Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

Internship Update

Katie D.

October 27, 2009 - 10:43 AM

There is so much to say! More than I can get down in one blog, certainly. I could write about what I've been doing on a weekly basis, the dreams we've come up with, or the things that have already happened. But, friends and readers, this internship is such a good thing for me. It is totally changing how I think about my position in the world: I have found a place where I am working for change in a way that is amazingly important to me. And I'll be working with this organization for the next two and a half years at the very least. I have found a place where I can effect change across the country, and over a long period of time!

For those of you who have missed early descriptions of my internship or of the Inside-Out Program please check out those links and watch the documentary on the Inside-Out website. But here's the short version: The Inside-Out Program is a national educational program that brings college classes into correctional institutions with an equal number of inside (incarcerated) and outside (college) students. The classes are set up to create dialogue and understanding between the two groups, not to have one group "help" or study the other. I am working with the Assistant National Director of the Program to work on evaluating, expanding, and improving the program on a local, regional, and national level.

This is the dream job for me. I've entered this program at a time of huge change and potential as national recognition and the number of participating institutions has grown on a massive scale. There is so much to be done!

We have a huge number of irons currently in the fire. Projects I am working on include: creation of an alumni network, editing a publication of inside and outside student work, recruiting new UO professors to teach Inside-Out classes, helping to organize a regional meeting of instructors, researching publications to provide individuals interested in evaluating the program in the larger context of prison education, and working to move the program toward offering a degree program to the inside students.

Overwhelming? Not a bit. Well, maybe just a bit. But this is inspiration in its purest form.

Every week I'm reading articles, meeting with UO faculty, drafting emails, attending conference calls, and dreaming up ways of making all these things happen. Every time I sit down to work on Inside-Out related things, I feel like I am working on what makes me most sincerely happy. The work I do this year (and for the next two) will enable more students (both inside and outside) across the country to experience this program. My time in the classes totally changed my perspective of the world: from my view of prisons to my ideas of academia to how I relate with some stranger in my life. It transformed who I think of as my peer. And now I have the chance to work to offer this experience to more people, to improve the experiences of those already involved, to encourage research to better understand the program, and to provide some way for other alumni of the program to stay involved.

I feel constantly and unbelievably privileged to be doing this work. I also feel like this is the perfect time to be working in this program. Everywhere I look, there are signs that change is possible and that people are excited about and open to this program. I'm learning new ways of thinking and working, as well as the (new to me) history and theory of prisons. I'm learning to look at the potential for collaboration between this program and the other pieces of my academic and social experiences.

What I've got now is big plans, and an ever-increasing ability to make these plans happen. The next three years are going to see massive changes in the Inside-Out Program's effectiveness as we expand and re-evaluate the program. And I will have a hand in that.

Don't be surprised when I write about this over and over. This is the most exciting piece of all my exciting projects right now, and the place with the most opportunity for change.