Notre Dame initiative seeks to boost prison education programs
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The Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame this month marked the launch of an initiative to support prison education programs. Notre Dame Programs for Education in Prison, or NDPEP, is designed to bring new and existing programs under one umbrella, while also providing career development and re-entry supports for students. “The main fruit out of the collaborative pieces coming together is shared resources, shared support, and shared expertise,” said NDPEP managing director Michael Hebbeler.
Hebbeler and Justin McDevitt, assistant regional director for alumni and re-entry services at Notre Dame, discussed the initiative in an interview with Inside INdiana Business.
“We’re trying to build a network that enables the programs already in existence to thrive but then also bring on new people,” said Hebbeler. “Other folks in other disciplines who are researching mass incarceration can now have conversation partners, working groups, access to people coming out of prison who are open to collaborating in new ways. I think that that’s the main piece is the relationship building that arises out of these shared resources.”
Notre Dame says NDPEP will provide strategic, administrative, programmatic and financial support to higher education efforts in Indiana prisons, including:
- The Moreau College Initiative, a degree program run by Holy Cross College and supported by Notre Dame and Westville Correctional Facility that provides associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.
- The Women’s College Partnership, a collaboration between Marian Univeristy and the Indiana Women’s Prison.
- Inside-Out, a program out of the Center for Social Concerns that brings traditional Notre Dame undergraduates to the Westville facility to take a three credit hour course alongside inmates.
- Shakespeare in Prisons, which features a Shakespeare course at the Westville facility
- The Indiana Prison Liberal Arts Network, a newly-formed statewide network that seeks to bring in more higher education and corrections partners throughout the state.
Hebbeler says the initiative is reflective of the holistic approach to people who are incarcerated.
“It’s the education inside the facility. It’s the internships and the employment opportunities. It’s the evaluation and assessment of the programs. What’s working? What do we need to communicate? We’re looking at a holistic life of a person who is seeking education and then seeking a flourishing life as a result of that education,” he said.
While the education component itself is the main component of the initiative, career development is also important. Notre Dame says NDPEP will provide such services as well as re-entry supports for students.
McDevitt says that effort began with an internship course for bachelor’s students who could gain a remote internship while still in prison.
“They have a computer lab. They have support from faculty. They have tutors. But what we needed is the ability to bridge the gap between prison and the outside, and so we started developing internships so that we could actually use those as seeds both in terms of expertise and experience getting skills built but also building connections with actual employers on the outside so that they might have better opportunities to maybe even work for those people as well.”
McDevitt also works personally to connect students to employers and begin planning for re-entry, continuing that assistance after they are released.
“It’s not just they walk out with a degree; they walk out with a clear path and vision. We have students who have been in and out of prison throughout their life, and one of them said to me early on, ‘The difference this time is that I know I have support.’ So all of that support together is to give our students the best shot possible.”
Hebbeler says there is a lot of potential to expand the model throughout the state, region and country. NDPEP officials are currently looking for additional partners for the initiative, including from both the corrections space and employers willing to provide jobs for formerly incarcerated individuals.
McDevitt says providing additional services such as High School Equivalency assistance could provide more support for inmates as they look to re-enter society.