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ASC Daily Post Article Highlights OPEEP's Work to Challenge Misconceptions and Build Pathways

July 22, 2022

ASC Daily Post Article Highlights OPEEP's Work to Challenge Misconceptions and Build Pathways

A group of Professor Tiyi Morris' students smile and pose from her Spring 2022 Course AAAS 3083: "The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements," at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.

A recent College of Arts and Sciences Daily Post article titled "Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project challenges misconceptions, builds pathways" focuses on the project's ongoing work to combat harmful misconceptions about justice-involved folks and forge prison-to-college pathways for formerly incarcerated people. With thoughts from OPEEP Co-Directors Dr. Mary Thomas and Dr. Tiyi Morris and a highlight on the Spring 2022 course "AAAS 3083: The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements" taught by Morris at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, the article discusses how OPEEP instructors and students push back against the dehumanization experienced by incarcerated students. The article also touches on the early history of OPEEP as a project, its fundamental view that access to quality education is a right for all, and its future plans to expand course offerings and establish degree-bearing programs inside Ohio prison facilities. The article ends on a note from OPEEP student and OSU senior Kourtney Newberry, who emphasized OPEEP's impact on her education and explained her view of the project's work as a critical step in the fight towards "abolishing carceral punishment and dismantling for-profit mass incarceration."