Welcome back to our new series for the OPEEP newsletter, called “A Day in the Life.” This month the entry is “A Week in the Life.” Each newsletter we will continue to 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. So thank you for reading and sharing in this work!
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_osu if you’d like us to share your thoughts on the series with the authors. Enjoy!
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“Frannie,” an incarcerated person at ORW, is a student in OPEEP’s college degree program. Outside of that, she spends a great deal of her day helping other people. Her eyes light up when she talks about the various programs she is a part of. She’s a peer mentor who is on call for her fellow incarcerated people if they need her help. Besides that, she is also a grief counselor for her religious ministry. Once a week, she also meets with other incarcerated people who are there for long sentences. In all of these programs, she both helps other people and finds help to keep herself going.
Frannie typically wakes up between 5 and 6 in the morning. She spends the quiet time completing schoolwork and reading. Frannie is in a group called the LAM collective – LAM stands for “Liberation at the Margins” – and she has readings to study from that group and her two college classes. Between 8 and 9 she showers and then goes to eat breakfast. Afterwards, on Mondays, she’s a one-on-one grief counselor for a group called Stephen’s Ministry. On Thursday, she has practice for The Harmony Project.
On Fridays, she runs two different groups – a self-esteem group and an anger and conflict group. No matter what, she makes sure to run to eat a quick lunch before it’s time for count, as she won’t have time afterwards.
After count, her days differ depending on what day of the week it is. Mondays, she has the LAM collective. Other days, she might draw or knit in the Community Service cottage.
Frannie’s OPEEP classes take up a good deal of time. She has office hours from 2-3:30 on Tuesdays, and class from 5-8:15 on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays, she has class from 12-3:30. She also has another set of office hours on Thursdays from 6-7:30. In addition, she needs to find time to get all her reading and homework done.
When she’s not in her OPEEP classes in the evening, Frannie still stays busy. After dinner, she often has more one-on-one appointments with Stephen’s Ministry. She also might work out, knit in the Community Service cottage, join the Beautiful Life group, or watch some football. When 10:30 comes around, it’s finally time for some rest.
