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January 24, 2005 Vol. 76, no. 2S
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| SOLVING
THE PROBLEM: CS graduate student Vinod Prabhakaran
(left) tutors Lamarr Mainor Sr. through San Quentin's College
Program, where 42 inmates have earned AA degrees.
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Tutoring
gives CS students a view inside prison walls
Every Monday and Wednesday
evening, computer science Ph.D. student Sean Rhea joins a carload of
Berkeley students for the drive along I-580 from Berkeley and across
the Richmond Bridge to San Quentin. The students are volunteer instructors,
teaching assistants, and tutors in the San Quentin College Program,
the only onsite degree-granting program in the California State prison
system.
"I wanted to do something good for the world and see that I am
actually making a difference," says Rhea, who tutors math. "In
contrast to other forms of activism, teaching the inmates provides a
very real and immediate reward," he adds.
The program was initiated in 1996, when Patten University, a small Christian
college in Oakland, opened an associate of arts extension at the prison.
The curriculum offers more than 20 transferrable courses in the humanities,
math, and the physical and social sciences. About 200 inmates are enrolled,
42 have completed AA degrees, and some parolees have transferred into
community colleges and universities.
According to program director and Cal alumna Jody Lewen (Ph.D. '02
Rhetoric), the classes provide an opportunity for people of very different
social, economic, and cultural backgrounds to interact.
"These highly educated graduate students are coming in to teach
the prisoners," Lewen says, "but what often happens is that
the teachers learn more than the students, especially about the criminal
justice system. It's a 'world-rocking' experience for
a lot of them."
Vinod Prabhakaran, another computer science Ph.D. student at Berkeley,
also taught math for the program, working with the inmates in the basement
of San Quentin's former hospital building.
"I heard about the prison college program from another student
volunteer," says Prabhakaran. "I felt like it was a concrete
way of helping. I also like teaching, and teaching basic math to grown-ups
is a very interesting challenge."
Volunteers are vital to the program's success, according to Lewen,
who last year founded the Prison University Project, a non-profit organization
devoted to supporting the San Quentin program and expanding similar
prison programs throughout the state. All depend heavily on volunteer
teachers and tutors from UC Berkeley and other area colleges, since
funding does not allow for the hiring of teaching staff.
"We look for people who are not only excellent teachers," says Lewen,
"but who are also professional, mature, and responsible--people who
can function in this kind of environment." Each volunteer must go through
several hours of training before being cleared by the prison to work
with the inmates. Most devote five or more hours each week to their
teaching responsibilities at the prison.
"It's a rewarding experience, but it's not all roses,"
says Rhea. "Some of the students have a legitimately hard time
learning, others are recovering alcohol or drug users, and many are
distracted by concerns about their families outside the prison."
"For many of these guys, learning is an entirely new experience,"
Rhea says. "But once they make the transition, they seem like completely
different people. They stop looking at the class as something they need
to pass and start seeing it as fun."
by Carol Menaker
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