EPI Program Overview
Emerson College launched the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI) in 2017 at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord (MCI-Concord), a men’s medium-security prison. EPI acts on the knowledge that college-in-prison programs can interrupt the cycle of incarceration. EPI offers the same courses taught on Emerson’s main campus, taught by Emerson faculty as well as guest faculty from other local colleges, and bearing official Emerson credits. EPI provides a pathway to an Emerson College Bachelor of Arts in Media, Literature, and Culture, a degree that combines Emerson’s unique strengths in media studies, literary studies, and the liberal arts.
EPI selects students through a rigorous admissions process that includes in-person interviews and an essay exam scored by a faculty panel. The acceptance rate varies by cohort, but remains highly competitive.
After an extensive accreditation process with the New England Commission of Higher Education in 2021, MCI-Concord became an approved degree-granting campus of Emerson College.
In 2022, EPI began offering courses at Northeastern Correctional Center, a minimum security prison for men, in order to provide academic continuity for students transferred to the minimum during their degrees. In 2023, EPI moved the degree-granting campus from MCI-Concord to MCI-Norfolk.
To date, EPI has admitted three 20-student cohorts. Nine students from Cohort 1 have earned their Emerson College degrees while incarcerated. Four Cohort 1 students have enrolled as students at the Boston campus to continue their degrees after their release from prison, of whom two have already graduated.