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Daily Breeze: Upcoming CSUDH Exhibition Takes on Mass Incarceration

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Installation view of “Personal, Small, Medium, Large, Family”
Installation view of “Personal, Small, Medium, Large, Family”

Source: Daily Breeze

A free art exhibition that sheds light on the impact of prison on incarcerated individuals and their families will be available for public viewing at Cal State Dominguez Hills starting Saturday, Sept. 30.

“Personal, Small, Medium, Large, Family,” an installation by Mario Ybarra Jr., will run through Dec. 8 at the University Art Gallery. A public opening reception is scheduled for 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday.

“Mario Ybarra’s work uses the everyday to make his audience reconsider big concepts such as mass incarceration,” said Aandrea Stang, director of CSUDH’s University Art Gallery. “His work makes it personal, and makes those that experience the installation stop and think.”

Ybarra Jr. was born in Los Angeles in 1973 and currently lives in Wilmington. He graduated from the Otis College of Art and Design with a bachelor’s degree in 1999. He went on to receive a master’s degree in fine arts from UC Irvine in 2001.

Through sculptures, installations and community-based projects, Ybarra Jr. examines the experiences of Mexican Americans living in Southern California. His work also looks at excluded social norms often by combining narratives, histories and complete environments.

His works have been showcased at venues such as Pasadena City College’s Boone Family Art Gallery, The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia and Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum.

He has also been featured at local, national and international exhibitions/fairs, including the 2008 Whitney Biennial, the Tate Museum in London, the Orange County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

The CSUDH exhibition will explore mass incarceration by drawing on Ybarra Jr’s own experiences of watching a childhood friend who went to prison as a teenager.

It includes interview footage from the friend, who spent 32 years in prison, and scale images in the installation of Red West Pizzeria, a pizza restaurant in Wilmington where Ybarra Jr. and his friend dined as children in the 1970s and 1980s.

If you go

What: “Personal, Small, Medium, Large, Family,” a free art exhibition by Mario Ybarra, Jr.

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays from Sept. 30 to Dec. 8.

Where: The University Art Gallery at CSUDH, 1000 E. Victoria St.

Information: gallery.csudh.edu.

BestColleges: California Program Makes Master’s Degrees More Attainable for Incarcerated Students

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CSUDH campus sign framed by palm trees

Source: BestColleges

California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) is partnering with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to offer a master’s degree program for incarcerated students.

The HUX program will offer a fully accredited master of arts in humanities and take two years to complete. Students will study topics like religion, incarceration, urban development, and abolition, among others.

“CDCR is proud to partner with CSUDH to further the Department’s commitment in expanding ‘grade school to grad school’ opportunities and also strengthen collaborative efforts with California’s public higher education system,” CDCR Secretary Jeff Macomber said in a press release.

CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham said that the HUX program affirmed the university’s mission of social justice and “transformative education.”

“This historic partnership between California State University and CDCR benefits students‚ and ultimately their families and communities — by distinguishing between what people did and who they are at the core of their being, and recognizing their potential, cultivating their talents, and preparing them to thrive in their paths moving forward,” he said in a press release.

Any incarcerated person within CDCR can apply to join the HUX program, as long as they have an accredited bachelor’s degree and at least a 2.5 GPA in past coursework.

The first cohort begins in fall 2023 and includes 33 students across several facilities, all learning through secure laptops.

History of HUX

The HUX program began in the early 1970s as a correspondence program, which is a distance learning program that’s more independent than your typical online course. But in 2016, fewer students were enrolling, so HUX closed down, director Matthew Luckett told BestColleges.

HUX was open to all students, but incarcerated students could especially benefit from the program’s flexibility and correspondence model to continue their education.

Luckett said he was hired to help HUX students finish their studies once the program closed, but he wanted to ensure incarcerated students could continue their education.

“It seemed like such a shame that we would not have a plan in place for those incarcerated students. So I and several other colleagues on campus started brainstorming and thinking about … how we can make that work,” he told BestColleges.

The solution came by way of funding from the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) allotted funding to help those who were negatively impacted by the pandemic.

“In 2020, we were able to get CARES Act funding to help support the rebooting and the modernization of the HUX program,” Luckett said. “We wanted to create a program, not only like a new HUX master’s program, [but] a program that had a starting point, a potent online curriculum, and pedagogy that was then able to export into a correspondence model, if need be, for you incarcerated students.”

Building the Best Program

Luckett wants HUX to improve the prison system. But, at the same time, he doesn’t want it to depend on mass incarceration for program enrollment.

“I thought it’d be more honest to go into thinking [that] this should be a public program. But right now, we’re just going to make it exclusive for incarcerated students. I can see down the line us making a public version of it,” he said.

Students can learn completely online, through correspondence, or a combination of the two.

Luckett describes the network as a “closed system,” excluding, for security purposes, many of the typical ad-ons that normal campus systems have, including Zoom calls, discussion boards, and embedded links in files. Incarcerated students instead have videos, announcements, and weekly check-ins.

“It’s structured and built in a way to ensure the security of its users because they don’t want anybody hacking out or anything like that,” he said. “We have to work within the confines of what’s permissible in terms of security.”

Cost of College

HUX program tuition will cost students roughly $10,500 and be paid by the student or their support people, according to CDCR.

Participants won’t qualify for traditional financial aid, including federal student loans and Pell Grants, according to Luckett.

While access to Pell Grants recently expanded this July to include incarcerated students for the first time since 1994, eligibility does not extend to graduate education.

However, according to CSUDH, scholarships and grant opportunities will be available through the CSUDH financial aid office, and the university is accepting donations to support program participants.

Additionally, in some instances, Luckett said students may be able to receive financial assistance for tuition and textbooks through the Department of Rehabilitation.

“We’re having to really sort of carve out our own funding sphere for the students,” Luckett said. “One of the really great things about working with the Department of Rehabilitation is that now that we have these students in our program, I’m hoping that our success will speak for itself and, then in time, we’ll be able to … diversify the sources of assistance that our students receive.”

Inciting an Impact

About 13.5% of the entire incarcerated population is enrolled in college courses, according to CDCR, including associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degree programs through California’s three public higher education systems.

However, the HUX program marks the first time the department has formally partnered with a public higher education system in the state to offer a graduate degree to incarcerated students.

Luckett says offering graduate degrees to incarcerated students not just helps students, but the state as well. While the HUX program costs $10,500 for two years, it costs the state approximately $212,000 to incarcerate someone for the same amount of time, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“The only data we really have is pretty positive — it’s that the recidivism rate for master’s graduates is zero, or virtually zero,” he said. “It seems incredibly likely that our students will not return to prison, which already makes that an incredible dollar-savings proposition.”

Luckett also hopes this first cohort of students will inspire their fellow inmates.

“It affects the people around them because students in their yard see what the graduate education does,” Luckett said.

“It’s aspirational. It gives students something to strive for [and] most of our students are first-generation. So not only are they the first people, oftentimes, in their families to get a bachelor’s degree, but now they’re the first people to get a master’s degree. … It’s a ray of hope in what can ordinarily be a very dark place in prison.”

Daily Breeze: CSUDH Offers New Master Program for Incarcerated People for Fall 2023

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Students working on computers.
Image courtesy of CDCR

Source: Daily Breeze

Dozens of people incarcerated in California state prisons will now have the opportunity to obtain a master’s degree from Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and CSUDH have teamed up to offer a master’s degree in humanities for incarcerated individuals – called the HUX program – starting this fall. It marks the first graduate degree program provided through a partnership between the agency and a state university, officials say.

The fall 2023 cohort includes 33 students from 11 different prison facilities across the state, including Folsom State Prison, San Quentin State Prison and Chuckawalla Valley State Prison.

“This amazing graduate program with Cal State Dominguez Hills really is the next step,” Shannon Swain, superintendent of CDCR’s Office of Correctional Education, said recently. “Because to my thinking, at least we need to meet students where they are in their educational journey and help them get where they want to go.”

Every one of the state’s 33 prisons are equipped with an accredited adult school, which enables incarcerated folks to acquire basic and technical education. The courses were designed for students earning a high school diploma or GED, Swain said.

CDCR has also been working with community colleges to offer transferable associate degrees to those behind bars. Then in 2016, Cal State Los Angeles became the first public university in the state to provide a bachelor’s degree program to incarcerated individuals.

Over the years, more universities have signed up for this program, including San Diego State University, which enrolls students from Centinela State Prison, and UC Irvine, which has been helping incarcerated individuals at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility obtain bachelor’s degrees.

“We’re really focused on higher education,” Swain said, “and making sure that college opportunities are there.”

Incarcerated individuals who participated in correctional education programs were 43% less likely to return to prisons than those who did not, according to a research from RAND Corporation, a global policy think tank. They were also 13% more likely to get a job after release.

“Correctional education is extremely cost effective, it reduces recidivism and it’s so much less expensive than building prisons,” Swain said. “And then of all of the correctional education opportunities or options, college is by far the most impactful. So it just makes sense.”

Nine out of 33 prisons in the state now have a bachelor’s degree opportunity available, Swain said. In addition, there are around 13,000 incarcerated students every college semester.

“We had students earning their bachelor’s degrees starting to graduate,” she said, “and wanted to make sure we had the next level of opportunity available.”

The master’s degree program at Cal State Dominguez Hills will allow any incarcerated individuals within CDCR who already have a bachelor’s degree and a GPA of at least 2.5 to apply. The two-year program will focus on areas such as religion, morality and spirituality, perspectives on punishment and urban development.

“It’s important that we have aspirational possibilities for students who are incarcerated,” said CSUDH program Director Matthew Luckett. “I think that’s one of the trends that we’ve seen and one of the major developments that we’ve seen in incarcerated education.”

Students will complete their coursework using secure laptops. They will also have the opportunity to work one-on-one with CSUDH professors through video calls and/or written correspondence.

“We want to empower our students to be able to communicate, think judiciously, analyze and understand evidence,” Luckett said, “and we believe that those are skills that would help them in the job market.

“But I think just as important as that,” he added, “is that we’re training leaders, we’re training advocates, we’re training students to go back into their communities and advocate for change, lead for change, and ultimately make the kinds of futures that they want.”

The program, however, is not free. It costs around $10,500 and will be paid for by students and/or their support persons.

The new partnership with CDCR resurrects the HUX program, which Cal State Dominguez Hills first established in 1974 but which closed in 2016 because of declining enrollment. It was rebooted to resume its mission of helping incarcerated students with support from CDCR.

The program was one of the pioneering correspondence programs in the country in the humanities, Luckett said. It had more than 5,800 graduates over the course of 40 years.

“The legacy HUX program was fundamentally, I think, ill equipped to evolve in the way that it needed to evolve with the explosion of online programming and digital learning options,” Luckett said. “And so I think we had to go back to the drawing board a little bit in terms of course delivery.”

KTLA: California Department of Corrections, CSU Dominguez Hills Unveils Graduate Program for Inmates

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Woman doing work on a computer.
Image courtesy of CDCR

Source: KTLA

Incarcerated students in California can now pursue a master’s degree through a new partnership between the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and California State University, Dominguez Hills.

Beginning in the fall, incarcerated students can obtain their Master of Arts in Humanities degree through the HUX program, a joint project between the College of Continuing and Professional Education and the College of Arts and Humanities, a news release said.

This is the first time CDCR has formally partnered with a state university to offer a graduate program.  

“CDCR is proud to partner with CSUDH to further the department’s commitment in expanding ‘grade school to grad school’ opportunities and also strengthen collaborative efforts with California’s public higher education system,” CDCR Secretary Jeff Macomber said in a statement.

CSUDH’s president shared similar remarks, saying that the university was proud to embark on this historic partnership.

The fall cohort will include 33 students who will spend two years learning about different topics related to their choice of study. Students in the program can choose to focus on one of the four areas of study.

  • Religion, Morality and Spirituality
  • Perspectives on Punishment
  • Urban Development
  • Expanding Horizons

Any incarcerated person within CDCR can apply for the program if they have already obtained a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university and earned a GPA of at least 2.5.

The program, however, isn’t free, with tuition costing $10,500, and students are responsible for paying the sum. CSUDH and CDCR will offer financial assistance, such as scholarships and grants, to eligible students, according to the news release.

The coursework would be completed independently via correspondence with the college.

Research shows that incarcerated individuals who take steps to advance their education are more likely to find good-paying jobs once they are released, among other benefits.

The HUX program has been at CSUDH since 1974 and was approved to join the California state prison system’s infrastructure in April.

EdSource: A First for California’s Incarcerated Students – Now They Can Earn Master’s Degrees

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Exterior photograph of San Quentin State Prison

Source: EdSource

Achieving a college degree in prison is rare, but now a select 33 incarcerated people in California can earn their master’s degrees. 

California State University, Dominguez Hills, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced a partnership Thursday to launch the state’s first master’s degree program for incarcerated people. Corrections Secretary Jeff Macomber said the partnership furthers the state’s prison system’s goal to expand “grade school to grad school” opportunities. 

“These efforts are vital, as education serves as a powerful rehabilitative tool,” Macomber said. 

Research shows that prison programs reduce recidivism rates and help formerly incarcerated people find jobs and improve their families’ lives once they are released. Those studies show that incarcerated people are 48% less likely to return to prison within three years than those who didn’t attend a college program in prison. 

All 33 of the state’s adult prisons offer the ability for the system’s 95,600 incarcerated people to earn community college degrees; about 13.5% are enrolled in a college course. The state has been expanding its offerings of college in prisons. Eight partnerships with state universities have begun since 2016 to offer bachelor’s degrees to incarcerated people. About 230 are enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program for the current semester.

The new Dominguez Hills program will allow all people in all 33 prisons who have already earned a bachelor’s degree and have at least a 2.5 GPA, to earn a Master of Arts in humanities. The students will participate in two years of courses, including urban development, religion, morality and spirituality. The classes will take place over Zoom or through written correspondence. 

Tuition for the program is about $10,500 and students or their families will be responsible for covering the costs. However, the corrections department said that it may provide some assistance. The university is also accepting donations to go toward incarcerated students’ tuition. Because these are post-bachelor’s degree courses, the incarcerated students do not qualify for the state’s Cal Grant or federal Pell Grant programs.

“Our mission is firmly anchored in social justice,” said Thomas Parham, president of Cal State Dominguez Hills. “This historic partnership between California State University and CDCR benefits students – and ultimately their families and communities – by distinguishing between what people did and who they are at the core of their being, and recognizing their potential, cultivating their talents and preparing them to thrive in their paths moving forward.”

Parham said it was important for the university to provide advanced learning opportunities in prisons because the campus is focused on “transforming lives.” 

The 33 students in the new master’s program reside in 11 different state prisons across the state including Avenal, Chuckawalla Valley and San Quentin state prisons and Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.