A Glimpse at the Inside-Out Program
Jules Goddet | March 30, 2023
Social work majors and those interested in social justice issues may be interested in learning about the Inside-Out program. The prison education program was founded at Temple University in 1997 and has established a worldwide network of institutions of higher education and correctional facilities. Inside-Out was founded in 2016 at Warren Wilson College (WWC) in collaboration with the Western Correctional Center for Women (WCCW).
This program is led by Lucy Lawrence, professor and chair of the WWC social work department and director of the Inside-Out prison exchange program.
“Inside-Out is a unique model of higher education in prison,” Lawrence said. “That brings together college students (Outside) with incarcerated students (Inside) in a classroom behind prison walls,” Lawrence said. “All of the students earn college credits and receive a Warren Wilson College transcript. The Inside-Out program at Warren Wilson is the only model of its kind in North Carolina.”
The courses taught in person at the WCCW rotate. They are social work, creative writing, education, psychology, theater, sociology and philosophy. Students who have successfully completed an Inside-Out course previously can apply for 2 courses and receive 8 credits at the end of the semester. However, first-time Inside-Out students may enroll in a maximum of 4 credit hours. Each class is designated as a PEG 2.
Trace Howard, a social work major and sophomore, has already experienced this program and stated he is strongly convinced by it as a method of receiving concrete experience in social work.
“It sounded really fascinating to me,” Howard said. “One of the people who is on the Inside-Out Crew came and spoke in my writing class. I was even more interested after that. So I just decided to go for it because I am a social work major and really like social justice issues. So I thought it'd be a great way to literally get that firsthand experience of going into a pressure.”
Jenna Onderko, double majoring in business and political science, chose to be part of this program for broader reasons.
“I think with the world that we live in today that it's really crucial in politics for us to get more information on the system,” Onderko said. “Going into politics, I thought that it was a very good opportunity and experience for me to have.”
In order to participate in the Inside-Out Program for fall 2023, students of all gender identities can apply and have to be 19 years old or older as of Aug. 21, 2023, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. To apply, students must submit an application before April 7 and participate in an 20-minutes interview with the Inside-Out coordinating team and be in good standing at the college.
Applicants will be accepted on a rolling basis until week 12 of the spring semester when fall registration begins. The coordinating team will interview applicants as long as they still have spaces in classes (there are ten spaces for WWC students in three course options at the prison). If accepted, students will be administratively enrolled in the Inside-Out course by the registrar. Admitted students will also be required to attend a PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) Training and Orientation to Western Correctional Center for Women on May 3 at 4:00 p.m. in Boon Hall 110. Additionally, there will be a mandatory Inside-Out Orientation on Aug. 20 at 4:30 p.m. in Jensen CIAC Classroom 113.
Contact Lucy Lawrence, Inside-Out Program director, for questions about applications at llawrence@warren-wilson.edu. The Inside Out FAQs can provide you with background information.
Finally, students have to choose one course option between Intro to Peace & Justice Studies, Theories & Practice of Tutoring Writing and Personal Finance.
Onderko and Howard have already participated in this program, and while Howard does not know yet which one to choose, Onderko has an idea of what class she will choose next.
“For the next one, I'm going to choose Peace and Justice Studies,” Onderko said. “That's the one that seems most interesting to me. I think, given that it's being taught there, it will make the class even more interesting, because I took sociology last semester and it bled in discussion the whole hour and 20 minutes that we had.”
Giving classes into a prison is an opportunity not only for WWC students, but also a step that inmates want to take in order to leave these walls, physically or spiritually.
“I think for some people, it is a way for them to keep their minds busy while they are incarcerated,” Lawrence said. “For other students, it is a way for them to think about how they might have a future that is very different from what has led them to prison. And then I think there are other students who are really motivated to be in a classroom with college students and have the identity as a college student.”
After being accepted, the students can start enjoying the program and go to the WCCW through campus vehicles. After arriving at the prison, several security steps will be done before going into the prison.
“I was a little fearful of what that would be like, and a little anxious about going through a guard every time we go in,” Howard said. “We have to go through a metal detector, they kind of pat you down and make sure you don't have anything on you. But it's just to check, and you get used to it after a while and kind of get used to it. Now I'm pretty comfortable with it.”
Then, after these security steps, students can enter into the prison and interact with the incarcerated people, but by respecting precocious rules and respecting a certain privacy distance.
“There's some level of anonymity,” Howard said. “We go on a first name basis, we don't really ask personal questions unless it's prompted. You don’t make a lot of personal contact. It's just like a normal class.”
In order to know the rules that have to be followed inside the prison, students attend two orientations where they learn how everything is going to happen and what they can or can’t do. One is conducted at the prison and is required for all prison “volunteers.” They will be issued a “volunteer” entry card (called a Blue Card) that they must bring with them to each class session to be allowed into the prison. The second orientation will be on the WWC campus where they will cover specific requirements of the Inside-Out program.
“When you do the orientation, it seems like a lot of rules, like you're not going to be able to talk to them but like, once you get there, you notice that it's really not that serious,” Onderko said. “You go in, you get checked, and then when you walk to the classroom, yourself, you're not really escorted to class. You go straight to the building. And it's like a regular classroom. We sit in a circle, we can sit next. There, we can talk next to each other. The only thing that we can't really share is our last names. So, we're allowed to talk like it's our own classmates and when we finish class we're walking back to the gate house, to go back to security, they also walk back with us.”
Going inside prison’s walls can be scary for some people at first hand, but Onderko clearly explained that incarcerated inmates are normal people and there is no reason to consider them as a threat at all.
“I was never really scared at all,” Onderko said. “I was really excited for this experience, because not many people get to have this in their lifetime. I mean, my main thing is that I tell people when they want to take this in their skill, that they're people just like us. People make mistakes, and I don't see them any different than I would see any other students.”
In the same way, Howard shared that he was more scared of the prison staff rather than the incarcerated people.
“I was more so scared of the guards and the prison staff to be honest, just because I didn't know what it would be like,” Howard said. “It’s a minimum security women's correctional facility. So everyone who's been there has a five year or less sentence and they were kind of transferred from another prison. So it's kind of like a step down prison, where it's kind of a better facility than some others, but I wasn't really scared to interact with the prisoners, but I was, you know, fearful.”
As repeated by Howard, Lawrence and Onderko, Inside-Out program is a unique and concrete experience that gives you the keys in order to fulfill your professional project or better understand social justice issues.
Howard is not sure of what he would like to do later, but is definitely considering working with a prison system and inmates. His first idea is to help people rehabilitate into society after going through the prison system, which is, to his point of view, a big issue in today’s world.
“It’s a truly transformative experience,” Howard said. “You can't really get this anywhere else. You know, you're literally in a prison, you're getting that firsthand experience. You're meeting some truly amazing people and it really opens your eyes, of how we dehumanize and demonize incarcerated individuals when they're just people just like us.”
Onderko, who wants to go back to Fla. after her graduation to work with the school board in Tampa, is also strongly convinced by the help this program provides in order to develop your professional experience and point of view on inmates and grow intellectually.
“I think it was one of my favorite classes that I ever took,” Onderko said. “When I spoke at the pace conference about the Inside Out program, I stated that I felt more like a student in the classroom in the walls of Inside Out than I did at WWC. And by that, I mean that we all collaborated and worked as one and all communicated. You can't have computers, you can't have phones, you can't have any of that. Everything's done on paper. And we were more like a class and worked just as a team in an Inside Out program, which made the experience 10 times better.”
For Lawrence, the Inside-Out program is also a way to bring and develop education in prisons’ walls.
“This is a unique opportunity that no other students at any college or university in N.C. has,” she said. “We have the opportunity to not only benefit ourselves as an outside institution, but to create lasting change for the inside students by providing them a path to education, and hopefully changing the carceral system as well. One other thing that I wanted to point out is that equity is a driving principle of the Inside Out program. And so all of the services and resources that we have here at the college, we also provide at the Western Correctional Center for Women where Inside Out takes place. We have writing tutors, who go to the prison every day of the week, and provide tutoring and writing support. We also have academic support services, career planning and disability access at the prison for our students.”
The Inside-Out program proved that it was an important opportunity that students should use to specify their future, and also help to transform the education in carceral systems.
“It was a great experience, and I wouldn't trade it for the world,” Onderko said.