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The flower photos scattered around the white cinder block walls of the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility echoed a theme emerging among inmates and University of Colorado students during their Inside Out social justice class graduation on Tuesday: bloom where you’re planted.
The semester-long class, made up of 16 CU students and 16 inmates from the women’s facility, met weekly at the prison.
Ethnic studies professor Joanne Belknap and her students engaged in discussions about crime and justice, and worked on projects brainstorming ways to keep convicted felons from re-offending. The collaborative course is the first of its kind at CU and the second Inside Out program in Colorado, the other happening a year ago at Colorado Mesa University.
On the class’s final meeting, the “inside students” and “outside students” were called up one by one to receive graduation certificates and share what the course meant to them.
Overwhelming love, support and thanks poured from the students’ hearts, occasionally drowned out by the sound of tear-filled sniffles.
“Before I got here tonight, I was just sitting in my car eating doughnuts and crying because it’s the last class,” said Cassidy Condon, CU senior and political science major. “You can’t just come in and out on your own, and that’s a lot to think about right now.”
The prison did not allow the inmates to be interviewed or photographed, but the gratitude of the “inside students” for being able to participate in one of the facility’s only college courses with a group of passionate CU students could not be contained. Many talked about making the most of their situation and the progression of their personal growth and education that the class encouraged.
Some of the inmates hadn’t tasted strawberries in years. The fresh fruit was one of many things they savored during the graduation ceremony. As the 32 students mingled, laughed, cried and showed off the projects they’d been working on together for months, the only reminder that one group would be able to go home that night while another would remain locked up were the inmates’ green uniforms. Otherwise, their friendships blurred any boundaries.
CU senior Michelle Watson now questions whether her studio arts major was the right choice since falling in love with her social justice class.
“Before, I never would have been comfortable in a prison,” she said. “Now, these women are my friends.”
Condon was so appreciative of the class for breaking any preconceived notions she had about prisoners and giving her a new perspective she hopes to share with others.
“We define somebody by the worst moment in their life,” she said. “I know I wouldn’t want to be defined that way. By doing that, we further criminalize these women. We’re just trying to help them heal.”
To enroll, inside and outside students needed to write an essay and apply for the class, which Belknap said she has been wanting to teach “forever.” The course also gave the inmates transferable college credit that can be used upon release.
Belknap hopes to teach the course again, but said as she looked upon all her students that this first class will be hard to top.
“I just can’t imagine something more special than this,” she said.
While the logistics of planning the next Inside Out course are in the works, students, too, hope to see the class continue.
“It was fun being the first one,” Watson said. “We just don’t want it to be the last.”
Elizabeth Hernandez: 303-473-1106, hernandeze@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/ehernandez
