We’re in the midst of a busy semester with OPEEP! Our classes at London Correctional Institution, Southeaster Correctional Institution, and the Ohio Reformatory for Women are all going very well, and we are delighted that the arts classes (Drawing at SCI and Dance at LoCI) are finding great success. Classes that get students out of their chairs and engaging in sometimes messy work can be challenging to host in prison classrooms, but Professors Rush and Gonzalez are pushing the boundaries for our curricula and providing incarcerated students with new skills and confidence. In this edition of the newsletter, you will find a faculty profile of Professor Gonzalez (and if you missed it last autumn, meet Professor Rush in his faculty profile).
We have had to say goodbye to staff member Siatta Dennis-Brown as she moves on in her career. She joined us at the beginning of our project on the Newark Campus, helping with programming and student recruitment. We were delighted to partner with the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme in bringing Siatta to the Columbus Campus full time, and she not only assisted us with our collaborations with GAHDT, she worked in a wide array of duties for each of us. She is a talented woman who always seemed to keep those many juggling balls safely in the air as she multitasked, and we will sorely miss her cheer and her steadfast commitment to OPEEP’s students. Best of luck to you, Siatta!
In this newsletter we welcome you back to our new series, “A Day in the Life.” This month the entry is “A Week in the Life.” Each newsletter we will profile a student at the Ohio Reformatory for Women who is enrolled in the bachelor’s degree in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies or who participates in Liberation at the Margins Collective (LAM Collective); some students do both. Our goal with the series is to demystify the everyday lives of incarcerated people and the spaces of prison. We believe that it is everyone’s responsibility to learn more about prisons and the people they house so that we can work against the harmful stereotypes that buttress our country’s carceral state and logics.
The students’ days are busy ones, with courses, study halls, and class assignments. OPEEP students are also leaders in the prison facility who design and administer groups focusing on wellbeing, religious practice and spirituality, grief, addiction and recovery, parenting, arts and crafts, music, and more. Many have earned certifications that allow them to lead groups, while others have just taken the time to develop materials based on their own lives and lessons learned. Some are self-taught musicians and artists, or have learned new languages, or have personal passions that motivate them to spend significant time and effort to learn about a range of curiosities, from how to raise chickens or plant a garden, how to understand the universe and outer space.
We hope that you enjoy getting to ‘meet’ OPEEP students from ORW! We have created a false name for each contributor to protect their privacy, but each contribution is written and shared by the student directly. Email us at opeep@osu.edu or DM @opeep_osuif you’d like us to share your thoughts on the series with the authors. We will be sure they receive your comments. Enjoy!
Finally, we remind everyone to keep an eye on our social media, listserv, and website for Autumn Semester OPEEP courses. In fact, although enrollment windows have not yet started, OPEEP’s class application portal is already open! Please share with peers and students widely so that we can continue to offer our combined-enrollment courses that bring campus and incarcerated students together. It’s an exciting lineup, and we can’t wait to see some of you enroll!
Dr. Mary Thomas and Dr. Tiyi Morris
