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Tutoring gives CS
graduate students a view inside prison walls
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Berkeley computer science graduate student Vinod Prabhakaran
(left) tutors Lamarr Mainor Sr. through San Quentin’s
College Program, where 42 inmates have earned AA degrees.
THE SACRAMENTO BEE/ANNE CHADWICK WILLIAMS PHOTO |
by Carol Menaker
Every Monday and Wednesday evening, computer science Ph.D. student
Sean Rhea joins a carload of Berkeley students for the drive along
I-580 from Berkeley and across the Richmond Bridge to San Quentin.
The students are volunteer instructors, teaching assistants, and
tutors in the San Quentin College Program, the only onsite degree-granting
program in the California State prison system.
“I wanted to do something good for the world and see that
I am actually making a difference,” says Rhea, who tutors
math. “In contrast to other forms of activism, teaching
the inmates provides a very real and immediate reward,”
he adds.
The program was initiated in 1996, when Patten University, a small
Christian college in Oakland, opened an associate of arts extension
at the prison. The curriculum offers more than 20 transferrable
courses in the humanities, math, and the physical and social sciences.
About 200 inmates are enrolled, 42 have completed AA degrees,
and some parolees have transferred into community colleges and
universities.
According to program director and Cal alumna Jody Lewen (Ph.D.’02
Rhetoric), the classes provide an opportunity for people of very
different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds to interact.
“These highly educated graduate students are coming in to
teach the prisoners,” Lewen says, “but what often
happens is that the teachers learn more than the students, especially
about the criminal justice system. It’s a ‘world-rocking’
experience for a lot of them.”
Vinod Prabhakaran, another computer science Ph.D. student at Berkeley,
also taught math for the program, working with the inmates in
the basement of San Quentin’s former hospital building.
“I heard about the prison college program from another student
volunteer,” says Prabhakaran. “I felt like it was
a concrete way of helping. I also like teaching, and teaching
basic math to grown-ups is a very interesting challenge.”
Volunteers are vital to the program’s success, according
to Lewen, who last year founded the Prison University Project,
a nonprofit organization devoted to supporting the San Quentin
program and expanding similar prison programs throughout the state.
All depend heavily on volunteer teachers and tutors from UC Berkeley
and other area colleges, since funding does not allow for the
hiring of teaching staff.
“We look for people who are not only excellent teachers,”
says Lewen, “but who are also professional, mature, and
responsible—people who can function in this kind of environment.”
Each volunteer must go through several hours of training before
being cleared by the prison to work with the inmates. Most devote
five or more hours each week to their teaching responsibilities
at the prison.
“It’s a rewarding experience, but it’s not all
roses,” says Rhea. “Some of the students have a legitimately
hard time learning, others are recovering alcohol or drug users,
and many are distracted by concerns about their families outside
the prison.”
The program has generated some controversy because, critics say,
it is unfair to provide a free college education for inmates when
others have to pay. But, for now, the program continues, and a
formal evaluation may be undertaken by the state to determine
future funding levels.
“For many of these guys, learning is an entirely new experience,”
Rhea says. “But once they make the transition, they seem
like completely different people. They stop looking at the class
as something they need to pass and start seeing it as fun.”
CAROL MENAKER of San Jose is a freelancer who
writes for a number of university alumni magazines.
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