A Breakthrough Year for Cornell's Prison Program

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Congratulations, Class of 2022! No graduation ceremonies in prison this year (thanks to COVID) but we will host a graduation ceremony on campus for some of the 31 CPEP graduates who completed their degree in prison and who were then released from prison during the pandemic. Between this, and Cornell's emerging plan to pilot a Bachelor's degree program in prison, we are all in high spirits!

Tuition Assistance Program returns to NYS Prisons

Alumni, faculty, and staff of the Cornell Prison Education Program came together to celebrate the restoration of state financial aid for college in prison. We can now state this in past tense: incarcerated students were denied access to the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) from 1995 until 2022. We are grateful to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her leadership in restoring this crucial program, and for legitimating the contributions of incarcerated people to civic and intellectual life.

Pictured above (L to R): Jermaine Barrett '18, Richard Paul '18, Jon Istvan '18, Richard Hendricks '16, then CPEP team members Keisha, Betsye, Richard and Rob, then Jesse Johnston '18 and Darryl Epps (both profiled below), and Philip Miller (entering his third year at CUNY Law School). These men helped inspire the wave of reforms that will help the next generation of CPEP students reach their highest potential.

We also congratulate Corning Community College, our partners at Elmira Correctional Facility, on being accepted to the 2022 cohort of the US Dept. of Education's Second Chance Pell initiative.

TA Alumni Profile: Julia Mehlman Breyer '07
“From Auburn TA to Judge Jackson’s Chambers”

(in conversation with Professor Mary Katzenstein)

Mary Katzenstein: It’s astonishing: It feels like one minute you were TAing at Auburn and the next thing I know you are clerking for Judge (Ketanji Brown) Jackson. When you were working with her, were there echoes of your time at Auburn?

Julia Mehlman Breyer: More than an echo. Judge Jackson, as I’m sure you know, spent part of her career as a federal public defender and she spent time on the Sentencing Commission... Read more here.

Alumni Spotlight: Jesse Johnston

“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.”
--Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Betsye Violette (known to her students as "Ms. V") writes about CPEP Alumnus Jesse Johnston, who received his BA from University of Rochester last month. Read more here.

Congratulations to CPEP Alumnus Darryl Epps for accepting a new position as Director of Outreach and Intake Services position with the CUNY Research Foundation.

Keri Blakinger '15 has released a memoir, Corrections in Ink, which was reviewed today in the New York Times. Buy the book and read her remarkable journey from prison to graduating from Cornell.

Congratulations to CPEP alum Jodi Anderson on receiving his MA in Education from Stanford University. Read about his upstart initiative, the Restorative Record at the Cornell Chronicle.

Give to CPEP

Tuition Assistance Program returns to NYS Prisons

TA Alumni Profile: Julia Mehlman Breyer '07 “From Auburn TA to Judge Jackson’s Chambers”

Alumni Spotlight: Jesse Johnston

TA Alumni Profile: Julia Mehlman Breyer '07
“From Auburn TA to Judge Jackson’s Chambers”