Spotlight on University of Utah Prison Education Project

This month, our spotlight is on the University of Utah Prison Education Project (UPEP).

Co-Founder, Erin L. Castro, PhD (she/ella/they) and Director, Andrew Eisen, PhD (he/him) share information on the project and how folks can get involved to help advance equity in education for incarcerated students.

What is the mission and vision of UPEP?

Committed to social transformation, UPEP advances educational equity through onsite higher education, empirical research, and advocacy. Through face-to-face engagement, we assist incarcerated students and non-incarcerated volunteers to live lives of impact, both in prison and post-incarceration, by fostering academic excellence, leadership, and civic engagement.

What are some examples of the activities your group facilitates? What are future initiatives?

UPEP engages in programming at Draper prison six days a week, with classes offered M-F in the evenings and on Saturday mornings. Our offerings include credit-bearing and non-credit-bearing semester-length classes, book clubs, one-time lectures, workshops, and supplemental instruction.

In the future, we hope to continue recruiting the campus community and providing on-campus resources to students in the Utah State Prison. We are particularly interested in providing students with health-related curriculum and training as this is frequent request of theirs. They lack access to high quality and consistent healthcare and so they have many questions and a strong desire to learn.

How can folks get involved with the program?

There are many ways to become involved with UPEP, and you do not need to be formally affiliated with the University of Utah to do so. In fact, our volunteers come from all across the state! We provide internship opportunities and take ongoing proposals for one-time lectures and workshops. For more information and to apply, please visit our website at https://prisoneducationproject.utah.edu/volunteer.

UPEP holds three orientations per year, one week before the University of Utah course calendar begins. Anyone can volunteer for UPEP as there are many opportunities to assist the project inside and outside of the Utah State prison. If you would like to join us, please connect via our website.

Any additional information people should know about the program?

UPEP is entirely funded through donations. Incarcerated students are not asked to financially pay to participate in UPEP now or in the future. The Project covers all costs associated with participation because we know that cost is a barrier to equity. Please consider making a donation to support our efforts via our website or through payroll deduction.