How do you keep prisoners aware there is something other than what they see everyday where they are—maybe for life? Behind a fortress wall and razor wire and a few feet away from California’s death row, students at one of the country’s most unique colleges discuss the 9/11 attacks and issues of morality, identity and nationalism.
Dressed in blue uniforms, the students break from their discussion only when a guard enters the classroom, calling out each man’s last name and waiting for them to reply with the last two digits of their inmate number.
They are students at Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin State Prison, the first accredited junior college in the country based behind bars. Inmates can take classes in literature, astronomy, American government, pre-calculus and other subjects to earn an Associate of Arts degree.
Named for a mountain near the prison, the college was accredited in January after a 19-member commission from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges determined the extension program based at San Quentin for more than two decades was providing high-quality education.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, the umbrella organization for all U.S. higher education institutions, stated “This is a profound step forward in prison education.”
He went on to say that Mount Tamalpais College is “an extraordinary model” that will give it autonomy not seen in prison programs attached to outside schools.
The new designation will force the school to maintain the high standards set by the college association and hopefully catch the attention of donors to help the college expand. While it can accommodate 300 students per semester, 200 are on a waiting list.
The college is one of dozens of educational, job training and self-help programs available to the 3,100 inmates in the medium-security portion of San Quentin, making it a desired destination for inmates statewide who lobby to be transferred there.
Derry Brown, 49-years old, wishes he had learned this way coming up; instead he was in special education his whole life. His English 101 class “Cosmopolitan Fictions,” was discussing “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” a novel by Mohsin Hamid.
Brown is serving a 20-year sentence for burglary and assault. He earned his GED in prison and takes pride in now being a college student. He would like to pursue a career in music in his hometown of Los Angeles once he’s released next year.
He says, “There is joy in learning—that’s why I want to continue. Even when I get out, I’m going back to college.”
The college’s $5 million annual budget is fully funded by private donations, with a paid staff and volunteer faculty, many of them graduate students from top universities, including Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.
The previous program started in 1996 and was later know as the Prison University Project and it also offered associate’s degrees but the college’s President Jody Lewen, who started as a volunteer instruction in 1999, began the process to have an autonomous college three years ago when the university they partnered with closed.
“Very often in the field of higher education, people will look at educational programs in prisons and they’ll say, “Well, that’s a program or project. It’s not a school. Our hope is that by being an independent, accrediated, liberal arts college that operates in a prison we make it more difficult for people to overlook those inside and we help them imagine our students differently,” Lewen said.
Any general population San Quentin inmate with a high school diploma or GED certificate is eligible to attend. The prison’s 539 death row inmates are excluded.
Guards check the ID’s of students coming to classes held in trailers set up on one edge of the prison’s exercise yard, where students stop to discuss their assignments—corrections officers watching from four towers above.
Overhearing those yard conversations made a big impression on Richard “Bonaru” Richardson after he was transferred to San Quentin in 2007 to finish serving a 47 years-to-life sentence for a home invasion robbery. Former Gov. Jerry Brown commuted Richardson’s sentence, and he was released last year after serving 23 years.
“In other institutions, we were used to talking about gang activity, violence, knives, drugs, and the next riot,” he said.
In San Quentin, the conversations were often about what classes they were taking, how to write a thesis or how to defend an argument.
Richardson said, “I was taken aback. It was kind of like, ‘Hold on, isn’t this supposed to be a prison?’” he added.
He decided to sign up after seeing a group of female volunteers walk across the yard. He admits, “I got into the classroom for all the wrong reasons, but I realized that I was actually learning something and that there were people who believed in you more than you believe in yourself. When you see that, you start believing in yourself,” he said.
In his 14 years at San Quentin, Richardson now 47 years old, rose to become executive editor of the inmate-led San Quentin News, a monthly newspaper distributed to California’s 35 prisons that has high lighted the prison programs and often published inspirational stories of men who pursued higher education while incarcerated.
Richardson now works as an advancement associate helping the college’s communications and fund-raising departments.
Richardson stated, “Like me, some of them might be the only person in their family ever to have a college degree and this inspires your children to continue their education. For some of them, it’s the greatest achievement in their lives.”
A high school humanities teacher, Doug Arwine, began to volunteer this year and teaches English 101, which focuses on developing critical thinking skills.
Arwine said he cherishes helping these students “share experiences and share their humanity with one another.
He said, “There’s also moments of success when a student realizes they’ve crafted a really elegant paragraph in their essay, and they’ve made some interesting points. As with any student, regardless of where you are, you can see how that helps them build confidence.”