University of Iowa explores bringing higher education to state's prison population

The University of Iowa is offering a pilot certificate program this semester that includes weekly sessions taught by full professors, college deans and even President Bruce Harreld.

To take part in the high-profile speaker series, however, would-be students need to be one of 31 eligible inmates in the Iowa Medical and Classification Center.

The series marks the first official academic cooperation between the public research university and the Oakdale prison facility in Coralville. Yet the effort also builds on the relationship between the two institutions already forged by Mary Cohen, a UI professor of music and education.

Since 2009, Cohen has led the Oakdale Prison Community Choir, which is made up of community members as well as inmates in the medium security prison. The choir performs two concerts annually to a blended audience from both outside and inside the facility.

“People who have come to listen to the choir have left with a different understanding of the prison system,” Cohen said. “Especially when they hear an original song written by an inmate and performed by the choir.”

In recognition of the choir’s success, Warden James McKinney agreed to expand audience capacity from 85 to more than 200, Cohen said. Harreld has been in attendance at the recent concerts, along with a few university vice presidents and deans.

With so many UI administrators offering support, the UI Center for Human Rights decided to push up its schedule for exploring options for creating some academic ties with the prison.

"The university is gung-ho do this, and the the prison is gung-ho as well," said Adrien Wing, the UI law professor who directs the center.

Previous coverage:

• Personal reflections from behind the bars at Oakdale Prison
• Join Oakdale Choir for 'Lead With Love' prison performance
• Oakdale Prison Choir closes season on 'Bright Side'

Kat Litchfield, programs coordinator for the center, said the long-term goal remains to develop a program through which inmates could earn college credit for courses taken in the prison. She eventually would like to see UI offering something similar to the Liberal Arts in Prison Program already in place at Grinnell College.  

Such a program, however, would involve a lengthy process to gain permission from the Iowa Board of Regents, the Higher Learning Commission and several other groups.

To speed things along for this semester, UI's Prison Education Working Group developed the concept for the UI Speakers Series at Oakdale and an accompanying certificate.

“The certificate doesn’t hold any credit, but there is value in it,” Litchfield said. “It can be used at parole meetings and in future job interviews to show that they have put forward some initiative toward a goal.”

The series — which is not open to the public — kicks off Sept. 18 with Dan Clay, dean of the UI College of Education, and concludes Nov. 20 with a certificate ceremony and banquet dinner. In between, the inmates will hear weekly from professors in English, law, education, business, theater and religion.

To earn the certificate, eligible inmates need to participate in the full series.

“Just as freshmen have to take a bunch of courses they don’t want to pursue their degree, so we’re asking that — if you want a certificate, you have to do it all,” Litchfield said.

Harreld, who was a faculty member for six years at the Harvard Business School, is scheduled to lead a session on “Learning Through Discussion.”

“That’s exactly kind of teaching that we want our education volunteers to be doing: less lecture and more experiential,” Litchfield said.

The upcoming series also inspired a three-day conference last week titled, "The Role of Transformative Education in Successful Reentry." 

The conference began Thursday night with a screening of the documentary “Shakespeare Behind Bars,” followed by a question-and-answer session with Curt Tofeteland, who founded the program of the same name.

The sessions on Friday and Saturday focused the challenges and opportunities that UI would face in moving forward with an expanded program. Panelists included the directors of similar programs in the Midwest as well as officials in the Iowa Department of Corrections.

Jerry Bartuff, who has directed the Iowa DOC since 2015,  said his department no longer looks at inmate re-entry as an extra program but as "part of what we do every day."

"We recognize that we, in the past, have traditionally raised good inmates, but we haven't necessarily helped create new citizens," Bartuff said Saturday during the conference's final session. "... We've done some things internally that get us where we need to be as an organization that says, 'This department cannot provide a college education. This department cannot train people in how to live well. This department cannot train people to be better parents. This department cannot pass laws. This department needs to collaborate with people who have the expertise in our community.' And part of our responsibility is to make sure that people recognize that we are responsible and valuable partners."

Next steps

Any future ties between UI and Oakdale also will need to supplement and build on the programs already in place between the prison and Kirkwood Community College.

Kirkwood has contracts with Oakdale to provide literacy services to those inmates whose reading skills are below a sixth grade level. Working with the Department of Corrections, the college also offers high school completion courses for inmates and various certificate-level vocational programs.

The community college does not offer any courses for credit through the prison, but it does offer proctoring services for inmates enrolled in two-year-, four-year or advantage programs through other colleges.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffCharis.