Coe grant brings students, prison inmates together to learn from each other

CEDAR RAPIDS — Coe College recently received a $15,350 grant for a prison learning project that will bring Coe students and Florida prison inmates together to learn from each other.

The Institutionalizing Community-Based Pedagogies grant from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest will support the creation of a new Prison Learning Initiative at Coe, which will provide a range of high-impact experiences for students and community members, according to Coe officials. They will learn about and become involved with the criminal legal system in Iowa and the Midwest.

Coe faculty and students will support incarcerated people and “returning citizens” through community-based research projects, service learning and volunteer opportunities, according to a news release. The initiative also provides the necessary foundation at Coe to begin partnering with the Iowa Consortium for Higher Education in Prison.

The project is led by professors Neal McNabb, program chair who teaches social and criminal justice; Katie Rodgers, who teaches sociology; and Gina Hausknecht, who teaches English.

The initiative extends the reach of Coe’s popular and growing social and criminal justice program and builds on the students’ strong interest in mass incarceration, according to the news release. It also capitalizes on the college’s strategic geographic location in Cedar Rapids, which has the 6th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services that provides many opportunities for engagement with social services, community corrections and the Iowa judicial system.

To allow Coe students and incarcerated students to learn together, the initiative will support letter-writing exchanges through Exchange for Change, a Florida-based nonprofit organization. Students at Coe and in Florida prisons take courses with common readings and exchange letters about course material. Coe participated in Exchange for Change last year for the first time.

“I thought Exchange for Change was an amazing experience and would definitely recommend it to other Coe students,” Sarah Hyatt, a junior, said about the program. “I found it enriching to discuss books with people who had sometimes been through similar experiences or situations. I wouldn't have been able to hear from these perspectives by only discussing the books in class.”

The learning initiative will sponsor a number of events available to the public over the coming year. Among them is a campus and community book drive for Midwest Books to Prisoners, which sends books to “incarcerated readers” who have requested specific titles or areas of interest. After collecting books on campus and in the Cedar Rapids area, students will travel to Chicago to volunteer for a day at the distribution center, fulfilling requests for those in prisons.

Emphasizing active, hands-on learning, the program will host a Reentry Simulation from 6 to 8 p.m. April 12, in Coe’s Eby Fieldhouse. This free simulation is designed to allow participants to gain an understanding of the obstacles incarcerated individuals face upon release from jail or prison. By “living the life” of someone reentering the community after incarceration, participants experience firsthand the barriers and challenges encountered by returning citizens on a daily basis.

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