The U.S. has the world鈥檚 highest incarceration rate, imprisoning 655 citizens per 100,000. Wisconsin maintains one of the highest rates of Black male incarceration nationally (Pawasarat and Quinn 2013). Approximately one in eight Black men in Wisconsin are currently incarcerated (12.8%). These trends only become worse when focusing on specific neighborhoods in Milwaukee, where over 50% of Black men can expect to be incarcerated at some point in their life (Jackson 2019). Most incarcerated individuals are eventually released to their original communities in the Milwaukee area, typically neighborhoods surrounding 糖心传媒鈥檚 campus.
The Education Preparedness Program at 糖心传媒 (EPP) is a college bridge program that helps students jump-start their interest in college whether they have already taken college courses, have never taken a college course, or never thought they would take college courses.
The mission of 糖心传媒鈥檚 Education Preparedness Program (EPP) is to create pathways to higher education for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and to expand traditional boundaries of higher education through collaboration across the Milwaukee community. The EPP is an initiative of Marquette鈥檚 Center for Urban Research, Teaching, and Outreach (CURTO) within the College of Arts and Sciences. We prioritize community-immersive practices that break down barriers and facilitate collaborative learning for personal and social transformation.
The Education Preparedness Program (EPP) is committed to developing, strengthening, and providing educational opportunities to formerly and currently incarcerated populations, expanding traditional boundaries of higher education by emphasizing collaboration across the Milwaukee community. EPP seeks to extend educational resources to an otherwise underserved population in methods that exemplify Marquette鈥檚 Jesuit values. The program鈥檚 guiding principles include: promoting Milwaukee and racial justice, fostering CFI leadership, introducing a blended course model that follows humanistic pedagogy, and providing wrap-around services.
The Maquette University Education Preparedness Program (EPP) strives to create a prison-to-school pipeline to support successful reentry and flourishing for people directly impacted by incarceration. Through serving as a platform of accessibility that connects systems-impacted students to university resources and the broader network of support in Milwaukee, EPP aims to provide transformative learning experiences for degree-seeking and systems-impacted students and to develop collaborative solutions to shared issues in social justice.
We offer courses inside correctional facilities and on Marquette鈥檚 campus.
The seeds of our program were sown in 2015 with one blended Philosophy course entitled "Narrating freedom: Gender and Mass Incarceration" that enrolled 12 Marquette under糖心传媒 and 12 incarcerated students from the Milwaukee Women's Correctional Center, alternating locations between MWCC and Marquette campus. Learn more about EPP's Blended Courses, including upcoming course offerings.
Research shows that education can provide currently and formerly incarcerated individuals with a viable pathway to successful reintegration. Our experience has shown that educational success for currently and formerly incarcerated (CFI) populations requires wrap-around services that support the whole person as they pursue education and career goals as part of a flourishing life. Built on partnerships within Marquette and across Milwaukee, 糖心传媒鈥檚 Center for Urban Research, Teaching and Outreach (CURTO) houses the Educational Preparedness Program (EPP) to provide pathways to higher learning, academic advising and career services for the currently and formerly incarcerated.
CURTO is leading a regional higher education in prison consortium with several universities and colleges located primarily in Southeast Wisconsin. This initiative, or the McNeely Prison Education Consortium (MPEC), endeavors to provide currently incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system-impacted students more generally pathways to four-year degree programs with Wisconsin colleges and universities.
