ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú

Narrator (00:02):
This is Greater, We Ascend, a podcast from the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú about Loggers reaching to the heights.

Tanya Erzen (00:11):
Hi, I am Tanya Erzen. I am a professor at the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, and I direct the Crime, Law, and Justice program as well as being the faculty director of FEPPS. FEPPS is the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a college program in a maximum security prison that is designated for women.

(00:31):
How does FEPPS work? FEPPS is, like I said, college program. It is a nonprofit that we started about 13 years ago in order to provide college classes to people who are incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Women. At first, we didn't have an accrediting partner, and so we just taught classes for no credit. Then we have offered an associate of arts degree for many years, and for the past four years, we've offered a bachelor's degree through the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú.

(01:05):
The program got started because women in the prison had organized themselves into a community-based organization called the Women's Village. The prison was considered the most violent of all the prisons in the state, even though there are fewer prisons for women, and a lot of that was because the prison had cut programs, especially for people with long sentences. So if you wanted to get into any kind of program, you had to have a sentence within seven years. So people who were serving a lot of time didn't have a lot to do, so they created this organization, a community-based organization. Their motto was that if they have to live somewhere, they want to live as if they're in a village where they're supporting each other. And one of the many things they did, including nonviolence counseling for other people, helping people get their GEDs, was wanting college classes.

(02:01):
So they had talked to a professor named Dr. Gilda Shepherd, who is a retired professor at the Evergreen State College at Tacoma. She had taught a class there, just a one-off, and she, along with a professor at my university, Stuart Smithers, invited a group of us to meet with the women in this organization and hear what they wanted. And from that meeting, we started organizing, and that is eventually what became the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound.

(02:34):
This program is really important because especially for people who are women who end up in prison, they tend to be the primary caretakers for their children. They tend to have experienced violence. When people come out of prison, they don't always have a lot of opportunities. There are so many barriers around housing, around jobs that giving people the opportunity to have an education, especially people who are women in prison, gives them an opportunity to be successful in a way that they wouldn't otherwise.

(03:11):
Also, as someone who's been in education for 20 years, I do believe that all people should have access to higher education if they want it, and because it gives them an opportunity to choose and to decide what is it that they're interested in, what is it that they're good at, it gives them more opportunities for the prison. Also, when someone sees that you've received a associate's degree or a bachelor's degree while you're in prison, they're more likely to think, look, you did this while you were in this place where there are a lot of other things going on and you wouldn't necessarily associate with someone going to college. It shows that you're able to change. It shows that you're able to thrive and be successful, and I want all people inside and outside of prison to have the opportunity to go to school if they want to.

(04:02):
The students on the main campus are involved and have been for a decade. So they take a class with me where they learn about issues of incarceration and thinking about what it means to go into a prison, why do people end up there? Then they go into our study halls and they are what we call co-learners. They really just get to know the students in the prison. It's a way of normalizing the college experience for people inside, but also for the outside students to interact with students who are, they're co-students just at a different campus and might have different life experiences, might be different ages.

(04:40):
I mean, the easiest success story is that in 2016, I think we had our first associate degree graduation, and the person who is valedictorian, her name is Alyssa Knight. She also was one of the founders who when we first started the program in 2013, 2012, she is now the executive director of the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound.

(05:11):
She just went through that whole process. She was acting as co-director, and then after a process that looked at candidates nationally, the board chose her. So here is someone who was in the prison, had a very long sentence, I believe she was in there about 18 years. She received a unanimous vote of clemency even though she received that from the clemency board. She waited during the pandemic for about a year and a half for the governor to approve that, and then came out, finished her degree at the University of Washington at Seattle, and then did other kinds of work, and then is now running our organization, so is in charge of all staff, fundraising, relationships with the prison. And I think that says a lot too about the prison that they, because people have to be cleared and go through training to go into the prison and that they've become much more open to a lot of our alumni coming back and doing work on reentry leading the organization.

(06:12):
Alyssa, our executive director, while she was still in prison, when she finished her associate's degree, she started our BA degree, but she also started an entire program and curriculum on gender identity that is now considered a program. And that was because there were more and more people in the prison who identified as non-binary or transgender, and there was a lot of misunderstanding, not just with other people in the prison, with other prisoners, with staff. And so she brought in all kinds of people, organized a series, organized a curriculum, had a support group. It's now considered a legitimate program by the administration. So people make changes inside the prison and outside the prison.

(06:57):
And again, when you ask, why do we do this, especially for people with long sentences, someone on the outside might argue, well, they're just in prison, so what's the point of a degree? But you can change the culture and the place wherever you are. And I think one success of our program is that it's really changed the culture of the prison because it's a college campus. So there's of now around six or 700 people, you have a hundred plus people going to college. That kind of changes the dynamic of what's happening in prison.

(07:33):
I think Puget Sound is different and unique because by virtue of its small size, and it's very genuine emphasis on the wellbeing of our students. And the story that I like to tell is the student who came to campus after being in the prison program had the first semester was commuting, did not have a license because they'd been in prison since they were, I don't know, 15 or 16. They were commuting from their aunt's house on a bus, took them about three hours with transfers and so forth.

(08:12):
So they had planned the second semester to study abroad, and they had found this great program, but the conditions of their parole did not allow them to travel internationally. So they had to be on campus, and they were sort of devastated, but they were also really weary from that commute. And they called up and this person is great at advocating for themselves. So I think that's one thing they learned after a long time in prison, but also the type of person they are. But they called up the director of housing, whose name is Debbie Chee, and Debbie Chee the next day I think, or that afternoon, just said, okay, let's look at what we have for campus housing. And took them around and they found an apartment that's right on campus, and they got to move in. And I brought them a bookshelf from my house, and some former alumni, some students at Puget Sound brought them things, and it just made their whole experience of being a student on campus, it transformed it because they could be there, they could attend events.

(09:17):
They weren't doing this long commute, they joined all these clubs and so forth. So I think, again, I can't imagine, well, I taught at the Ohio State University before this job, and I can't imagine just by virtue of its size, someone like, okay, I'll just walk around with you for half a day and find an apartment that works for you. And I think that is a special part of it.

(09:39):
And if we're talking about the FEPPS program, the higher ed and prison program, the university across the board has been so supportive. So you go to the registrar and you talk about, well, it's kind of different because we're registering people for classes, but they don't need a classroom because they're in the prison and they just make it work. Financial aid makes it work. The admission staff up to the administration, they just were like, okay, we can do this.

(10:13):
We can make this happen. And we're currently figuring this out as we transition and try and admit a new cohort of bachelor degree students under Pell funding, under federal funding. So that is more complicated, but once we get it set up, it will hopefully sustain the program going forward.

(10:32):
What does "to the heights" mean in our work? I think I interpret the model "to the heights" as how do you build something? We've built something in the prison, we've built a micro college. How do we make it so that those students can somehow participate in and experience the things that you get to experience on the main campus? And maybe that's writing an article for the newspaper on campus. But I think part of that motto is allowing people to have all of the tools so that they can achieve and thrive. So I think of it less as reaching the heights of something as just what are we giving people so that they're progressing, that they have the tools to thrive and to flourish in the world and not reach some particular goal, but to have goals, I think, "to the heights" is aspirational.

(11:41):
And when you're in prison, and maybe people on campus feel this way too, maybe they don't have goals or maybe they feel defeated in different ways. And I think that in the prison context gives people a way to think, I am moving towards something that I might not know the end result. I might not be getting out of prison right away, but I am moving towards something different. I'm going to do something different with my life.

(12:07):
At the graduation, I quoted this, I use this quote that I really like from E.L. Doctorow and E.L. Doctorow says something about writing a book is like driving a car in the darkness at night without any headlights or with just the barest headlights. You can't really see more than a few feet in front of you, but you just keep going and you can make the whole trip that way. And I think that's true with in many ways, going to college and prison and on campus. You just keep moving forward, right? What is the quote is you make the road by walking, and eventually you're going to end up in a really different place with different kinds of tools and experiences to help you.

Narrator (12:58):
Greater, We Ascend, is a production of the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. This episode was produced by John Moe. Our theme music is by Skylar Hedblom, Puget Sound Class of 2025. Learn more at pugetsound.edu/greater.