Conference Program

What would it take to establish a Brown Program for Prison Education? How can Brown work with other Rhode Island institutions to strengthen existing higher education programs in the state’s prisons and to develop new ones? Join us to hear local and national leaders in the prison education movement speak about their programs, the state of this growing field and Brown’s potential contribution to college-level educational opportunities for Rhode Island’s incarcerated population of more than 3,000 men and women.

Follow us on Twitter at #BrownPrisonProgram and #StatesofIncarceration!

Friday, September 16, 2016

Location: Petteruti Lounge (Room 201), Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, Brown University / 75 Waterman Street between Prospect & Brown Streets.

8 – 8:30am:  Registration

8:30 – 10:25am: Teaching in the Prisons

Introduction: Amy Remensnyder, Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence & Professor of History, Brown University

Ralph Orleck, Special Education Director/Principal, Rhode Island Department of Corrections

Will Jackson, Department of Corrections Coordinator, Community College of Rhode Island

Rob Scott, Executive Director, Cornell University Prison Education Program

Jill Stockwell, Humanities Chair and Program Liaison, the Prison Teaching Initiative at Princeton University

Format: 15-minute program presentations followed by a 40-minute round table discussion moderated by Amy Remensnyder.

10:25 – 10:45am: Coffee Break

10:45 – 12:30pm: The Prison-to-College Pipeline

Introduction: Susan Smulyan, Director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage and Professor of American Studies, Brown University

Christina Dawkins, Program Manager, Justice-in-Education, The Heyman Center for
the Humanities, Columbia University

Baz Dreisinger, Founder and Academic Director, John Jay’s Prison-to-College Pipeline Program

James Monteiro, Director, Prison Bridge Program, College Unbound

Nick Horton, Program Director, Nine Yards, OpenDoors

Format: 15-minute program presentations followed by a 40-minute round table discussion moderated by Susan Smulyan.

12:30 – 1pm: Concluding Remarks.

Max Kenner, Founder and Executive Director, Bard Prison Initiative. Introduced by Aidea Downie, undergraduate chapter founder and campus coordinator, The Petey Greene Program at Brown University.


Register for the conference here.  We will accept walk-ins if space is available.

Many thanks to our co-sponsors at Brown whose support makes this conference possible:  The Royce Family Professorship of Teaching Excellence, the Center for the Study of Slavery and Social Justice, and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.