Program to Teach Entry-Level College Course(s)

By: Douglas Johnson

[11SEP24_VADOC-Educ_IAP-Proposal_DVJ]

PROPOSAL FOR: VADOC’s IN-RESIDENT ADJUNCT PROFESSOR (IAP) Program to Teach Entry-Level College Course(s)

I. OVERVIEW
1. Intention
A. As the Mentorship Committee Chairman of the River North CC Veterans Support Group, I seek opportunities to serve through educational and philanthropic projects IAW VADOC OP 841.1.VII.3.D.

B. The best thing a prison’s education department can do for an inmate, is to show them their true unlimited potential. That is what the RNCC Education Department has done for me over the last three years. So, it is my intention to carry it forward by proposing this VADOC IAP initiative.

2. My IAP Qualifications
A. I humbly submit to you that I am the best prospective IAP candidate in VADOC to model this proposal based on my extensive educational [1,2,3], professional, and personal experience as a former US Army Major and ODNI/NCTC Intelligence Operations Supervisor [4,5].

B. I am in a very unique position as a mental health & education advocate, mentor, author, and future adjunct professor. With no release date, having served almost seven years, I have remained charge-free and sober [6]. Being an IAP would undoubtedly give me monumental purpose.

C. Throughout the remainder of this proposal (and its enclosures), I will present: the need for a VADOC IAP Program, its significant advantages, potential courses, recommended IAP req., inmate-student funding, and a brief concept/vision for expanding this prospective IAP Program throughout VADOC and other DOCs.

II. THE NEED FOR A VADOC IAP PROGRAM
1. A vast body of evidence-based research concludes recidivism/re-offense and incarcerated infraction rates are significantly lower in individuals/inmates that have completed more educational and mentoring programs while incarcerated.

2. There is a need for this type of IAP Program in VADOC.
A. To meet the extremely high interest-level throughout VADOC for programs like the VT-CFH @RNCC and UVA-Darden @BKCC Partnership Programs.

B. To enable VADOC Education Principals to augment teacher/professor for temporary and/or longterm shortages.

III. STAKEHOLDER ADVANTAGES
1. VADOC having qualified college course professor(s) on-site will have tremendous advantages for all stakeholders: VADOC, partnering universities, inmates, and the IAP.

2. If VADOC and facility principals had a full-time professor they will be able to offer an increased number of in-person entry-level college courses to inmates.

3. Student-Inmates will have a sense of accomplishment in taking a college course, realizing their untapped potential, and gain a greater sense of hope. It can enable them to see that dreams have no expiration dates. Completing a college course can give these students purpose and momentum to work towards a degree.

IV. The following are very fitting ENTRY-LEVEL COURSES for this program:
1. Humanities
2. Creative Writing
3. Critical Thinking
4. Peace & Conflict Resolution
5. Self-Awareness in Avoiding Recidivating

V. RECOMMENDED REQUIREMENTS TO BECOME AN IAP:
1. Masters Degree in field. Under exceptional circumstances, significant professional experience for academic credentials may be substituted at discretion of the hiring university.
2. Charge/infraction-free for at least 10 years.*
3. No drug-related charges while incarcerated.
4. Trusted-stellar reputation with VADOC leadership/staff.
5. Random drug-tests.*
*At Educ. Principal’s discretion.

VI. FUNDING Options
1. Pell Grant
2. Donor Funding
3. G.I. Bill (Military VETs)

VII. IAP PROGRAM POTENTIAL
1. Colorado [7], California, and Maine DOCs already have a similar program. Why not Virginia too?

2. Virginia Tech (and other VA colleges) already have relevant course curriculums that can be adjusted per VADOC MOU requirement stipulations.

3. I am currently pursuing multiple university Letters of Intent (LOI) to be hired as an Adjunct Professor, (VT, UVA, VCU, NSU, VSU, GMU, JMU, ODU, GU, ASU), respectively.
A. Official hiring contingent upon VADOC planning to implement this type of program.
B. LOIs RX’d: TBD.

4. As a prospective IAP, I am very willing to be deployed to any prison to teach courses and to train new IAPs, based on your VADOC needs.

VIII. In closing, I graciously thank you for considering this proposal. I know it is an ambitious plan, but I hope and pray that you can see its infinite potential.
I also plan to play an integral role in VADOC’s “Reading Enables All Learners (REAL) Literacy Program.”
Becoming a PhD candidate is a longterm goal of mine. However, this midterm IAP goal is currently more feasible, realistic, and widely impactful.
I will continue to Stand STRONG, make the best use of my ‘Time,’ & remain Purpose-Driven!

Humbly Submitted,

DOUGLAS V. JOHNSON (#1937011)
RNCC-VSG-MCC

Education: A Key to a Prisoner’s Complete Freedom

Knowledge has long been revered by leaders throughout the ages as the path to freedom. Knowledge is the initiator of mankind’s inevitable enlightenment. But as it had been cultivated, trained, honed and thus educated it had rendered such sophistication as that found in our modern day society.

Since the longstanding practice of fire by light has sustained humankind and literally brought them out of the wilderness, education as a path to freedom stands true – in not only the actual sense, but also the proverbial and non-proverbial.

A miseducation can be rightfully referred to as an education not fixed upon freedom. The cause of a miseducation is predicated on the complete opposite – it is created to ensnare, to hold captive, to limit, and control. Granted the grace of reason, miseducation may falter and give over to greater. But to be ignorant – uneducated – that is the void of all hope and the absolute absence of power. None of us enter this world without paying our debt to ignorance – and since education is in itself a training, no one can hope to be born a master.

I, myself a mere human being on the verge of my 36th year of life am only starting to realize that education, in abundance, is crucial to achieving the most out of the human experience. Almost 20 years from being that stereotypical degenerate high school dropout, I pursued the same education I strived so diligently to avoid. Not only that, its at the sake of my own redemption. Incarcerated, I am able to work on a career in the legal profession. After experiencing the wrath of the American justice system firsthand, I hope to help restore communities by advocating for them in areas of law. The way I face my incarceration today, nearly at the end of a 20-year prison sentence, is with hope and aspiration. This is due to the last few years of me actively pursuing educational goals in a field that interests me.

The system is not oblivious to the value of education in the rehabilitative process. many states and federal correctional facilities offer GED and trade vocation courses, but educational opportunities in a wider field of industries and interests can be more than sustaining – they could be transformative. For too many incarcerated, those types of educational opportunities are almost impossible without help from sources outside of prison (family, loved ones, non-profits, etc.) I even enlisted the help of my now fiance’, where we managed to find an Sallie Mae educational loan with minimum payment of $50 a month. That was completely manageable with my institutional work check.

My rehabilitation reached its highest point once i could see my future through the lens of education and the freedom it had to offer. Higher education opportunities made widely available to the prison population has the potential to create the view of ‘corrections’ as an administration that enhances our communities, not destroy them. To have any hope of freeing the world, we must first focus on un-imprsioning our minds and free ourselves of the preconceived limitations falsely placed on the human spirit and its potential for redemption. If allowed, this prismatic form of thinking will continue to hold us back from the apex of social development and our advancement forward as a more unified force.

Love & Peace,
Q

On Education, Change Starts With Our Youth.

Greetings readers my name is Brandon C.L. Hope, and today I will be writing to the topic of how I think people incarcerated can benefit from a higher education. Now, while I do believe that people incarcerated can benefit from a higher education, I also believe that a higher education should not just be a privilege, but an obligation. My brother and role model so gracefully pointed out an age-old saying: “if you know better, you’ll do better.” So, if the point of incarceration is really rehabilitation, then our political leaders and captors would make sure that we knew better.

I also do not believe that it should start here with incarceration, it should start in society and in our homes. Now, not to say that college is meant for everybody, because everybody has free will so they should do with their lives whatever they choose. However, I do think that there shouldn’t be so many obstacles for those who do choose the path of higher education. But, having said that, I still believe that we should be focused on the generation under the ones who are preparing for college.

See, I was the generation under those preparing for college when I ultimately made a decision that was so life-altering, that if I had known what the outcome and consequences would have been, I know that I would not be incarcerated. More than likely, I would be pursuing my higher learning at this point in time. If I would have had faith in the school system, then maybe I would have actually gone to school. During my 9th grade year of high school, I only had four full days of attendance that were accounted for because at the time, I didn’t care. School was just so boring, and I didn’t understand why I would possibly be doing this school stuff when I could go hang out with the guys in the neighborhood.

Now, I am not justifying the way I felt, but I am saying that even when the youth doesn’t have the understanding to care about these things, it is our jobs to care for them. But there’s only so much we can tell them at that age, we are no longer able to watch over them and tell them what to do, as they will make their own decisions whether we like it or not.

Being that it is our job to care, we must find a way to make school interesting to the younger demographic. I know that you’re probably saying “I heard this before”, and I’m pretty sure that you have, because I have heard this before. But somehow no matter what we try, we still get the same results… or maybe that’s not true. Maybe the truth is that no matter how hard we say that we try, in all actuality we don’t try hard enough. Because I know that this idea that I’m stating right now that everybody has heard before was definetly an idea when I was that kid in 9th grade, yet somehow, no matter what they said they were doing it still doesn’t account for why I only had four full days of attendance and nobody cared.

It’s the school system that failed me and the system period, for allowing the school system to fail me. Nobody cared, and this can not be a continuing cycle or we will continue to lose our brown and black children to incarceration and/or street violence. So it’s time for change to happen, and change starts with us starting with our youth. Thank you for your time.

– Brandon C. L. Hope, From Hampton, VA

Education is the Key to Every Problem

Here’s a topic that I live to expand upon, due to around the time of my incarceration, even before then, I honestly know that had I knew then what I know now, things would surely be different!

Education is the key to every problem. In order to solve a problem, you have to be educated on its solution. I strongly believe that applies to every dilemma that occurs (day-in/day-out). Proper education keeps us ahead of problems that may occur. From the smallest of them, to the big ones.

Prime example here is this Coronavirus that is plaguing the world right now. With the proper education, we can safeguard ourselves, while learning the correct chemicals to combat those sickened by it & it’s spread. “That means to mask up!”

There’s a quote that I always reference because of its realness, and it goes like this: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance…” I reflect upon that quote to the bitter end, due to my personal experience. I’ve paid dearly for my ignorance. A very steep price that no amount of money can compensate, and that I can never get back or replaced. I’ve paid with precious time – over 25 years. That comes from the lack of a proper & healthy education. Now I know… too little, way to late. But the lesson is definitely learned.

If people are properly educated in certain areas of life aspects, trials, and tribulations, then they can avoid the many pitfalls life will throw their way. Take it from me, I’m living proof. For those of you out there, take complete advantage of the education highway and learn all that you possibly can to help you evolve into the best person you were destined to become. Education is the key to life.

– D. Moyler #1119539, Lawrenceville Correctional Center, Virginia

Education Helps People Gain Self Worth

I believe people can benefit from a higher education while in prison because education helps a person gain self worth and belief that they can achieve whatever they put their minds to accomplish for themselves in life personally, and from an educational perspective.

I believe there should be additional educational courses provided to all prisoners who have and/or don’t have a GED. This would be a tool one can use to further their education and complete their education if they don’t already have it. I believe the state department of education funds haven’t been used to its fullest potential when it comes to prisoners having options to receive their education. As it stands for VADOC, a GED is the only option provided from the state. The educational funds can be utilized with outside schools who would agree to offer high school diploma programs to prisoners, to receive their education as well.

– Kamu Lumumba

Prompt: Education and the Prison System

Can you agree with the age old saying, “if you know better, you’ll do better?” I, myself, take the phrase as a praise to education as a means to curb criminal behavior in light of a better society. I believe that education, especially at the collegiate level, can help to reinforce moral values of ex-offenders and strengthen them with critical thinking, creating a line of innovative professionals and reputable contributors to society. This would ultimately result in curbing violent crime and would be a more effective use of the state’s rehabilitative efforts. Education is defined as training. So, lack of proper education can be synonymously linked to criminal behavior. Thomas Jefferson even linked being a good citizen to education by saying that ‘no one can properly use their freedom as Americans, if they do not have a proper education.’

Examining my own shortcomings, I could say that many of us who had turned to crime suffered from a sort of mental strangulation brought on by lack of education. Not only were we captives to our resources, being children of poor black families, our belief in getting a college education was shared amongst us too far and few in between. Having been one myself, its hard for a poor young man to really get behind the idea that an education would solve all his problems. Hefty tuitions discourage many poor people from even believing they could actually go to college. College to them is a pipe dream and fit only for the affluent; increasing the gap of disparagement mentally and literally. Instead, they see school itself as a waste of time and shortsightedly decided on faster, more lucrative options to relieve very real, very immediate stresses. It is becoming a common fact, the money it takes to house a single prisoner, could be used to send a person to college for four years. Why do we as a country continue to allow the school-to-prison pipeline target and claim wayward young black men’s lives? Corruption of the prison system became racists’ main weapon in retaliation to the emancipation black people. Now, it has been a system in motion coldly devouring young black and brown lives before bloom. Making higher education readily available to incarcerated people would at least help put us on a path to correcting some of the damages caused by the corruption of a justice system plagued by generations of oversight.

Rehabilitation through education… that isn’t a hard idea to get behind, is it? Maybe even a community college program could work with justice departments and start getting involved with lost youth looking at potentially life-destroying sentences. Me, I sacrificed my high school education because I became a teenage parent. I knew it was a bad decision then, but failed find another way. If I had had the opportunity offered to me to go to college, as an 18-year-old boy who’s life had gotten away from him, I would have jumped at the chance. I know the resources are there.

There was a program that made collegiate education readily available for many incarcerated people – involving the use of grants called Pell grants. This program has long been restricted to the point that only about four thousand inmates within correctional systems across America (less than 1%) receive them. Plus, the program goes up for review every year, leaving those few incarcerated individuals to worry if they’ll be able to finish their college courses. There must be a better way… to achieve this ‘better way’ is the job of both the people and their political leaders. The people with respects to raising concerns to their local politicians that they want safer streets and actual, effective rehabilitation efforts. Simply imprisoning people alone does not rehabilitate them. In fact, it may actually only make matters worse. Men and women, who were deterred from a path to higher education, could benefit by getting another chance at higher learning. Most of all, communities deserve to be safer places to live and raise children, and in a space where a person doesn’t have to be relegated to criminal thinking because of lack of education… its possible.

I believe if the upcoming administration wants to stick by their promise of relief from systemic racism, they would be more than open to providing greater swaths of incarcerated people with a readily available path to higher education. Only time will tell if change is really to come for race relations in America. Or, will it be the same story: America continuing to fail at acknowledging black oppression, and continue holding our country back from fulfilling a dream of establishing a greater union. Until then, whether behind the wall or on the streets… the struggle never stops…

Prompt for the Incarcerated:
How do you think people can benefit from a higher education while incarcerated? Do you believe there should be any specific types of educational course that should be offered to incarcerated people and why?

Remember… you may expound on the topic in a variety of forms: essays, poetry, art, etc. make sure to let the people know who you are and any project you may be or have been involved with. Thank you for your contribution. We are working together to bring awareness to the brilliance they have locked away behind bars.

-Q. Patterson

Thank you to the readers of BrillianceBehindBars.com. Answers to this prompt will be coming in through December of 2020 from those incarcerated across Virginia.