Two months ago, the Attorney General Lorretta Lynch and the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to Jessup to announce a plan to offer Pell Grants to some prisoners again. They gave us until October 2nd to find a university partner to offer credit-bearing programs.
I’m very pleased to announce that the University of Baltimore has applied to the Department of Education to offer degrees at Jessup Correctional Institution: a BA in Community Studies and Civic Engagement, and a BA in Human Services Administration, starting in Fall of 2016. We hope to enroll a cohort of 20-30 students, starting with eligible members of the JCI Prison Scholars Program!
There’s a lot of work to be done between now and next September, and it’s still possible that the Department of Education might refuse UB’s application. But I am bursting with pride in our students at Jessup for making this possible. At the University of Baltimore, it is our own Andrea Cantora who led the effort and will be shepherding the credit-bearing courses into being. Dr. Cantora came to us with plenty of experience working in prisons, but in her criminal justice courses she saw students who are deeply curious and hard-working taking classes without credit or recognition, and so she’s put an immense amount of time and effort into giving them what they deserve!