re·mark·a·ble/rəˈmärkəb(ə)l/(adjective) worthy of attention; striking. Room B-104 is located in Muskegon Correctional Facility’s school building. It is the home of the Hope-Western Prison Education Program. Remarkable things happen there. On Wednesday, January 12 the Hope College men’s basketball team defeated arch-rival Calvin University, 78-65. The next morning we walked into B-104 at Muskegon Correctional Facility …
Author Archives: Richard Ray
“Being With” or “Doing For”
As we enter the last week of the semester, the HWPEP students at Muskegon Correctional Facility are hard at work writing end-of-term papers and preparing for their final exam in Professor David Stubbs’ Faith Seeking Understanding course. A COVID outbreak in the students’ living unit forced us to deliver the course in a distanced manner …
Education or Ministry?
Is the Hope-Western Prison Education Program primarily oriented toward education? Or is it more aligned with ministry? The program is an accredited academic program leading to a Bachelor’s degree. It is intellectually rigorous, oriented to the liberal arts, and is therefore broad in its design while also providing depth of study in a major area …
Finding Their Bearings
New college students the world over begin their undergraduate studies by spending a few days being oriented to the academic life by faculty, staff, and more experienced students. The Hope-Western Prison Education Program students at Muskegon Correctional Facility are no different. There won’t be the usual campus tours or “getting to know you” games common …
“I was in prison, and you came to visit me.”
The Summer 2021 issue of News from Hope College features an article on the Hope-Western Prison Education Program.
BA Degree Phase Announced
Today Hope College, Western Theological Seminary, and the Michigan Department of Corrections announced a six-year renewable agreement to offer a Hope BA at Muskegon Correctional Facility. Read more about it here>>
Prove It
The Hope-Western Prison Education Program operated in a non-credit mode from March 2018 through July 2021. The 20 students in the program’s first cohort took six courses and engaged in two book studies in this pilot phase of the program. Here is what we learned: Students Proposition 1: Incarcerated men serving long sentences are capable …
How Does Your Donation Help?
Please consider a gift to support our work. The Hope-Western Prison Education Program’s fundraising goal for 2021 is $200,000. Gifts made this year will be matched up to $100,000. All gifts help offset costs for professor and teaching assistant stipends, travel to and from Muskegon Correctional Facility, textbook and computer purchases, school supplies, and student and …
Why Teach in Prison?
We surveyed the Hope and WTS faculty during the planning phase of the Hope-Western Prison Education Program. One hundred seventy-two faculty responded to the survey. Of the 147 that completed the survey, 61 (42%) of you responded affirmatively when asked if you would be interested in teaching in the program. Forty of you (27%) indicated …
Why Go To College In Prison?
The question may seem silly to those of us for whom a college education was always part of our natural path to full adulthood. But many incarcerated people come from backgrounds of poverty, violence, and trauma. The kind of future-oriented imaginations that most of our traditional students grow up with are foreign to people whose …