Bennington College Awarded $10,000 Grant From The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation
The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation has awarded Bennington College a $10,000 grant to support the Incarceration in America think tank that will be held October 1-2, 2021.
This think tank will focus on building out a continuing education program for students with long-term or life sentences. The event will be live-streamed, free, and open to the public.
This generous grant will allow Bennington College to attract experts in the field who are committed to systemic reform of mass incarceration.
“We are truly grateful to the Langeloth Foundation for their vision and continuing support; they are making it possible for some of the most distinguished and innovative thinkers around continuing education for those serving very long sentences to meet, exchange, and develop ideas that will support the College’s work with this dramatically underserved population,” said Annabel Davis-Goff, director of the Prison Education and the Incarceration in America Initiatives.
The think tank will be composed of those who are working for criminal justice reform, leading prison educators, formerly incarcerated people who have benefited from prison education, and others who are interested in hearing about and discussing PEI’s continuing education program with a view to replicating, expanding, and building upon it.
The conference will feature a keynote address by Marc Mauer, the executive director of The Sentencing Project, and panels of those closest to the issue, including representatives of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
The think tank will also address special challenges and opportunities for education that this student population invites. What kind of education is worth engaging as an end in itself? Discussion will also consider how to measure outcomes, the benefits to individuals and to the institutions concerned, and the different models of how to deliver this education. The latter will include the possibility of remote delivery, allowing students to benefit from the expertise of geographically remote educators.
From the Incarceration in America conferences came Bennington College’s Prison Education Initiative (PEI), now in its sixth year of offering for-credit classes at Great Meadow, an upstate New York maximum-security men’s prison. During the past year, PEI has begun offering continuing education in the form of independent studies to students serving life or virtual life sentences.
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About The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation
The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation supports health and racial equity outcomes for all people in order to foster and sustain safe and healthy communities. The Foundation envisions an equitable and just society free of systemic barriers where individuals and communities can reach their full potential. The Langeloth Foundation supports work to create a more equitable and humane justice system, and supports organizations that work to foster and support healthy communities with a focus on ending gun violence.