Conference on College in Prison 2025 (March 18–19)
Equity and the Carceral System
with Inthrive Film Festival
RSVP to let us know you are coming:
(If you are a student attending with your class, no need to RSVP separately.)
Day 1: March 18 (10:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.)
Bill Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02116
Livestream available (RSVP for details)
10:00 to 10:10 a.m.: Welcome
Alex Socarides, Provost
10:10 to 11:30 a.m.: Opening Address: “The purpose of education in prison”
Mneesha Gellman, Founder and Director, Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI)
11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.: Break
12:00 to 1:20 p.m. Keynote: “A Wall is Just a Wall” by Reiko Hillyer, Professor of History, Lewis and Clark College (Introduction by Mneesha Gellman)
Throughout the twentieth century, even the harshest prison systems in the United States were rather porous. Incarcerated people were regularly released from prison for Christmas holidays; the wives of incarcerated men could visit for seventy-two hours relatively unsupervised; and governors routinely commuted the sentences of people convicted of murder. By the 1990s, these practices had become rarer as politicians and the media—in contrast to corrections officials—described the public as potential victims who required constant protection against the threat of violence. In A Wall Is Just a Wall Reiko Hillyer focuses on gubernatorial clemency, furlough, and conjugal visits to examine the origins and decline of practices that allowed incarcerated people to transcend prison boundaries. Illuminating prisoners’ lived experiences as they suffered, critiqued, survived, and resisted changing penal practices, she shows that the current impermeability of the prison is a recent, uneven, and contested phenomenon. By tracking the “thickening” of prison walls, Hillyer historicizes changing ideas of risk, the growing bipartisan acceptance of permanent exile and fixing the convicted at the moment of their crime as a form of punishment, and prisoners’ efforts to resist.
1:20 to 1:40 p.m.: EPI alum David Baxter ‘22, Motivational Dreamers
Introduction by Betsey Chace, Program Manager, EPI
1:40 to 2:00 p.m.: Break
2:00 to 3:45 p.m.: Panel - Reversing the Pipeline: creating pathways from prison to campus and careers
Panelists:
- Charles Rosario ’22
- Kevin Keo ’22
- Siraaj Abdulnur ’24
- Cara Moyer-Duncan, Assistant Director, EPI (moderator)
The Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI) and its Reentry and College Outside Program (RECOUP) is changing lives through integrated support for system-involved individuals as they make the journey from behind the wall to life outside, including to traditional campuses. With EPI alumni, this panel examines the collaborative approaches which helped facilitate their access to higher education. Panelists will present strategies other organizations can use to build pathways to college completion and reentry success.
We will discuss post-release academic and transitional success as well as challenges, and innovative methods to continue bridging the gap between carceral learning spaces and the more traditional spaces of higher education. We aim to further the likelihood of successful transitions for formerly incarcerated individuals by highlighting EPI’s RECOUP program, and its evidence-based practices which have led to positive outcomes. Participants will see the transformative power of education during incarceration, and that even small programs can maximize reentry support.
3:45 to 4:00 p.m.: Break
4 to 5:30 p.m.: Mac Hudson ’23: Massissippi film on racial and ethnic disparity in corrections, and discussion
Moderated by Stephen Shane, Site Coordinator, EPI
5:30-6:00 p.m.: Break
6:00-7:30 p.m.: Panel: Fighting for the rights of incarcerated people
Panelists:
- Lizz Matos, Chief of the Civil Rights Division and Senior Advisor to the Attorney General
- Calvin Arey, formerly incarcerated litigant
- Michael Milleman, Professor of Law, University of Maryland
- Mneesha Gellman, Director, EPI (moderator)
This panel will feature the story of efforts to address the rights of incarcerated people in Virginia through the lens of a formerly incarcerated litigant and one of his attorneys. Former Executive Director of Prisoners Legal Services Lizz Matos will then provide an overview of rights, and rights struggles, for incarcerated people in MA.
Day 2: March 19, 12:00 to 8:00 pm - Inthrive Film Festival
Bright Family Screening Room, Emerson Paramount Center
559 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111
See inthrivefilmfestival.org/boston for additional details.
11:30 a.m.: Community partners can set up tabling
Film Screenings
12:00 p.m.: Boston Stories
Films: Holding Up The Sky and We Are Better Together (66 minutes total)
Panel: With Emerson filmmaker Bob Nesson and TBD
Holding Up The Sky (50 minutes)
An incarceration survivor in Boston rebuilds his life & helps others do the same. The film aims to educate and enlighten viewers by demonstrating the power that hope, family and community support, and, importantly – education in prison can have on incarcerated individuals.
We Are Better Together (16 minutes)
Created by Emerson students in the Engagement Lab, this short documents the work of We Are Better Together, an organization in Boston that engages and empowers mothers on both sides of gun violence in the peacemaking process.
2:00 p.m.: Inside the Prison Walls
Films: Cell Blocks to Mountain Tops and On Beyond Fences (31 minutes total)
Panel: TBD
Cell Blocks to Mountain Tops (9 minutes)
Two episodes: “Restorative Justice” and “An Act of Mercy”
Sterling leads a candid discussion with fellow restorative justice facilitators on what it means to live your amends. The men discuss taking responsibility, personal growth, and the struggle for self-esteem while incarcerated. In Episode 5, “Restorative Justice,” hear how Sterling and his friends manage to change prison culture inside Oregon State Penitentiary.
Watch Sterling receive startling news as his legal battles come to a head. Sterling delivers a passionate performance of his poem, “Society Imagined.”
On Beyond Fences (21 minutes)
A rare, intimate look inside Maine State Prison, where efforts to reform the historically brutal institution (the basis for Stephen King's novella and the feature film, The Shawshank Redemption) have dramatically shifted the prison culture, the way “residents” do their time and, ultimately, how they return to their communities. Everyone featured, from Shaun, who’s doing 47 years for kidnapping and murder, to Maine D.O.C Commissioner, Randall Liberty has a stake in its success. So do the communities where the former inmates will return. As former guard, Scott Drake, says: “A lot of these guys get out. And you know where they move to? Next to you! I don’t want a guy who’s messed up and has issues living next to me. I want him to get his mind right, or at least try.”
4:00 p.m. Voices of Incarceration Survivors
Films: Two Wolves, Little April, Roommates, and Until We all Count (40 minutes total)
Panel: TBD
Two Wolves (6 minutes)
Prison is dark and hopelessness is darker. But the path forward starts with self-empowerment and there are many examples before and around us of how to reach our potential and achieve liberation.
Little April (8 minutes)
April’s life virtually began in the foster care system. She spent her formative years in households and spaces where she was abused and mistreated by those entrusted with her safety and wellbeing. By 19, April was arrested and sentenced to 20 years and 8 months in prison, serving 17 of those years. Weaving together documentary and fiction elements, the film illuminates a cinematic and ultimately magical path to transforming our youth justice system.
Until We All Count (16 minutes)
In Georgia, hundreds of thousands of people cannot vote because of a felony conviction. Page and Kareemah, two friends who crossed paths in prison, have different stories but a common goal, to raise awareness and end the discriminatory practice of taxation without representation. Until We All Count reveals the way felony disenfranchisement is a remnant of Jim Crow, designed to strip the rights and suppress the votes of Black Georgians — and the work people are doing to win their rights back.
Roommates (10 minutes)
After completing lengthy prison terms, two women forge a strong bond within a nursing home catering to the formerly incarcerated. Creating a positive present tense in the wake of complicated pasts, these survivors cling to simplicity, routine, and each other.
6:00 p.m.: What These Walls Can’t Hold
Film: What These Walls Can’t Hold
Panel: TBD
Transcending the grim realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, Adamu Chan paints a portrait of resilience and hope blossoming within San Quentin State Prison. Chan, formerly incarcerated himself, offers an insider's view delving into his own journey towards freedom, while amplifying the voices of his community and their loved ones on both sides of the prison walls.
We also invite you to review our past programming.