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Justice Education

https://colleges.claremont.edu/justice-education/

Founding Manager, Justice Education Initiative:

Tyee Griffith MPA
tyee_griffith@pitzer.edu

Inside-Out Faculty Liaison:

Tessa Hicks Peterson, Ph.D
tessa_hickspeterson@pitzer.edu | (909) 607-0204


Inside-Out Courses

Inside-Out courses for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic years

Faculty who wish to teach an Inside-Out course must complete an intensive, six-day Inside-Out training. A dozen trainings are offered annually around the country.

Funding Support

The Initiative offers financial support for justice education-related events sponsored by faculty, staff and student organizations at The Claremont Colleges, which may include, but are not limited to, conferences, lectures, invited speakers, community engagement, and art initiatives in addition to course development awards, faculty development opportunities, student-sponsored event awards, and more. For more information on types and amounts of funding available please carefully review the guidelines before accessing the Request for Funding form.


KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS, 2019-2020

(OCAC Justice Education Initiative 2019-2020 Report)

  • Facilitated tri-weekly meetings throughout the year with the cross-campus, cross-constituency Justice Education Working Group, composed of key faculty, staff, and student stakeholders. They provided feedback and oversight of all components of the initiatives and approved funding for the following grant-awarded events: 
    • Dancing Through Prison Walls Performance Art
    • 5C Prison Abolition Collective’s Abolition Series
    • Writing Workshops at the California Institution for Women
    • Symposium on Vincent Lloyd’s book about religion and prison abolition at Pomona College
  • Supported many guest speakers, guest lecturers, and guest facilitators in our  Inside-Out Prison Exchange Courses, and other courses across the 5Cs.Made progress on all pre-established Initiative goals for the justice education initiative (achieving all short term goals and making advancements on all midterm goals).
  • Launched the new five college/five course cohort, Justice Education Learning Community and facilitated their monthly meetings and formulation of an active learning community in and across the five simultaneous classes occurring this Spring. Learning Community Coordinators (Susan Castagnetto, Ambereen Dadabhoy, Thomas Kim, Adrian Pantoja and Derik Smith) organized the following events:
    • Workshop with Dignity and Power Now, a grassroot organization that fights for the dignity and power of all incarcerated people, their families, and communities
    • Education Inside and Outside of the Prison System: Formerly Incarcerated Students assess educational experiences before, during, and after incarceration event
    • Workshop on the California Campaign to End Life without the possibility of parole 
    • Policy Campaigns addressing exigent needs during COVID-19 crisis
    • Supported many guest speakers, guest lecturers, and guest facilitators in 5C Justice Education Learning Community Courses
  • Darryl Yong served the Faculty Curricular Liaison Fall 2019 and Tessa Hicks Peterson took over on an emergency, interim basis when Darryl had to depart in January, 2020. This role assisted with communications and facilitation of programming with both education contacts inside the prison and educators on campus within the inside-out program and the Learning Communities program. Related activities included:
    • Identifying and securing 15 faculty from across the 5 undergraduate colleges to offer 15 Inside-Out courses over the coming year
    • Engaging new and existing faculty from diverse disciplines that demonstrated interest to teach in this program 
    • Providing extensive outreach and support to all inside-out faculty actively teaching courses (increased to weekly meetings once COVID-19 shut down the campus and prison communities, something which required immediate and effective solutions for maintaining correspondence of course materials and assignments)
  • Identified ways to increase outreach across the 5C’s as well as a global outreach, for funding opportunities, teaching and training opportunities, hosting Justice Education events. Secured a $50,000 grant from the Rapoport Foundation to fund the BA Pathway Program 
  • Formed an evaluation team, consisting of 3 Claremont Graduate Students, and directed them in the creation of the JE Logic Model Powerpoint, Performance Monitoring Tools and Justice Education Evaluation Plan. Launched new assessments of student learning and overall impact of justice education at TCC through surveys, focus groups and interviews with 5C students, faculty and staff.
  • Directed the creation of the Website and Logo for Justice Education @ The Claremont Colleges 
  • Maintained the Claremont Justice Education listserv, to which almost 100 addresses are currently subscribed.
  • Continued to actively work with Norco Community College to articulate our Inside-Out courses with their Associates Degree to Transfer program 
  • Hosted the Reintegration Academy for 30 formerly incarcerated individuals (a ten-week long re-entry program that immersed them in life skills, soft skills, academic orientation, and career development).
  • Crafted and submitted proposals to CDCR and Pitzer college governance, cabinet and board to allow credit-bearing BA pathway courses at CRC and CIW, which extrapolated detailed plans alluded to in the 2019 BA pathways signed agreement between Pitzer and CRC.
  • Provided additional support for continuing programs in partnership with the California Rehabilitation Center, the California Institute for Women, the Prison Education Project Academies, Reintegration Academy, Insight Garden Program.
  • Developed new and supported existing community-campus partnerships with local organizations that work on justice education, policy reform, and re-entry services for collaborative efforts, curricular connections and student internships. Granted additional educational and service program awards to support current and formerly incarcerated students through local community organizations, to attend to the immediate needs faced with the release of 5,000 incarcerated individuals as a result of COVID-19.

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS, 2018-2019

  • Awarded $1.1 million Mellon grant for Justice Education.
  • Convened 7C faculty and staff bi-weekly working group, plus subcommittees focusing on curricular coherence, co-curricular activities, and advancement/outreach.
  • 22 Claremont faculty trained to teach Inside-Out Prison Exchange classes.
  • 12 Inside-Out classes taught in 2018-19; 15 slated for 2019-20.
  • Ongoing contributions to value-added learning opportunities and the public good.
  • Launched a dedicated website for Justice Education at The Claremont Colleges:
    https://colleges.claremont.edu/justice-education/