MADRAS — Deer Ridge Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison just outside Madras, has over 1,000 adults in custody. This year, 17 of them will be working toward an associate of arts degree when the college program reconvenes at the end of September for its third term.

The associate of arts Oregon transfer degree, offered through Central Oregon Community College, allows prisoners to gain college credits and continue their education as they begin to figure out what their lives will be like when they are released.

According to Vera Institute of Justice, people who participate in higher education programs while in prison are 48% less likely to return to prison than those who haven’t. When released, former inmates who participate also have a 12% higher likelihood of being employed.

“It goes with the college mission and vision to help underprivileged students,” said Jay Sklenar, the education director for the prison. “They get their GEDs, and we’ve got the college (program) to keep them motivated and keep them life-long learners.”

Rebuilding bridges

Emma Chaput, a biology professor at COCC who teaches heath and fitness at Deer Ridge, worked to create the associate’s degree program at Deer Ridge after doing a residency at the Bard Prison Initiative during a sabbatical.

“I got back from my sabbatical and basically just started rallying the troops, if you will,” she said. “For the past two years, I’ve been working to launch this program in sort of an ad-hoc capacity, I don’t have any official title, but we started classes in this past spring term and enrolled our first cohort of students.”

The 2020 law that ensured incarcerated students are eligible for Pell grants — federal grants that can fund higher education — also inspired Chaput to begin the program. In July, the college learned Deer Ridge inmates were approved for Pell grants, which cover tuition, books and other supplies.

After the spring term was over, students told Chaput that they became friends with other inmates in classes they hadn’t known previously.

“They built a lot of really positive relationships,” she said. “One of our primary goals is to center the people as students, and when we are in class we are in college, acknowledging that we are within a carceral facility, of course, but trying to shift the primary institution in those students’ lives from the department of corrections institution to the institution of higher education.”

New opportunities

Students have taken writing, health and fitness and college success courses, among others. The schedule depends on the schedule of the professor who comes in to teach it and when the classroom and students are available.

Overall, the program should run for slightly over two years, and students can only start a term if they will still be there to complete it.

But not all students will necessarily complete their associate’s degree.

“We decided deliberately to not limit admission to people who could complete their associate’s degree,” Chaput said.

Even if students aren’t able to complete the degree, they still have the credits they’ve earned. Chaput is working with other community colleges statewide to make sure students know they can pick up their degree at another college when they are released.

“What they have told me is they value the opportunity to be in a space that leaves prison politics outside the door,” she said. “(I’ve heard) just some really powerful stories about how being in this program, for a different student, has shifted his relationship with his daughter, and that she is also in college so they talk all the time, they talk about their homework. It has allowed him to rebuild some bridges that had been damaged by his incarceration.”

Third term starting soon

Sklenar, who works for COCC and oversees the GED diploma program, the associate of arts degree program and the welding certificate program at Deer Ridge, said he’s looking forward to the fall term.

Students overall did well in the first two terms.

“Our students are very motivated, they’ve got lots of time and they’re very focused on their education,” he said. “Here, they can pretty much focus all their time and energy (on school). I think we had straight As over the summer.”

Students are allowed to keep their notebooks and books with them in their housing units, and have limited access to a computer lab and library. The computers have specialized access to the research compendium JSTOR to search for academic journal articles.

“We have textbooks for them, it all depends on how the instructor would like to teach,” he said. “Sometimes it’s group work, sometimes it’s individual work … Exactly the same class that they would take if they were on campus.”

Sklenar hopes the program can expand at some point in the future and more students can start their degree.

“By getting their education they can be successful on the outside,” he said.

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