Learning to Help

Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking to formerly incarcerated students in an effort to better understand their experience--the obstacles they face, and the keys to their success. Today we’re going to focus on the institutional perspective. What are the constraints faced by institutions when it comes to supporting formerly incarcerated students? How do we address the needs of these students without amplifying the stigma many of them face because of their experiences? How can we systematically and efficiently connect them with the relevant services and support they need and help them integrate into a community of dedicated learners? These are some of the questions that college administrators and faculty wrestle with almost daily. Our panel discussion with key stakeholders at Santa Fe College touched on all of these points plus a few more.

Funding for this program was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Full transcripts can be found under each episode at https://freetolearn.buzzsprout.com/. 

Transcript

Jason:

Over the last few weeks, we've been talking to formerly incarcerated students in an effort to better understand their experience, the obstacles they face, and the keys to their success. Today, we're going to focus on the institutional perspective. What are the constraints faced by institutions when it comes to supporting formerly incarcerated students? How do we address the needs of these students without amplifying the stigma many of them face because of their experiences? How can we systematically and efficiently connect them with the relevant services and support they need and help them integrate into a community of dedicated learners? These are some of the questions the college administrators and faculty wrestle with almost daily.

Our panel discussion with key stakeholders at Santa Fe College touched on all of these points plus a few more. Today we've got some people from Santa Fe College, and we're really going to get kind of an institutional perspective of this opportunity to support students. I'd like to start by having each of you introduce yourself and what you do at the college and how your role intersects with these particular students that we're talking about supporting. So, let's start over here.

Adrienne:

Sure. I'm Adrienne Provost and I'm the director of our seven TRIO programs, and one of those TRIO programs is the Educational Opportunity Center, and one of our missions is to reach out to those who have been formally incarcerated or are currently incarcerated, to provide opportunities and information about how they can engage in higher education.

Jason:

Thank you.

Tommy:

All right. I'm Professor Tommy Maple. I teach speech and mass media studies, and I'm the founding advisor of the Justice Club here at the college. So, a lot of my roles intersect with students who have experienced incarceration.

Bill:

I'm Bill Stephenson. I chair the Department of Humanities and Foreign Languages. I know a couple of the individuals who have been part of the podcast, the students, because I was practicing at the Zen Center where a couple of them lived after they were released from prison. So, I'd gotten to know them then, and gotten to know a little bit about the experience of students with carceral experience. Then I recently wrote a dissertation about a special admissions process for students with a criminal background at a community college.

Ryan:

Well, I'm Ryan Williams, I'm captain at the police department. I also sit on the Disciplinary Review Panel and I sit on the behavior intervention team. So, it does intersect with a lot of folks that come out of the criminal justice system. Also, we used to have a program that I used to be a member of called Refocused, that we used to do for folks that came out the criminal justice system, but it was before the pandemic and we hadn't started it back up again, so I'm glad to see that we're coming back to that area.

Bea:

My name Is Bea Awoniyi. I'm the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and also the college ombuds. I also serve on the Disciplinary Review Panel, but in addition to that, in my role as the ombuds, there are many students who experience residency issues as it relates to coming back to school, and they cannot prove residency because they've experienced incarceration and they don't have any documentation. So, I've had to work with them to see how we can actually help them navigate the system. There are also students who have lost their financial aid as a result of incarceration, so how we can help them either get scholarships. Housing is something else that we've worked with students to really see how we can help students. So, in many areas, connecting them with the community services. I also work with the Juvenile Justice Councils in the community where we work with many youth who have experienced incarceration, or maybe some type of disciplinary issues that really affect their ability to do well in school, how we are able to look at the different community resources to help them.

Jason:

Thank you.

Dan:

Hi, I'm Dan Rodkin. I'm the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs. I joined my colleagues Dr. Bea and Captain Woods on the Disciplinary Review Panel for which I serve as the chair, and I'm also a member of the behavioral intervention team. Part of my role as the associate vice president is looking at enrollment management and looking at, from the big picture, what are our systems and processes in places to help students get enrolled at Santa Fe College and stay here at the college until they earn their degree or they're able to move on into the employment world just of their choice. I think when we talk about students who have carceral experiences, their situations are different, and trying to understand them better allows us to create systems and processes in place to help them have a successful experience getting started and remaining successful through graduation.

Jason:

Thanks. I'm really excited about the perspectives that you all bring to this. I think this will be a really rich discussion. So, we're sponsored by the Center for Applied Ethics & Humanities, so I think it's only fair that we start with a philosophical question. So, from your perspective, what does it mean to have paid one's debt to society?

Bill:

Well, I mean, I can tell you that, from the individuals who were part of the podcast, what it means is to have completed your sentence. That's what it meant to all of them. They had served their time, they had been released with no restrictions, so there was a clear understanding for all of them that they had paid their debt to society. Not everyone else feels that way, obviously.

Bea:

So, I mean, I look at that question in a very different way because there are people who were unfairly incarcerated. So, are we going to ask the question, "Has the society really paid them for how they've been treated?" There are individuals who fall victims of their own environment. Many of our students who were in the DCF system, they've experienced homelessness. There are so many unfortunate situations that people fall into, and because they fall into that, they make choices, because they're forced into choices that they make because they don't have anywhere to go, and because of that, then they're incarcerated. So, is the society willing to pay them back? So, when we really look at have they paid, we really need to look at has the society paid them too, as well.

Dan:

I've also seen issues where students who, having served their time in prison or in jail, they acknowledged that they took a plea because it was cheaper and faster to get it over with, so they could get out back, so they could serve their time and be released, and while the court documents will show that they are responsible or guilty, they don't necessarily acknowledge that themselves because they see this as a fastest way of concluding this process so they can get on with their lives and supporting their families. So, I think we talk about paid their debt to society. I think it's an interesting way of interpreting what that debt truly was.

Bea:

Yes.

Jason:

That is really, that's a great point.

Tommy:

I think about it, yeah, and almost as the transverse is true, often society widow them in a lot of these cases, and they run up against law enforcement and that's like, "No, that's how society structures laws and that's different in every society and different applications." So, it's unfair also to enforce that law as well. I mean, I can see that, but I don't think about it as a debt to society that they need to pay. When you ask that, I had trouble thinking about it until it was a place like that.

Jason:

So, several of you serve on the Disciplinary Review Panel. Tell me about that committee. What's its purpose, what's its vision, and what is the work that it does?

Dan:

So, the purpose of the Disciplinary Review Panel is to review new students to Santa Fe who come into the college with some specific type of criminal background, an instance of violence against people, or some sort of sexual violence, and some sort of crime that involves a firearm or other deadly weapon. The purpose of this panel is to make sure that the individuals who are entering Santa Fe do not pose a risk of harm to members of our community. More often than not, the students who we speak with are able to enroll, and we, after meeting with them, identify resources and services to help them be successful. It is not an admissions part, and we don't look at every criminal issue, just those that could be seen as a danger to our fellow community.

Bea:

Yeah, in addition to that, I think we also, more often, actually assign some of those applicants to individuals on the committee to continue to work with them, and many of them develop relationships. They've never had such personal relationships with individuals in the past, and they see those individuals as people who are invested in their future and their education. So, it's not just looking at what individuals have done in the past, but looking at what they can become, or what they want to become and how we can help support them.

Many of them are back, and I remember meeting one of the students had said, "When I went to prison, there was no laptop. Now, I'm back, everybody's learning on Canvas. I don't really know what that is." So, really meeting with such students and helping them to understand, "This is really what it is, and these are places where you can get the resources, and this is what credit course really means," is really important. So, that's what the DRP does.

Jason:

How long has the review panel been in place at the college?

Dan:

So, the current version has been in place since summer of 2021. Prior to that, it was called the Disciplinary Admissions Committee, and it was at a very different group.

Jason:

How did it change? How did it evolve?

Dan:

So, prior to summer of '21, the disciplinary admissions process was deciding admissions. It was considered any criminal activity that any person had who was applying to the college, whether it was a misdemeanor, a felony, violence against a person, violence against property, it broad. So, we were looking at that and determined that we felt that we were doing it a service to our applicants, that too many individuals were being forced to come through the DAC, who shouldn't have to, whose issues were such that they were not a danger to the college. So, when we changed the name, we changed the focus, we changed the mission, and we think we have improved our process in allowing far more individuals to apply, enroll at the college, without ever having to go through any sort of intermediary step.

Jason:

Was there anything in particular that triggered that change?

Dan:

I think we took a look at a lot of our data, we looked at who was impacted by the DAC, who never enrolled after having a stop, the DAC, and have a stop in their process. It was designed to be a speed bump in the process, and it became a wall, and when we looked at the wall and who was stopped, who really shouldn't have been, that impelled us to taking a look at our data and kind of examine our why, and why are we doing this, what are we trying to accomplish, who was being helped and who's being hurt? So, we reframed it with the goal of having an intervention for those that there needs to be an intervention, but allowing the overwhelming majority of those, who previously would've had that speed bump, to have it lowered and be able to move on towards enrollment.

Bill:

Well, can I just add? I think it's really, really to the credit of the college that they carefully looked at the impact of this process which really hadn't had any changes for years, and thoughtfully considered how they could really radically reduce the impact and still achieve its purpose. I think Dan implied this, but the students who come through the Disciplinary Review Panel, correct me if I'm wrong, Dan, are admitted immediately. There is no... Previously students couldn't even really get going with all the things that they required to get, to get admitted and get started and do residency and financial, all that kind of stuff, before they'd gotten through the Disciplinary Admissions Committee. Now, they're immediately admitted but can't enroll until they have been approved by the Disciplinary Review Panel, and that's another really big and really positive change for students and for the college.

Adrienne:

To follow on what Bill said, I think the college continues to strive for ways to reduce obstacles, and I think sometimes we don't even know the obstacles that are in place until we have a chance to sit down and work with the individuals and within the institutions, from small things like the fact that most of the individuals who are incarcerated don't have access to the internet. So, filling out a college application was impossible, and so EOC worked with Dan in admissions to make sure that that could be an obstacle we took away, by creating a paper version that could then have students ready to enroll immediately of following their release.

Other ways that we continue to look at obstacles. For example, a lot of those who are in currently incarcerated don't have an email address. So, again, that becomes kind of a roadblock in the way, and I think that one thing Santa Fe has shown is that we're really committed to reducing these roadblocks and making opportunities, but there are a lot of systemic issues that are very challenging to overcome and sometimes that can be overwhelming for populations of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals, and I think getting to the heart of how we can reduce those issues is really part of the process that we're hoping to achieve in the work that we're doing.

Jason:

Thank you. What are some other obstacles that you have seen to both enrolling and persisting at the college, that these students face?

Dan:

Dr. Bea mentioned one in her opening when she talked about residency. So, residency for tuition purposes is legal proof that you've resided in the state of Florida for the previous 12 months before your first semester in college, and even though individuals may have been incarcerated for 10 years in a prison in Florida, that does not mean they have legal residency for tuition purposes. The way of having that proof is established in Florida statute, and it's very specific on what documentation the college can accept, and so individuals who come out of incarceration may not have a driver's license, they don't have car registrations, they don't have voter registration, they might not have employment subs for 12 months showing they lived or rent. It's things that some people sitting on the table think are no big deal, of course we have these, persons coming out of prison may not.

So, for those individuals to be able to enroll in college right after getting out of prison, they would be paying an out-of-state fee, which is three times as much as in-state student would. That's simply cost-prohibitive, and so how do we find a solution to that? And working with our elected officials to try to determine a way of allowing the time spent incarcerated to count as for residency purposes, that itself will lift a huge barrier for these individuals. So, we're working to find those solutions. They take time, but understanding it, identifying it, and then having the opportunity to talk to the right people to try to make the change is where it goes, and we're getting there.

Bea:

Another one is career choices. We talk about people selecting their majors and we think it's so simple and easy because you know, and many people who have been incarcerated, they come in and they have no idea what they just look at what it is that they're going to do, and then the first thing they may want to do as a major, they may not be able to get a job. So, then we have to do career counseling, and we have great career Counseling Center that actually work with students and then look at what it is that we have here, and if they say they want to do something else, they look at where that's possible.

But, many of them, at least I'll say 99.9% of the student that I work with, they come back and they say, "Yeah, they told me that I can do this, but I don't want to go to any other college. I want to stay here, and I want to do it here because I know I'm going to have the support here." So, it's something that we think is easy or simple, but it's not just easy or simple.

Another one is housing. Housing has been a major, major problem for many of our students who's been incarcerated. So, some of them, they go and then they camp somewhere, and two or three students, at least two or three students a semester will come and say, "I am at one of the places where," as a community, we've chosen for people who are homeless to go, and then they say, "The reason why I got incarcerated the first time was because of drug, because of this," and now they're coming to me, "This is where I am. So, I would rather not go there."

So, when a student comes and say, "I spent last night on the concrete at Walgreens." You kind of wonder, "Are they going to be able to get in class and even learn?" They don't have that. When they're actually going through many of those, they don't have a place to shower, they don't have a place to do things. So, we've worked with athletics department, the gym, so that they can get free lockers so they can put their stuff there, and so at least today they can look, because we usually just tell them, "When you show up and people feel that there's some odor coming from somewhere, it'll make you feel bad, you don't want to go back to class, because then you feel everybody's looking at you. So, why don't you just take this?" And people, many of faculty and staff on campus, they've contributed. They just take soap and towels and things, and donated it to the gym, and so that students will have things to themselves. So, again, it's just humanizing individuals that have come to us. So many challenges.

Jason:

Thank you.

Tommy:

Well, beyond the structural ones, and that's really important to talk about, and nail all that is that we forget that, as individuals, they don't know that they belong in school too. I know listening to the answers about imposter syndrome and not feeling like you belong and not knowing which way to go in school, the students in my classes that I found out they were formerly incarcerated, it took a lot of trust and a lot of building communications and relationships for them to even tell me that. So, Justice Club, one of the things that we've been working towards is a place on campus that sort of announces that they're a Formerly Incarcerated Students Center or something like that. So, identify with that.

Ryan:

Well, that's interesting you bring it, because growing up with my background, a lot of these guys, well, not just guys, men and women that come from these, that's former incarcerated, they're suffering from PTSD from the time they were born. Some of them come from environments that I can't even explain to y'all how bad it is. I grew up in a lot of those areas and the stuff, the trauma that they've dealt with, and then to be ostracized in K through 12 becomes average behavior. Well, how you going to sit in the classroom when you have all these things, abuse, [inaudible 00:20:59]. Any type of abuse you want to name, a lot of these folks have, from the time they small and through when they finally drop out of school, and then they go and be incarcerated. I won't even talk about the mass incarceration because of non-violent drug. We won't get into that. I can go all day on that one.

So, then you got 10 years of your life gone, and then you going to college because they tell you that's what you got to do, you got to get a job, you got to do something, because you don't want to go back to prison. So, then you talking about trust, it's amazing for them to even come out here and fill out the application, and then they don't believe that anyone cares because no one had before, so they don't trust us. They don't trust Santa Fe, and then it's amazing when they finally get to that point, because so many of them come back and tell me and go, "I didn't believe y'all. When y'all was sitting there, I thought for sure y'all was just going to kick me out." And it's like, "No, y'all trying to find a way for me to become successful." And that's a big step. That's what a lot of them...

Then you got this other part of it, "Well, we don't want to label them. So, we don't tell their instructors that these folks have been..." Because you don't want... Because we know there's some folks that are trying to blind at them because, "Hey, they've been incarcerated so they must have done something wrong." Well, I hate to tell them that a lot of times what they did was being born poor and Black. I'm just going to call it what it is. That's what's really the problem is, they can't help that, but they get labeled, and so it's very hard to try to... The yin and the yang, do you tell the instructors that this person suffers from all this trauma? Or, do you let them say, "Hey, well, just be patient with them, but you try not to label them." So, it's a tough balance in that. It really is. I'm always impressed and proud to see anybody. They have the guts to say, "I want to change my life and I'm coming to Santa Fe to let that happen."

Jason:

Yeah. So, what are people's thoughts about disclosure, right? Do you think it's better for students to disclose upfront that they've had this experience, or would it be better for them to kind of start with a blank slate?

Tommy:

I have a answer right now. I feel conflicted about even the student center, about ostracizing them with that. I mean, I imagine some would never ever go there, so I'm afraid about that effect too. So, I don't know.

Bill:

Well, what was interesting, I think, that most of the students who are participating in the podcast did self-disclose, they disclosed to faculty, to peers, and wanted to do that, wanted to be an example of someone who had been imprisoned and was doing good, doing well. I did speak to students who came through a special admissions process, who feared that everybody did know, and it was a constant nagging anxiety for them that people might know and might be holding that against them.

Bea:

That's a tough thing. There will be people who are okay in going to the center, there will be many that just wouldn't, and I think it's because I don't think our environment is ripe for full disclosure, because not everyone is willing and accepting. I can tell you, many women who go to Displaced Homemaker Program, if they've been incarcerated, that would be the first thing that they talk about. "I was this and this is what happened, and this is really..." They say everything, everything, because they know there are individuals that are there who wouldn't judge them at all. They are there to make sure that they do well, they'll support them, and they know that those people know if they fail or if they fall, they're willing to pick them up and dust them off and help them. So, if we have a center, it's great, they can go there. But, I think we need to look at different environments where students will feel comfortable sharing.

Jason:

Thank you. So, Captain Woods, you talked a little bit about trust, right? They come to this without an ability to really trust others, and systems and organizations. What can we do as a college, as individuals, to foster trust with these students?

Ryan:

I think one thing we do, we start with, like I said, when we do the Disciplinary Review Panel is we talk about... Bea is always good at asking, "Well, when's the last time you went to school?" And we always ask, "How was school for you?" And try to figure out a game plan of what, we kind of ease them into it so they realize that we're here to help you, not be a hindrance. That takes a lot of time. You got to be patient, because like I say, a lot of them don't have trust with any authority. So, it will just take more time, and I do a lot of one-on-one informal just, "Hey, how's it going? Do you like school? How's it going?" I react with and just talk to them, and say, "Have you got any questions?" I always tell them myself, "I've been here 25 years, I know everybody who you should take and who you should run from."

So, I always tell them that kind of stuff and just kind of interact with them and try to build that bond slowly, because it's not going to happen overnight, but you got to be consistent, and you got to be consistent showing that you care that they succeed, because then no one has ever done that to a lot of them. Nobody has showed that, "I want you to succeed." They don't really hear that. So, to hear that, that, "Yeah, Santa Fe, that's what we want you to do." So, it just takes time. It takes a lot of time, and it has to be more than just one time, one semester, one professor, it has to be the collective. It has to be all of us. All of us being a little bit more patient when they don't understand the FAFSA, explain it to them 15 times if they don't understand it, that type of stuff, who to go to, what does advising really mean, what helps, how do we do it? They don't know anything about it. An audit? They don't know any of this stuff.

So, you have to be patient and you got to guide them, and if you got to hold up 45 minutes of your day to deal with this person, then deal with them, and deal with them pleasantly because you get to change their life, and that should show in that you care. Because people see when you care and when you don't, because your nonverbal cues tell whether or not you just mailing it in, are you really trying to help this person.

Adrienne:

Institutional structures are not set up for patience, and I think that that's something that we have to think a lot about, especially when we're trying to create a system that's going to support students who haven't been listened to before. When Educational Opportunity Center goes into the work release program or goes into the Alachua County Jail, one thing that we like to do is listen, and not create short term products for packaging to students short term dreams, because I think that's a tendency is to try to exit a student into a program that's going to end in a solution as rapidly as possible, and these students have been exited so many times in their lives that it really can start by just taking the time to listen and find out where this student dreams that their potential path will be.

So, that requires a great investment. An investment in people, investment in funding, and the ability to take time and provide that type of funding to allow somebody to work with an individual for that amount of time, and even the grant programs, Educational Opportunity Center, we're limited as well, because if that resident isn't from one of the counties we're funded to serve, then technically we can't spend the time with the participants. So, we're talking about structural barriers that are really endemic in institutions and society as a whole, and I think that's a big consideration.

Bea:

In addition to that, you talk about trust. I like the way that Dr. Rodkin often will welcome potential students when they come to the disciplinary review. He'll always say, "Thank you Mr. [inaudible 00:29:14], we are glad you are here today. What would you like to study?" Before he even goes into what they did, they already come in to say, "Okay, I'm going to spill my guts here. I'm going to accept that I did something wrong." But, then I think he shocks them by, "So..." And then some of them, they're like, "I really don't know." Or, "This is what." And then he goes on to say, "Why are you interested in that," and things like that, and then they talk, and then he goes into, he eases the question, and I think that's where the trust is.

When people show... The first question they ask is, "Oh, you're a bad person, so tell me why I should think you are good." Because that's really not... That's what they think they're coming to hear. But, when they hear, "You have a goal, we can be part of your solution. How can we get there? What do you want to do and how do we get there?" Then we go into, "Why are we here?" The barriers. I think it eases things, and I think I've told him several times that I really appreciate the way he handles that.

Jason:

That's really, as you were all talking, one of the things as a designer, when I'm doing professional development with the faculty, I say that the difference between just delivering information and teaching somebody is the relationship, and that if your students don't trust you, and you're not showing trust to them, learning doesn't take place, and you can't have a relationship. We've probably all been in situations where we didn't trust a person in authority, and we couldn't follow them, we couldn't feel safe or comfortable, and we understand that like, "If you are not safe, if you are not comfortable in a space, you can't learn." That's just a huge... Thank you. That's just a wonderful insight. So, what are specific things that we are doing as an institution? Specific targeted interventions that we're doing as an institution to support these students and ensure their continued enrollment and success?

Bea:

I mean, because I work with students when they have issues or problems, I tend to hear a lot when there are things. Many faculty on this campus care, many care. We've had students who have been incarcerated before, they got released, they are here, they are taking classes, and then they got in trouble, and then they got incarcerated again, and they'll write letters, and they'll mention specific faculty names. I'm sorry, I disappointed professor something something, when I took the class in this, this was what he or she said. Then they talk about different things.

Then there's also, I think, we've also opened ourself up that students get incarcerated, and if they have a license to call, they call somebody from this college. One call and they choose to call somebody from this college, because people have shown them that they are interested in them and they have high expectation of them, so they know, "I disappointed you, but I know you will continue to support me." So, we do have that.

The DRP that we have, I think, is also a wonderful thing that we have, because it's not just looking at the past, but looking at resources that might be there. It's not uncommon for us to meet with a student and then we identify potential resources and connections that we can make. Then Dr. Rodkin will say, "Okay, you, you're going to reach out to the student," and then we reach out to the student and say, "Oh, yeah, let me be the first to congratulate you," and whatever, and then invite them to meet, and then we walk with them to different resources and connect them.

Again, as I said, we have the DHP, the Displaced Homemaker Program where... Even though we say it's homemaker, people often think that this is just women, they serve men. Men who have had bad experiences, they've spent time in jail, and they just feel nobody cares. But, they go there and they are there and they seek support from them. We have different scholarships that we provide. We don't have enough, but we do have some that help students, and also the college has invested in sitting at the table at the Juvenile Justice Council. So, we meet every month, we actually host that meeting, and we meet with the people in the community to see what resources might be there.

The college also has invested in those belonging to the CoC, the Continuum of Care, so that we know how students... It's interesting, when we first got there, many people said, "I did not realize that people who have been incarcerated go to college." So, now they know that they go to college and then they are looking at some of the challenges, or that they experience homelessness, now they know that they're homeless. So, there are so many things that the college has done that the states passes legislation. So, we just have the legislation about the homeless and tuition free for homeless. Again, as I said, many of our students who experience incarceration, they come out and they become homeless.

So, we work with them. We have a system in place whereby we work with financial aid, so they don't have to... They don't parents or anyone that will support them, so we are there kind of the support. We have the Counseling Center that they can go through. You talked about PTSD, many of them, they are able to really talk about some of the experiences that they've had. So, we have lots of things. They are just hotchpotch, they're not coordinated. That's really the issue. We have lot of people, we have more people who care than people who do not, but we don't have a way of bringing all of those things together.

Tommy:

Well, I think, I mean, as I'll piggyback exactly on that, and because that's exactly where I was going with it, was that this conversation we're having, this represents pretty amazing movement on the part of our institution. I think that this also represents the culmination of Dr. Thebaut's work, and the Florida Humanities Grant, and now with the free to learn, we're going to have... It feels like we're just super charging our efforts, and all focusing on it at once, and so some of the things that Adrienne's doing, it's just amazing, [inaudible 00:36:44], and Dr. Rodkin, and Dr. [inaudible 00:36:46], everyone at this table. So, I think this represents a big institutional shift as well.

Dan:

Tommy, I want to go ahead and take a moment to plug the work that the EOC is doing. Dr. Provost talked about it. I believe that the opportunity to send staff into our local jail multiple times, develop the relationship, develop the trust, work with them through the admissions process, work with them through the career exploration process, help them come up with the plan so that when they get out of jail, they know what's next. It's not just a one time only, "I hope someday I'll see you." It's ongoing efforts to build the relationship, build the dialogue. That is a huge effort, and I think Dr. Provost is really to be commended for leading that and driving that ship with her staff.

The second piece we're working on is still in the formative stages, but we are working on a new program to offer inmate education at Lawtey Correctional Institute. Our goal is to develop two academic programs that will be offered to inmates in state prison up in Lawtey, such that when they complete that program, they'll have a college credential in a field where there are jobs waiting, and be connected with potential employers, so that when they are released from prison, they'll be able to get a high paying job in their community, make money, not go back to prison, and so this is all about reducing recidivism and helping our overall community.

That's a new piece that we're all able to do because of changes in federal law, and so it's something which is at college we've been waiting on, and we're excited to begin this program and appreciate our colleagues at the Florida Department of Corrections who were willing to work with us and are walking with us as we help this get this going. But, this is going to be an exciting opportunity, and it's just one more piece of the overall package that we're doing to try to help incarcerated individuals have a better life when they get out.

Bill:

That intention, not just to educate, but to make connections with employers, is really critical, because a couple of things that came out, that really stood out to me from listening to those student interviews, one of them was most of them did get certifications of one kind or another while they were in prison, and none of them found them to be useful when they left. People just didn't care. They cared about the fact that they were felons, and that that was the determining factor for whether they got a job or not, at least initially when they came out.

Another thing that stood out to me was how incredibly socially, economically fragile these individuals are when they're released. One of the most difficult, challenging, problematic parts of being released from prison is that you're likely to go right back into the community that you came out of, with the same people and the same habits and the same difficulties and the same problems that led you to go to prison in the first place. Again, at least half, I think, most of the students who were interviewed for these podcasts decided not to go back home, which meant they were exceedingly resource poor. I was really stunned that one of them who I know well, and got to know pretty early on, I had no idea how poor she was. I didn't know that she only had one pair of shoes. I just didn't know how hard her life was in that first year or so, especially. We do have, happily, a food pantry, and we do have Saints Share Wear where students can find nice clothes for under a dollar, and we do have a fabulous Counseling Center.

So, we do have many, many of the resources, Life Happens Grant, an emergency grant for students who just run into life problems. So, we do have a lot of these resources on campus, but the students with carceral experience, and many of our students who experience problems, don't necessarily know about them, don't necessarily know how to use them.

Dan:

It's funny, Bill, as you talk about all the resources that we have that students don't always know about. One of the good parts of our old Disciplinary Admissions Committee was that we saw a lot of students, and so we had a lot of opportunities to communicate with the students about these problems and these issues and about the solutions that we have and the resources that we have, and when you're dealing with 20, 30, 40 students a week, you're giving a lot of information out to students.

With our current policy, which I'm very supportive of, we see two or three students a week. We miss a lot of students who come into the college with carceral experience who don't know about these resources, and we don't even know they're here, so we can't tell them about them. We tell all students about things, but those who have special circumstances, they're not getting that additional outreach that we used to do through the DAC. We're just not doing it, because we're treating them the same as any other incoming student, and that's a good thing, but we're missing an opportunity to make sure they know these things that they really, really need to know about.

Bea:

I had couple experiences. We had COVID grants that we were giving to students, and two students, somebody called my attention to them, and I called them and I said, "Why didn't you apply?" And they're like, "Oh, I don't qualify." The only qualification is that you register and enrolled, that's it. So, I asked the question, "Are you enrolled?" "Yes, I am." "Okay, so you qualify." "No, ma'am. I don't think so, because I was formally incarcerated. I cannot get this. I cannot get that." So, I'm like, "Oh no, go ahead and apply."

So, for those students, just so they'll know for sure they can get it. So, we kind of fast track the application so they can see the notification, and then the following semester, one of them saw money without applying, they're like, "Oh, I just saw this money just appeared on my account. I did not apply." And I'm like, "No, you don't need to apply this semester because you applied last semester." So, many of the students, they feel, "I don't want to get back to where I was, so I don't want to ask for anything." So, it's better, they think, to remain anonymous.

Tommy:

That's it. My experience with it is so kind of tinted by my experience in California too, and so where they have 30 years of project rebound and such a huge presence at all the state colleges, and we're just starting, and it's frustrating at the start too to know whether or not someone would even present, whether they want to just hide, because it's so so far acculturated as a normal part of the college experience over there.

Dan:

That's the key right there. It's a normative part of the experience.

Bea:

Yes.

Dan:

I think about all the things we have at Santa Fe College that are normal. The Disabilities Resource Center, the Counseling Center. 10, 20, 30 years ago, no one wanted to admit that they were going to see a counselor. Now, people talk about mental health on a regular basis, and the challenges they're working on their mental health. You hear about people in the media talk about, "I'm not going to play this sport because I'm working on my mental health right now." That normalizes mental health challenges. It makes it easier for students to see the Counseling Center.

Those little things eventually make a difference. I think that, eventually, perhaps California with 30 years of experience, they've got to that point about individuals with prior carceral experience. I don't know what it'll take to get that here, but that ultimately is what we want is so that it's okay to talk about. Make it okay for students to admit their experience, so they're more likely to self-identify, so we can support them and help them. At the same time, we always have to respect those that choose not to.

Bill:

There's another benefit to their... We ask the question of whether they should or want to self disclose, but there's a benefit to the institution, there's a benefit to their fellow students, there's a benefit to all of us when they do talk about that experience, because the justice system, the prison system for most people is just this black hole, and they don't want to know about it. They just, "It's those terrible people who did terrible things," and whether the system put them there justly or not, is not a question that they're asking. Whether once they've served their sentence, paid their debt, they're continuing to be punished, which is precisely the case with the system that we have right now.

But, unless people hear about those experiences, and unless people see folks like the ones who are part of this podcast, who are using higher education to change their lives, to make a better life for themselves in spite of the obstacles that they're encountering, the more likely it is they were all going to see individuals, the many, many hundreds of thousands of individuals with that experience a little bit differently, and also think about how we might have a better, more effective, more humane system.

Adrienne:

I think that higher education, like this podcast, has a role to play in educating not only our students but society, because this is ultimately what we have the opportunity to do is to inform the community about these students, their challenges, and their opportunities. So, while it's important that we make sure we're communicating resources to students, we also need to be informing the community about the situation and obstacles these students face, sometimes very unjustly.

Tommy:

I was struck also by just how much the universes overlap. I mean, we ask our students to be resilient in the face of failure and really so many challenges you get up through, and that's what gets you through college, and I think that just seeing at Project Rebound California, how it was so seamless, and there was so much going on with the formerly incarcerated students teaching everyone, I think that we could only ask our penal system to have those same things matter. But, I know that when you get out, you really have a perspective that's valuable to the students too, to trying to get through college.

Jason:

Well, we're coming to the end of this, building on what Adrienne and Tommy shared with us. What do you wish people better understood about these students, their experiences, and what they bring to this community?

Ryan:

Jason, the first thing is that they're here. I mean, what is the stats then? What, we got 11 different correctional institutions within 50 miles of Gainesville? So, it's not like this is an outlier, this is real, this is our people, this is our community, these are our people, so we need to act accordingly. They're here, they're not going anywhere, and do you want to make their lives better so that makes our community better, or you just want to keep pushing them off so that they keep in this generational cycle of incarceration, which falls down three, four generations where they're all incarcerated? Or, do you want to break that cycle? We can be that linchpin that changes it.

Tommy:

98% of people in prison get out. Prison isn't another place, it's our society, and so we, as a community college, it's contingent upon us to educate those folks who've experienced incarceration, and we have a wonderful criminal justice program. So, I think that linking criminal justice and social justice naturally is a place that would happen here.

Bill:

Honestly, even if people who are listening don't care much about people who have been incarcerated, but they care about the quality of their communities, but they care about having a good, strong, safe community, they should care about this, because there's nothing that has a greater impact on lowering recidivism, including getting a job after, but than education for those who are incarcerated, and you were showing me some data about education, the impact of education post-incarceration as well.

There is a really important study, a group of studies from the RAND Corporation showing that for every dollar that gets spent on education for the incarceration, we save $5 in money that would go to re-incarcerating, re-housing, re-adjudicating individuals who will be going back, because they're coming out in such a difficult position from making a life after having been incarcerated.

Jason:

Well, thank you.

Bea:

I just want to say something. It's interesting, I was thinking, well, you know when we want people to feel welcome in different places, there are certain things that we do. So, when we were thinking of... I would say first in my family, we have kind of a thing that we put on our doors, that when people come and they say, "Oh, you're first in your family to graduate." So, they feel kind of a connection, and I'm hoping if we can do something, and I just look at your lanyard there, if we can get something like that, and people who are welcoming to people who's been incarcerated, we wear it proudly. So, students know, so they can see and say, "Hey, Dr. Rodkin. Hi." And then they can easily introduce themselves to say, "I have this experience. Can I come to your office?" Because if we put it in our office, not too many people will come to our offices. They may not see, but when we wear it as we go out, I think it becomes kind of something that many of our students who may not want to come out, will know. They don't have to wear it, but we wear it, because we are the ones that are saying, "You can talk with me. I'm open." So, I just want to...

Jason:

Yeah, doctor. But, for those listening, Dr. Bea is referring to a rainbow lanyard that-

Bea:

Yes, thank you.

Jason:

... Dr. Stephenson is wearing.

Bill:

I have so many students come up to me, like come and saying, "I really like your lanyard."

Bea:

So, you see?

Bill:

"Sell it to me."

Bea:

I like that. I didn't think about it until I see, but...

Jason:

Thank you. I think this has been a great conversation. I hope that it's the beginning of more conversations. I think there are lots of people who want to contribute, there are a lot of people who want to help, and this idea of this is a step towards coordinating that desire and that willingness. So, really appreciate the work that you're all doing and being willing to come and talk about that.

Again, I want to thank the panelists for taking time out of their schedules to participate in this discussion. More importantly, I want to thank them for the thoughtful work they're so diligently engaged in. Funding for this program was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities. This episode was produced by Anne Thebaut and Lex Shelton. Thank you for listening.