Welcome back to school! We’re excited to start another busy academic year with OPEEP.
Our degree cohort students at the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) are starting their first full-time semester after a year of taking two classes a semester. This pace allowed them to acclimate to the college workload and for us to acclimate running an entire college program inside a prison facility!
The students are also delighted to finally have their Chromebooks for coursework, after a year of handwriting assignments and papers. Two years of planning went into developing the learning management system (LMS) for the cohort students, since they cannot access Carmen like campus students can. They are restricted from any internet access, so our Canvas LMS offers them a way to read classwork, write papers, and receive feedback on their assignments from faculty. They have spent the last month brushing up on their typing skills. We wish them the best of luck as they take four 3-credit classes and their 1-credit GE Connections course this semester. Have a look at a couple class reports written by cohort members in this newsletter and keep an eye on Instagram and Facebook to see favorite class themes and topics from last academic year.
This issue also offers a view of some of the artwork done in Professor George Rush’s Spring Semester Drawing course at Southeastern Correctional Institution (SCI) in Lancaster. You may have also seen an OSU News story about another of our arts courses, Dr. Irvin Gonzalez’s Dance class at London Correctional Institution (LoCI). As usual, the newsletter includes reports on the learning community activities at SCI and ORW, called Philosophy 4 Humans and Liberation at the Margins Collective (LAM) respectively. Keep an eye out for future reports from OPEEP’s newest learning community in development at LoCI!
We’re busy planning for a big year of the arts with OPEEP. We have two Spark Grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Office for Academic Affairs for this academic year, one that sponsors a theatre program at the Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution in Lima with Lima campus Professor Margie Anich, and another that funds a partnership with the Returning Artists Guild to exhibit their artists’ work on the Mansfield, Newark and Columbus campuses this spring.
We want to give a special shout-out Professor Terri Winnick, Sociology-Mansfield. She is our sole OPEEP faculty member on the Mansfield campus, and her regular class offerings at Richland Correctional Institution are bright spots for incarcerated and campus students in Mansfield. We thank her for maintaining that pace and enthusiasm, just as we thank the Mansfield campus for supporting her efforts to keep OPEEP’s presence steady at that prison facility. We appreciate you, Dr. Winnick!
We’re also delighted to announce that Laura Hennigan is beginning a new role as a half-time staff member with OPEEP. She also works for the FREE Center in the WGSS Department. Laura is a jack of all trades, an expert editor and writer, and we’re grateful to her for jumping into the fray so easily. Welcome aboard, Laura!
Remember to follow us on Instagram @opeep_osu and consider donating to our Campus Campaign. A $15 donation pays for a book for an incarcerated student, so don’t hesitate if you can’t make a sizable donation, though we accept those, too!
Have a great start to autumn semester and thank you all for supporting OPEEP!
Drs. Tiyi Morris and Mary Thomas
