Initiative for Socially Engaged Academics

This program offers classroom engagement on questions of social justice and human relations between MIT students and others students who are in radically different circumstances. The heart of this initiative is the joint MIT/prison courses taught in the men’s prison at MCI Norfolk, and the women’s prison at MCI Framingham. These have already been piloted at MIT through the Experimental Study Group and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The courses are offered in collaboration with Boston University, which operates the Prison Education Program, the only program in the country that grants Bachelor degrees to incarcerated students through an in-house university program. The courses take place inside prison, and are comprised of approximately 10 prison students and 10 MIT students. We seek funds to support the teaching of two HASS-H classes in AY 2017-18 and to support on-campus activities for MIT students who have participated in the prison classes as students and TAs.