The Inside-Out National Steering Committee

Katie D.

January 23, 2011 - 7:51 PM

I am writing from the airport in Salt Lake City, halfway back to a normal life. I'm returning from a long weekend in Philadelphia, spent with the leaders of the Inside-Out Program, working through strategic planning and program initiatives in their yearly Steering Committee meeting.

First of all, I was thrilled to be there. The Honors College paid for my trip, as part of my work for their social justice initiatives and as a representative of the alumni at the University of Oregon. Then, once I arrived, I found myself being treated as a colleague by the fifteen professors and staff members able to attend the Inside-Out meeting. Some of these people have been working for social change through academics and activism since the Civil Rights Movement. Others have been working tirelessly in the past few years to create this vibrant program that has made such an incredible difference in my life. My overwhelming sense of this weekend is one of gratitude and excitement: I feel so humbled by their welcome and their confidence in me, and so inspired by everything I learned.

This weekend was meeting after meeting after meeting. We discussed program mission and vision, worked through new funding models, and discussed the implementation of new projects. I signed on to be a member of several new subcommittees, including for Publication (looking at starting an academic and student journal), and the idea of expanding Inside-Out workshops into new venues and with new intentionality (like we did with Sister Helen Prejean). The great objective achievement of the weekend for me was approval to move forward on alumni projects with a great degree of autonomy: the ability to create and market a blog for past students of Inside-Out classes, and to work on replicating the Book Club model in other places in Oregon and more regions around the country.

Again, I am amazed by this organization, and by the work that's being done. I can't wait to work further.

The best part of the weekend was the portion spent with the Think Tank at Graterford Prison. The Think Tank consists of approximately fifteen men incarcerated at Graterford, as well as Philadelphia-based instructors and alumni of Inside-Out. The Think Tank informs the direction of the national program, as well as running two days of the week-long instructor training.

We had incredible conversations at Graterford, everything from new training models to the projects being developed in Graterford and elsewhere. There is a powerful dynamic in the Think Tank: a sense of true collaboration and mutual respect. I seldom feel so alive or so empowered as when I am working with a combined group of inside and outside individuals.

The men at the Think Tank had a profound impact on me when I first met them during the instructor training in 2009. I left Graterford after the training imagining that I would never see those men again--I had no plans to return to Pennsylvania and no way of knowing if I would get the chance. So I left those individuals forever, and then yesterday returned to spend the entire day working with them again.

The last moments of the Think Tank meeting were emblematic of the whole meeting experience for me. We closed our meeting by going around the circle and each saying a single word about how we were feeling. Mine was "inspiration." Many others were "challenged, excitement, curiosity, and enthusiasm." But the final word was from Tyrone. I'll be writing a blog just about him. But he was a founding member of the Think Tank and a huge inspiration in my life. After serving thirty-seven years of a life sentence, he is days away from being released after his sentence was commuted by the governor. As we sat in the circle, you could feel the energy radiating out of him, and the hope and power we all felt from him.

His final word, the last word of the meeting, was everything. It was "Freedom."