Inaugural class of EMU College in Prison program celebrates graduation

There were tears of joy and whoops of celebration as 70 women who are currently incarcerated at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility (WHVCF) in Pittsfield Township received associate’s degrees from Jackson College and bachelor’s degrees from Eastern Michigan University (EMU) on Sept. 18. 

The bachelor’s degrees were the first ever earned in prison in Michigan. The graduating class was also the largest ever of any college in prison program held through the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), said MDOC Director Heidi E. Washington.  

EMU launched College in Prison, the first-ever bachelor’s degree program for women in prison at WHVCF, in 2023. Though some private colleges have also begun offering such programs across MDOC facilities, EMU was the first public university to do this. 

People incarcerated in Michigan prisons have traditionally been able to take un-credited classes or even get associate’s degrees. However, funding for bachelor’s degrees has been a barrier, since a wave of federal “tough on crime” initiatives in the ’90s took away prisoners’ eligibility for national Pell grants. But, in 2020, Congress lifted that 26-year ban with the FAFSA Simplification Act. That meant restoring access to Pell Grants for people in prison and allowing public and private colleges and universities to begin offering for-credit classes to prisoners. 

The combined Jackson College/EMU program at WHVCF has grown from 20 to 70 students in a little over two years. The women graduating through EMU received a bachelor’s degree in general studies, but each specialized in several concentrations. Many concentrations were business-oriented, like business marketing and entrepreneurship or small business management. Other concentrations included topics from civic engagement to nonprofit leadership, writing, mediation, social work, and communication.

At a graduation ceremony on Sept. 18, officials in attendance included the presidents of Jackson College and EMU, MDOC’s Washington, WHVCF Warden Jeremy Howard, and a number of Jackson College and EMU faculty decked out in full graduation regalia. In the audience were nearly 200 family, friends, prison staff, and incarcerated supporters who are still taking classes but who still haven’t graduated from the college in prison program. 

Lynn Wood, director of the corrections education program for Jackson College; and Meghan Lechner, director of College in Prison and Returning Citizens Fellowship for EMU, gave a welcome address. They introduced a short list of speakers who would take the stage before graduates lined up to receive diplomas and take pictures to commemorate their achievement.

Wood gave a brief talk on the topic of “transformation” and noted her hopes that the graduates would share what they’d learned with their families and the community. Lechner talked about how exciting it was to be involved in starting a program that would produce the “very first incarcerated women to graduate with a bachelor’s degree” in Michigan’s history — with an average GPA of 3.90.

While incarcerated students didn’t have access to most modern technology, Lechner noted that they did enjoy other parts of the college experience including a book club, a “Boss Business Club,” a peer support program, a newsletter, a student symposium, and a business pitch competition. 

Shelby Taylor, a lecturer at EMU who has taught writing classes in the prison a few times, was one of the EMU faculty members who came to support the passionate learners she’d encountered. Taylor says that though she has only taught in the prison a handful of times so far, she finds the students “super engaged” and was impressed with the “great insight they have into what we’re reading.”

In her speech, Lechner said that experience was shared by many teachers who were impressed by the “depth of the conversations and the nuance of the questions.” Her hope for graduates in her introductory speech was that the “ripple effect” of the graduates’ achievement would continue to be felt for years to come.

In her speech, Washington said she hoped a bigger room would be needed for the next graduation.

“Your education is something no one can ever take away from you,” she said in her speech to graduates. “You earned this, and you are an inspiration to those around you.”

Jackson College President Daniel Phelan noted that Jackson is MDOC’s longest-lived college partner. He congratulated the women for “sustained commitment to growth despite the constraints” of time, noise, isolation, and more. EMU President James Smith invited those graduating with associate’s degrees from Jackson, who were dressed in maroon robes, to “wear our green robes in a few years.” He also thanked the legislators that changed the Pell Grant legislation to make a bachelor’s degree program possible. Howard called the graduation ceremony a “celebration of resilience” and said he knew it would change lives. 

Jackson College class speaker Samantha Bachynski, who is serving life without parole, urged graduates to make good choices.

“Our wrong choices don’t need to continue to dictate our path,” she said.

EMU’s class speaker, Katherine Woods, talked about how proud she was to represent the first cohort of incarcerated graduates and thanked EMU staff and faculty. She said the women not only gained textbook learning but “learned to embrace our pain… so that we could start to heal.”

“Today is a celebration of who we truly are: strong, brilliant, unstoppable,” Woods said. “We chose to show up and to be brave. We chose to rise.”

Learn more about EMU’s College in Prison program here.