In early June, Calvin University hosted the Michigan Higher Education in Prison Conference, an event looking at the benefits of providing higher education opportunities to incarcerated people.
On Thursday, June 4, Calvin University played host to the Michigan Higher Education in Prison Conference. The goal of the conference was to shine a spotlight on one of Michigan’s best returns on investment, and the impact of prison education on the local economy and the lives of its residents.
The conference was co-hosted by the Michigan Consortium for Higher Education in Prison (or MiCHEP), and the Calvin Prison Initiative. The event saw the coming together of formerly incarcerated people, corrections staff and leaders, and higher education professionals from around Michigan, as well as currently incarcerated people via livestream. All the attendees shared their findings around best practices for creating and sustaining effective learning communities within the criminal justice system.
The RAND Corporation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit global policy think tank and research institute that provides data driven solutions based on objective analysis to public sector decision makers. It recently found that incarcerated people who participate in any educational program during their time in prison are nearly half as likely to return to prison upon their release, and that taxpayers save between $4 and $5 for every $1 spent on prison education.
In an article posted on Calvin University’s website, the executive director of the Calvin Prison Initiative, Lisa Schra, spoke to these statistics, saying, “The statistics clearly show that offering education behind bars is a sound investment. But the impact goes well beyond dollars and cents. We’ve seen incarcerated individuals discovering a more purposeful use of their time. They are now stepping into roles as mentors and tutors – helping one another to grow and prepare to contribute meaningfully both inside prison and as returning citizens.”
The Michigan Department of Corrections (or MDOC) and MiChEP are working together to expand access to education for incarcerated people with the goal of restoring economic opportunity, personal agency, and dignity. This collaborative project has made Michigan one of the nation leaders in connecting prison reform efforts with higher education.
The founding president of MiCHEP, Jeff Abernathy, spoke about the conference, saying, “It’s exciting to be gathering at Calvin University this week – the same place where MiCHEP was officially launched in 2023. In just a few years, we’ve seen access to higher education expand significantly as institutions statewide partner with the Michigan Department of Corrections toward our shared vision of offering educational opportunities throughout the state.”
The growth mentioned is measurable as well as significant. Currently, there are 14 colleges in Michigan that operate higher education programs across 15 correctional facilities. Those schools are able to serve over 1,300 incarcerated students, with more than twice that number on waiting lists.
All the involved organizations are doing so as part of a shared commitment to expand educational opportunities to incarcerated people, with the understanding that higher education leads to stronger communities, personal growth, and rehabilitation.
The single day conference was held over a five hour period on June 4 at Calvin University’s Prince Conference Center. It featured collaborative roundtable sessions as well as plenary speakers, with the goal of improving partnerships between corrections leaders and colleges. The event also had interactive workshops that catered to the frameworks of both corrections professionals and educational institutions.
One of the highlights of the conference was a talk led by incarcerated people who spoke about their experiences with higher education behind bars, as well as how earning a college degree while incarcerated impacted their lives moving forward.
Other formerly incarcerated college graduates were in attendance from a range of programs and facilities. They led a workshop and shared their experiences and perspectives on the role education can play in reentry into unincarcerated society and more.
The conference aimed to demonstrate that having access to higher education among incarcerated people works to create safer communities and reduce recidivism, and is therefore a larger societal good.
The Michigan Consortium for Higher Education in Prison is an advocacy group that works to provide higher education to incarcerated people in order to improve the lives of those inmates as well as their communities, with an eye on how that benefits Michigan taxpayers and corrections staff as well. MiCHEP argues that access to college in prison can restore economic opportunity, dignity, and personal agency to incarcerated students. It also believes that a college education can work to ease reentry into society by creating informed and capable citizens with a commitment to the common good. The consortium acts as a policy advisor to the Michigan Department of Corrections Education Section, working to coordinate higher education opportunities in Michigan’s correctional facilities.
The Calvin Prison Initiative was created back in 2015, and is a partnership between Calvin Theological Seminary and Calvin University. The Initiative provides a Christian based liberal arts education to people who are incarcerated at the Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan. So far over 100 men have graduated from the program with bachelor’s degrees. More information about the Calvin Prison Initiative can be found on its webpage.
More information about all the services that Calvin University provides can be found at the school’s website.