In honor of the upcoming Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day Augustana College is hosting a panel discussion and movie, “College Behind Bars” .  It’s a four hour film directed by PBS’ Ken Burns & Lynn Novick and is available on Netflix.  The events on January 17^th will highlight and explain how college in prison programs are part of the “dream of the beloved community” through the inspiring voices of formerly incarcerated students.

The featured panelists will include men featured in the PBS documentary, members of the Bard Prison Initiative and the Augustana Prison Education Program. The 20-year-old Bard Prison Initiative is a program of Bard College that provides college education to people in prison. The academic programs end in associate and bachelor’s degrees from Bard. Bard first started making the news when its debate team won against Harvard University in 2015.

The Augustana Prison Education Program, which began this fall, is modeled after the Bard Prison Initiative and was organized by Dr. Sharon Varallo. Ten men are attending classes this fall at East Moline Correctional Center, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in communication studies.

The panel discussion is going to be a virtual event live—via Zoom–at 6:30 pm on January 17^th.

Here is additional information about the day:  https://www.augustana.edu/about-us/news/king-celebration-jan-17-feature-prison-education-outreach

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Sean Leary Director of Digital Media

Sean Leary is an author, director, artist, musician, producer and entrepreneur who has been writing professionally since debuting at age 11 in the pages of the Comics Buyers Guide. An honors graduate of the University of Southern California masters program, he has written over 50 books including the best-sellers The Arimathean, Every Number is Lucky to Someone and We Are All Characters.