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. During the summer of 2021 the COVID pandemic forced the Michigan Department of Corrections to close prisons to visitors, volunteers, and everyone else who did not […]
Author Archives: Richard Ray
“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 […]
The Prisoner’s Mite
The parable of the widow’s mite (Luke 21:1-4) is familiar to many. An impoverished widow contributes two small coins as an offering to the temple coffers. These coins represent a huge sacrifice for her. We can imagine her praying “Take all that I have, Lord, for all I have is yours.” The Hope-Western Prison Education […]
Why Visit The Prisoner?
(And what to bring when you do) On Good Friday we read in Isaiah: He was spurned and avoided by people,a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,one of those from whom people hide their faces,spurned, and we held him in no esteem… Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any […]
If You Were In Prison, What Would You Want To Read This Summer?
One of our goals during Covidtime is to send learning materials and assignments to our Hope-Western Prison Education Program students at Muskegon Correctional Facility. We hope to maintain a learning community and develop habits of continuing intellectual engagement. Keeping in touch with these students in this way is especially important while we aren’t allowed to […]