不可征服的灵魂
Yusef Pierce’s Journey to a Pitzer学院 Degree from Inside Prison
5月15日, Yusef Pierce ’21 earned his Pitzer学院 degree in Organizational Studies with honors, 这是他在加州康复中心挣来的, 诺科的一所中等安全级别的监狱, CA. 在五月的那一天, he became the first student to obtain an undergraduate degree through the College’s new Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA program, and the first student anywhere to graduate with a college degree based on curriculum in which “inside” incarcerated students and “outside” college students learn together in the same classrooms.
“I want to dedicate this degree to my mom and all the other moms out there,” Pierce said during Pitzer’s virtual Commencement Celebration—he was one of Pitzer’s graduating seniors selected to speak during the ceremony. (你可以在Pitzer的YouTube频道上观看他的演讲.)
皮尔斯在2019年参加了他的第一个Pitzer Inside-Out课程, but his journey in higher education began in 2010 with a letter his mother, Drochelle皮尔斯, 这是他19年监禁之初寄来的. During Commencement, dressed in a cap and gown, he read his mom’s life-changing letter.
“‘我们从这里往哪里走?’”他母亲十多年前写道. “正如我之前告诉过你的，教育是你成功的关键. 你必须相信我，没有捷径，也没有简单的解决办法. You, now more than ever, must diligently seek and obtain higher education.’”
他做到了. 他首先通过诺科学院开始上课, 有监狱教育项目的当地社区大学, 然后通过Pitzer的Inside-Out课程.
这是NPR早间新闻的一则报道, “学生充分利用了监狱里的时间, 以优异成绩完成大学学业,” Yusef spoke about the impact of knowing that “somebody was reading my stuff and that somebody felt like the things that I was thinking about were worth something.” (请收听NPR新闻.)
“它真的把我变成了一个优等生，”他说. “我只是上了一节又一节课.”
他的干劲和奉献精神使他成为一名杰出的学生, 推荐十大正规网赌网站教授奈杰尔·博伊尔说, who leads the Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA program with Tyee Griffith, the founding manager of the Justice Education Initiative at the Claremont Colleges.
博伊尔在接受美国国家公共电台采访时表示:“每个教授都希望自己的班上有一个尤瑟夫。. “你想要那种聪明的学生, 工作，但也有助于带动其他人吗.”
Pierce is part of an initial cohort of eight students who received acceptance letters during the launch of the Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA program in December 2020. (在Pitzer的YouTube频道观看这个项目的启动仪式.)在启动仪式上, 皮尔斯说，成为推荐十大正规网赌网站的学生“意味着机会, 都是我从未想过的新机会, 也重新获得了我认为早已失去的机会.”
Pierce also spoke about his older brother, who was shot and killed when Pierce was a teen. He described how losing his brother influences his desire to earn his college degree.
“最重要的是, being a Pitzer student means having the opportunity to make a significant achievement in honor of my late brother and also doing something that will make my mother extremely proud.”
On his way to his degree, Pierce has explored his artistic as well as academic abilities. 2021年3月， the Pitzer学院 Art Galleries hosted a virtual exhibit of his work, curated by Professor Barbara Junisbai, one of his Inside-Out professors.
在他的艺术家声明中, 皮尔斯写道 that it is important to note that he discovered his artistic talent while in prison.
“It is true that oppression often requires that individuals make themselves extraordinary in order to simply survive,他写道。. “I began creating art as a way to communicate with my children who, 当时, 还太小，不会读书写字吗. Now, visual art has become the primary way that I communicate who I am to the rest of the world. 我的画是画布上完整的对话.”
He has also created a children’s book in an Inside-Out psychology course with Pitzer Professor Marcus Rodriguez, who gave students in his Dialectical Behavior Therapy course the option of writing a paper or writing a children’s book to reflect on the ideas they learned in class. 皮尔斯写道 5个简单的步骤, about a grandmother who teaches her grandchildren how to negotiate relationships.
Pierce’s undergraduate degree isn’t the end of his road in higher education. Pierce told Boyle that he is scheduled to be released in spring 2022 and plans to study for the GRE this summer in preparation for applying to PhD programs. Boyle intends to nominate him for post-BA fellowships, such as the Fulbright.
在推荐十大正规网赌网站的虚拟毕业典礼上, Pierce recited a poem his mother had included in that 2010 letter she sent that changed everything. 这首诗是 《推荐十大正规网赌网站》, by the Victorian era British poet William Ernest Henley, and Pierce recited it from memory:
从覆盖着我的黑夜中走出来 黑得像坑一样， 我感谢所有的神灵 为了我那不可征服的灵魂. 在危急关头， 我没有退缩，也没有大声喊叫. 在机遇的打击下 我的头流血了，但没有屈服. 在这个充满愤怒和泪水的地方 不过是阴影的恐怖， 然而，岁月的威胁 发现，也将发现，我无所畏惧. 门有多窄并不重要， 这卷书肩负着怎样的惩罚， 我是自己命运的主宰; 我是我灵魂的船长.
5月15日, 他的母亲看到了她的儿子, 站在监狱的讲台上, 戴帽子穿长袍, 现在是大学毕业生, sharing with the Pitzer学院 Class of 2021 the words that helped transform his life and future.
“I sent that to my son because I wanted him to think in terms of, ‘OK, here you are. Now, what happens to you from this point going forward really depends on you,’” she told NPR. “看看他做了什么. 他把糟糕的情况变成了非常积极的事情. 我的意思是，因为他即将毕业并拿到学位.”
皮尔斯告诉NPR，在他获得博士学位后, 他计划教被监禁的学生, people in prison who are wondering where to go from where they are. 作为一名教授, he would give his students the same answer his mother gave him 11 years ago: Education is the key to your success.
推荐十大正规网赌网站Pitzer学院的Inside-Out pathway to ba项目
Pitzer’s Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA is a bachelor of arts degree program for currently incarcerated individuals that is based on Inside-Out curriculum. Following the Inside-Out model developed by Professor Lori Pompa at Temple University, “inside” incarcerated students at the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) in Norco, CA, 和克莱蒙特学院的“校外”学生一起学习, taking the same courses with the same Claremont Colleges professors in the same classrooms (currently, virtually; previously, 亲临中心). 2014年，Pitzer在CRC开设了Inside-Out课程. 它于2020年12月推出了通往ba的Inside-Out路径, becoming the first college in the country to transform Inside-Out curriculum into a BA degree program for incarcerated learners. Pitzer’s Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA is part of the Justice Education Initiative of the Claremont Colleges and was developed in partnership with the CRC and Norco College.
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