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Austin South Asian | August 2021
How Prison Education Programs Transform Lives And Communities In 2014, Benito Castro was sentenced to six years in prison for passing bad checks as a result of a gambling habit he’d developed. Today, he’s the director of operations for a grocery store chain and runs freedomrides.org, a non-profit he started that provides transportation for those recently released from prison.
tions for the chain. “I’m a different person today thanks to the Ashland program. I
ated nearly a thousand students since 2016, when the school began offering distance learning beyond its home state of Ohio.
“And in many of the places where we operate, there are no other options available to inmates who want to use their time in prison to further their education and invest in themselves.”
Castro credits his transformation to the education he received through Ashland University while in prison. “I earned my degree while I was still incarcerated, and that made all the difference in the world when I was released. It gave me a sense of purpose and led to a whole new life.” After early release, Castro took a job as a dishwasher at a Huddle House restaurant and met someone from Ideal Market grocery stores, who hired him as a night manager. From there, Castro quickly rose to district manager, director of marketing and then director of opera-
served community is an integral part of our mission to transform people’s lives through education so they can go on to work, serve and lead in their communities,” said Dr. Carlos Campo, president of Ashland University.
have financial security. I’m contributing to society. And most of all I have self-respect,” said Castro. Ashland University operates the largest correctional education program in the nation. It has more than 4,000 incarcerated students enrolled at 120 facilities in more than a dozen states and has gradu-
The program features the same academic rigor and learning outcomes as the university’s on-campus curriculum, and is free for students who qualify for Pell Grants or receive Ashland University scholarships or other assistance. There is also no cost to the prison. “Providing access to this under-
Andrea Buttross, Louisiana Department of Corrections education director, says Ashland’s distancelearning program is deployed on an easily managed platform providing those about to re-enter society an opportunity to access education that they may not traditionally have received in the prison setting. “Ashland has decades of experience working within prison systems and they know how to operate in this unique environment,” said Buttross.
“They provide all necessary aspects of the program: the technology, all of the curriculum and resources for the classes, direct contact with professors, and even an on-site academic coordinator to help students progress toward their degrees.” There are advantages to distance learning in prisons—especially in the age of COVID. Classes are available to more students in places where in-person options are unavailable. Students can take classes anytime during the day, and their education can continue once they’re released, regardless of where they live. To learn more about Ashland University Correctional Education, visit ashland.edu. “The incarcerated face a lot of obstacles in attaining an education because they often have limited access and fewer choices,” said Dr. Campo. “We want to change that, one successful student at a time.” (StatePoint)
Social Media Risk To Humanity Selective Freedom Can Enhance Tools Of Repression (Continued From Page 20)
(Continued From Page 08) This raises serious questions about what this media network is all about. Is this media network really free from government intervention? What are the perils of letting such media outlets operate in a country like ours? Are we setting ourselves up for another form of repression which may result from instability caused by people losing faith in their political system because of the constant spread of mistrust through such outlets? Qatar will also be hosting the FIFA world cup next year and it is good to see many outlets like CNN bringing attention to the workers that are suffering in making this world cup happen. A July 9 article in CNN quotes
Barun Ghimire, a human rights lawyer in Nepal saying this - “Migrant workers from the poorest of countries go to Qatar seeking employment,But when they get there, there’s this tragic event that happens that’s like the case of blood diamonds. The Qatar World Cup is really the bloody cup -- the blood of migrant workers.” Though one may find occasional articles in Al Jazeera on such topics, it is barely critical of the government in not solving this problem.
ple who get news from such outlets must be careful about forming opinions from such sources. People in the United States are very proud of their values, and they take their freedom of expression and commitment to basic human rights as non negotiable. They have genuine interest in encouraging such measures in other parts of the world and hope for people in those countries to enjoy the god given rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
It rarely highlights the lack of religious freedom for such workers when it enthusiastically talks about rights to freedom of religion in other parts of the world.
These good intentions can translate into realities only when they recognize that selective measures with questionable intentions can do more damage than good.
Such sort of selective reporting is tantamount to propaganda and peo-
Let us do our best to deny regimes any new tools of repression.
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Joe Bak-Coleman There’s been a lot of work that’s been done here, and I don’t think we’re trying to reinvent that wheel at all. But I think what we’re really trying to do is just highlight the need for urgent action and draw these parallels to climate change and to conservation biology, where they’ve been dealing with really similar problems. And the way they’ve structured themselves, like climate change now involves everything from chemists to ecologists. And I think social science tends to be fairly fragmented in subdisciplines, without a lot of connection between them. And trying to bring that together was a major goal of this paper. Shirin Ghaffary I’m biased to be very aware of this problem because my job is to report on social media, but it feels
like there is a lot of fear and concern about social media’s impact. Misinformation, phone addiction — these seem to be issues that everyday people worry about. Why do you think there still isn’t enough attention on this? Carl Bergstrom When I talk to people about social media, yes, there’s a lot of concern, there’s a lot of negativity, and then there’s bias by being a parent as well. But the focus is often on the individual-level effects. So it’s, “My kids are developing negative issues around self-esteem because of the way that Instagram is structured to get ‘Likes’ for being perfect and showing more of your body.” But there’s less talk about the entire large-scale structural changes that this is inducing. So what we’re saying is, we really want people to look at the large-scale structural changes that these technologies are driving in society. (Courtesy: https://www.vox.com/)
