{"id":35227,"date":"2023-06-17T19:18:39","date_gmt":"2023-06-17T19:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=35227"},"modified":"2023-06-17T19:18:51","modified_gmt":"2023-06-17T19:18:51","slug":"yale-university-of-new-haven-partnership-celebrates-first-degrees-awarded-to-inmates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/06\/17\/yale-university-of-new-haven-partnership-celebrates-first-degrees-awarded-to-inmates\/","title":{"rendered":"Yale, University of New Haven partnership celebrates first degrees awarded to inmates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marcus Harvin has two identification cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One shows he is a fellow at Yale College, which is helping him on a track toward law school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other shows he is a parolee, just released from the maximum security MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution after spending six years in prison for a highly publicized drunken driving accident that left his two young children injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvin, who hopes to become a defense attorney someday, was back inside the prison Friday for a graduation ceremony at which he received his associate degree in general studies from the University of New Haven. He and six other men make up the first class to matriculate from a partnership between UNH\u2019s Prison Education Program and the Yale Prison Education Initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat name, Yale, means so much because I\u2019m from New Haven and to be able to study at Yale and begin studying in prison is unheard of,\u201d said Harvin. \u201cPeople even think I\u2019m lying sometimes, so I\u2019ll show them my jail I.D. and my Yale I.D.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Yale program was launched in 2016 by alum Zelda Roland. It was based on a similar program she was part of while working with Wesleyan University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yale partnered with UNH in 2021, giving the student-inmates a path to two and four year college degrees. The program, which offers classes at McDougall-Walker and the federal women\u2019s prison in Danbury, is now part of a consortium that includes 15 schools and prison systems across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe believe that this is a transformative program, that it has the potential to make a generational impact,\u201d said Roland, who serves as the director of the Yale-UNH partnership. \u201cWe believe that we\u2019re transforming not just individual student\u2019s lives, but also the institutions that we work in, both the universities and correctional system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gov. Ned Lamont served as the graduation speaker Friday, echoing that theme and expressing hope that the graduates will pave the way for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe define our own futures and today is the start of that,\u201d he said. \u201cYou learn from the past, but you define your own future. And what happens in your future is going to be your legacy. And I want you to have a really important story to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just over 20% of inmates receive some form of higher education in prison, UNH officials said. And studies have shown that those who do are far less likely to have behavioral problems in prison, and far less likely to commit crimes once they are released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Harvin said it also gives inmates something that may be less tangible, but perhaps just as important \u2014 hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt literally is the light at the end of the tunnel that gives the day illumination,\u201d Harvin said. \u201cBecause when you get to those classes, you don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re in prison. You actually go from being in a cell to being kind of, sort of on a campus. You literally feel like you\u2019re not in the same place anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marcus Harvin has two identification cards. One shows he is a fellow at Yale College, which is helping him on a track toward law school. The other shows he is a parolee, just released from the maximum security MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution after spending six years in prison for a highly publicized drunken driving accident that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80,1441,12],"tags":[5144,287,423,746,3577,6834,5910,11111,10248,7351,10342,12906,10250,11137,10249,12309,11973,8306,6736,8810,5655,9277,6059,12253,9039,214,10247,3954,5320,10415,594,10246,5140],"class_list":["post-35227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-religion","category-world-news","tag-accident","tag-children","tag-education","tag-feel","tag-future","tag-graduates","tag-initiative","tag-injured","tag-inmates","tag-jail","tag-law","tag-law-school","tag-macdougall-walker-correctional-institution","tag-make-up","tag-marcus-harvin","tag-men","tag-one","tag-prison","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-security","tag-speaker","tag-student","tag-transformative","tag-universities","tag-university","tag-university-of-new-haven","tag-will","tag-women","tag-work","tag-who","tag-yale-university","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}