Mississippi to provide educational opportunities for incarcerated learners, including Northeast Mississippi Community College's Jails to Jobs Program, which offers college credit for courses in career preparation, introduction to manufacturing and English composition.