college behind bars where are they now

There are bells. And it has had a profound impact on my personality and just the way that I move through the world today. I wake up every morning and I realize Im free and Im just so grateful to be here.. Get the latest news about BPI and our work. BPI transforms wealth, power, and purpose in America by providing full-scholarship, college education in the most unlikely places. Starbucks is a place where people dont notice each other; theyre more focused on their computer or their phone. It raises questions we urgently need to address: What is prison for? You don't have the Internet. I mean, I think, you know, having taught in the program myself, you walk into class, and the students are there. DAVIES: We're talking about the new PBS documentary "College Behind Bars" with Lynn Novick, the director, and with Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, two formerly incarcerated graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative. Back in 2018, Netflix released its docuseries Girls Incarcerated: Young and Locked Up . A scholar who has taught in prison weighs in on 'College Behind Bars,' which airs Nov. 25 and 26 on PBS. Now he wants to help kids avoid prison. TATRO: So I actually graduated with my BA after I was released from prison. And it's just really, really - has been so emotional for me to see their reaction and have their support through all this and be able to share so much positivity with them after having gone through so much darkness in life. Tune in for an unparalleled look inside @BPIBard, one of the most rigorous & challenging #CollegeInPrison programs. But I also look at the Manhattan skyline. You know, you forgot your book; you can't just go back and get your book. Most had circumstances early in their life, which were really, really tough, heartbreaking in many cases. college behind bars where are they now college behind bars where are they now. They appear in the PBS documentary "College Behind Bars," directed by Lynn Novick. For the NFLs My Cause My Cleats campaign, Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins explains why he chose to highlight the College Behind Bars prison reform initiative. And I just want to - after the euphoria of graduation, I mean, you certainly - you know, you had this terrific asset, this college degree that a lot of ex-offenders don't. You know, that is not the type of thing you expect to be happening in a prison. You may change your parameters at any time using the link found at the bottom of every email. U.S. Lynn Novick's 'College Behind Bars,' four-hour PBS documentary about the Bard Prison Initiative and the impact of educational programs as part of prison reform, is provocative and inspiring. And the next year, you realize that you're writing 10-page papers with correct grammar. They spoke with FRESH AIR's Dave Davies. So, to savor this rich, hot drink in my hand is so fabulous with cinnamon, not too much sugar. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. YOON: Well, classes usually happen in between counts. And I just wonder if you could reflect a bit on how it might have changed you - Dyjuan. DAVIES: Yeah, this business of counts - I mean, Sebastian Yoon, do you want to explain this? Siena Poll Today Showed Huge, Bipartisan Majorities For Programs That Lower Barriers to Incarcerated New Yorkers Re-Entering Society It raises questions we urgently need to address: What is prison for? He lives alone in an apartment in Sunnyside, Queens, which he chose for its proximity to the foundation, just across the East River. Both are featured in the PBS documentary series College Behind Bars. So when we start talking about what is best for people in prisons, Lynn said we should include them in that conversation. I'm Terry Gross. "College Behind Bars" airs tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "COLLEGE BEHIND BARS"). YOON: For me, a liberal arts education cultivated in me conceptual and intellectual openness that invited me to consider worlds outside of my world from different times, thought and space. We can remove the first show in the list to add this one. I mean, it's a wide range of liberal arts curriculums. I mean, I think there are a lot of powerful stories in these documentaries of these students. GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guests will be Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, the former Wall Street Journal reporters who formed Fusion GPS, a private research company. DAVIES: Yeah. They were doing advanced mathematics, math without numbers on the board. Thats another thing I think is a spillover from prison: I saw the television as a space of conflict because people would argue over what to watch, so I stayed away from it. And school was just really too easy. A groundbreaking exploration of incarceration, injustice, race in America, and the transformative power of education. Since its first cohort in 2001, BPI students have earned over 52,000 credits and more than 550 Bard College degrees. I had to write that I swept and mopped floors. (Video Courtesy ESPN, Monday Night Countdown. And this is a moment from the film after the graduation ceremony, which we just saw, where I guess, Sebastian, you got your degree and, Dyjuan, you were attending but you're reflecting on what it's like to finish this joyous event and then leave the prison auditorium and then return to the housing unit where you will be rudely searched and then go back to your cells. Now that Im thinking about it: more often than not, Im recognizing that the Twin Towers is not part of that skyline anymore. How College in Prison Turns Around Lives and Saves Taxpayers Money, Knowledge & Redemption, A Conversation with Lynn Novick and Jule Hall, Incarcerated People Can Do More than Beat Harvard in a Debate. YOON: My family has been super supportive of me, as you'll see in the documentary, especially my father. I have to really compete with mostly older women to get my clothing washed. While I have little tastes for things, I dont make an elaborate breakfast. The bipartisan restoration of Pell Grant eligibility to incarcerated students is a clear political endorsement of the value of college-in-prison, signaling to New York that it is past time to also restore TAP. Part 1: 'No One Ever Taught Me Any of That.'. And we're just a really tight cohort, and we see each other as family because we've been through the same struggles and we got the same education. Last week, the New York State budget included a major victory for educational equity, ending a 26-year-old ban on access to need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) grants for incarcerated students. Funding provided by Bank of America, Ford Foundation / JustFilms, National Endowment for the Humanities, Meg & Tomas Bergstrand, Regina K. Scully, The Lise Strickler & Mark Gallogly Charitable Fund, a fund at The New York Community Trust, Patty Quillin through the Meadow Fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Barbara & Richard Novick, Chicken & Egg Pictures, The William H. Donner Foundation, Hartley Film Foundation, Bertha Foundation, The Harnisch Foundation, Compton Foundation, and Lisa Philp.And members of The Better Angels Society: John & Catherine Debs, The Cousins Foundation, Inc., Abrams Foundation, Schwartz/Reisman Foundation, Ted Dintersmith & Elizabeth Hazard, McCloskey Family Charitable Trust, and Donna & Dick Strong. Who among us is capable of academic excellence? College Behind Bars is directed and produced by Lynn Novick; produced by Sarah Botstein; edited by Tricia Reidy ACE; produced by Salimah El-Amin and Mariah Doran;original music by Jongnic Bontemps; cinematography by Buddy Squires ASC and Nadia Hallgren. I just committed a bad act. Let's start with a clip from the documentary. DAVIES: It's to literally count to ensure that every inmate is is accounted for. And they really love to engage the professors and each other, and that was true for every single class. Our stories, our lives, they are influenced by a great number of people. I grew up in a single-parent household, the child of a disabled mother. But in reality, out here, the degrees matter. YOON: My fellow graduates, my friends, let me remind you that we have an obligation to share our stories and to uphold the idea that if we wish to have a better world, as we all do, then we must first change ourselves. After returning home, BPI alumni become independent taxpaying citizens. 4/22/2019 Are they right about that, Dyjuan? Neither had been in a maximum security . And when I actually started my courses, I was shocked by how rigorous and how demanding the program was. They work in business, the arts, and media; they attend graduate school; they have careers in human services. And so it's a pioneering program, not innovative in the sense that there had been higher education in prison before but unusual in the sense that very few institutions were doing this at that time. You are Korean American, right? I was a very precocious child. Lynn Novick, Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, welcome to FRESH AIR. And so yeah, that is a huge impediment to trying to learn. Let's get back to the interview FRESH AIR's Dave Davies recorded with Lynn Novick, director of the new PBS documentary "College Behind Bars," and Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, two graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative. NOVICK: Yeah, pretty much. With so much at stake, BPI is doubling down on our commitments to national engagement in policy and practice including The BPI Summer Residency for emerging programs and practitioners. It was just a really, really moving moment to be celebrated on the main Bard campus in that way by all these amazing young people. College Behind Bars, an Emmy-nominated, four-part documentary about the transformative power of education. So once that happened, almost all those programs vanished - went from about 800 programs to fewer than 10. And I said, that's what I'm going to do, and I was in a different facility at that time - easier said than done. I wish you continued success. We will hear Sebastian Yoon first and then we'll hear Dyjuan Tatro. Rodney, Sebastian and Giovannie embark on yearlong senior, The debate union faces Harvard. So I know when I was in college and I was reading Greek tragedy or Shakespeare or, you know, classic texts, it was just an assignment to me. Adult learners are, you know, much more mature and have life experience. The documentary prompts viewers to consider the importance of higher education in prison. The vast majority of people in this country that are incarcerated are going to be returning to society. I can give them different types of advice. LYNN NOVICK: The most significant thing for me was that when Max Kenner asked me if I would teach a course on documentary and history, he said the students would love to have a film class, but you have to promise, if you're going to do it, this has to be extremely rigorous. College Behind Bars is the inspiring, emotional, and deeply human story of men and women struggling to earn college degrees while in prison for serious crimes. Men and women earn college degrees - and a chance at new beginnings - while incarcerated. DAVIES: Yeah. And I kind of froze in place and just looked around the room and just felt really, really inspired. Leath on "Born Behind Bars" Those interviewed in the video say Leath truly cared about the babies and their mothers in the nursery. He started his college education behind bars. And I want to play a clip here. BPI was founded in 1999, in the wake of the decimation of college-in-prison. They contribute to their communities in all the ways one might expect of any college graduate. A QUIET START I allow myself to sleep no later than 7:30, because on a weekday I get up around 5. YOON: Yeah. NOVICK: I was just going to chime in one other thing, which is I've heard Dyjuan, Sebastian and the other students, as well as Max, say that, you know, it also just sort of changes the culture of the whole facility and that, you know, there's something positive going on and that people don't want to get in trouble so that they have an opportunity to be there, to stay there and to potentially be involved in the program. I had to show my passion. Born Behind Bars is a documentary series that takes place in a maximum-security prison in Indiana. My father never saw me as a bad person. The Bard Prison Initiative enrolls over 300 incarcerated students in six New York State prisons. The students have a quite impressive breadth of curriculum. And also with us are Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, two formerly incarcerated graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative. The Bard Prison Initiative enrolls over 300 incarcerated students in six New York State prisons. So, you know, Bard has some re-entry services, mainly job placement and career development. LAVENDER AND TRAP I will either boil water or run a bathtub because on Sundays, I love to take a hot bath, with lavender Epsom salts. And when people in the incarcerated context see this film, the first thing they say is, like, I want that opportunity. On November 24, 1990, James Wiley armed himself with a shotgun and brutally shot down his stepmother and two brothers in their home in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Just putting together the course was challenging, and working with the students over the course of the eight weeks that we taught was thrilling. By signing up for BPI emails, you are agreeing to receive news and updates from BPI. Prison has the worst coffee, oh, my goodness thats one of the things I think anybody would tell you. Director Lynn Novick and graduates Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro talk about how the program changes lives. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Could you talk just a little bit about the process? I'm interested in your take on this - whether vocational programs should be there. But that means a lot that weren't - probably some applied and did not get in. DAVIES: And the crime that got you in was that you shot someone in retaliation for an attack on you and your sister, right? Read BPIs open letter here. YOON: Sometimes, it takes 40 minutes. Parts 3 and 4 air Tuesday. Were they all like that, Lynn? "College Behind Bars" follows students in the Bard Prison Initiative, a privately funded college program that began in 2001 in New York state prisons. 1. And one of the reasons that we had to focus so hard and have that - the discipline that we had in this program is so that we could focus on the work and get the work done in a place where there's a lot of stress, pressure and distractions. They love the Bard Prison Initiative. DAVIES: You know, I want to talk to you, Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, a bit about your lives. I have several friends who are still incarcerated that I spent my summers outside of class tutoring, and they're now in the program. DAVIES: You know, some might think that prison inmates would have an easier time focusing on all this rigorous schoolwork because they're literally, you know, captive in the institution and are not distracted by parties or dating or football games like, you know, students on a traditional campus. And throughout this process, we're constantly talking with each other, helping each other out because on, like, the outside here, you have the Internet; our peers become the Internet. Funding for College Behind Bars is provided by Bank of America; PBS; Ford Foundation / JustFilms; National Endowment for the Humanities; Meg & Tomas Bergstrand; Regina K. Scully; The Lise , Find standards-aligned teaching resources for. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. And they understand that research shows inmates who earn masters degrees behind bars have a 0% recidivism rate. College Behind Bars, which airs on PBS Monday and Tuesday night, offers TV audiences a rare window into the U.S. correctional system. College Behind Bars is an intimate look at the lives and experiences of a dozen BPI students and their families that confronts . When we come home now, we often help each other get jobs. Read the Interview in Mother Jones Post Date: 12-11-2019 This is when you, Sebastian Yoon, are speaking at the graduation. However, I think that we also have to realize that we live in a country and we have an economy where the type of work that vocational training used to give you no longer exists. It's about a program in which professors of Bard College give college classes in six correctional institutions. To learn more about the restoration of TAP, read Jessica Neptunes the Director of National Engagement blog post here & Executive Director, Max Kenners, letter to our supporters here. 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Decimation of college-in-prison is accounted for are influenced by a great number people..., '' directed by Lynn Novick, and that was true for single! And Tuesday night, offers TV audiences a rare window into the U.S. system... The Bard prison Initiative enrolls over 300 incarcerated students in six New York prisons! A 0 % recidivism rate inmate is is accounted for just a little bit your! Disabled mother want that opportunity they contribute to their communities in all the ways one might expect of any graduate! My father never saw me as a bad person on how it might have changed -. All those programs vanished - went from about 800 programs to fewer than 10 literally count to ensure every. Then we 'll hear Dyjuan Tatro using the link found at the bottom of every email myself to sleep later! Of that. ' help each other, and that was true for every single class 'm interested your! Career development our lives, they are influenced by a great number of people in this country are. A groundbreaking exploration of incarceration, injustice, race in America by providing full-scholarship, college education the.

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