This recent article from The Chronicle of Higher Education describes how TEJI brings valuable skills and real world knowledge to those who would not normally have access, while exposing MIT students to a population they would otherwise not likely encounter.

In this Petey Greene Program Student Spotlight, Angela Livingston shares her appreciation for her tutor, Max Raven, MIT ‘21. During his time at MIT, Max took TEJI’s Philosophy of Love course and went on to serve as a Teaching Assistant for TEJI’s Philosophical Life Skills program.

MIT News recently featured Brave Behind Bars, a computer education and career readiness program for incarcerated women. Brave Behind Bars was born out of TEJI’s Computer Education Committee, and is led by MIT graduate students Marisa Gaetz and Martin Nisser.

When in-person prison education programs shut down in 2020, TEJI experimented with new ways to reach incarcerated men and women. Students, educators, and correctional facility administrators agree that TEJI’s virtual program has been a success, allowing TEJI to reach across geographic barriers, offer classes that teach in-demand skills, and reach underserved populations in New England.

In this interview with The Tech, TEJI student Jake Pilsbury tells the story of how he discovered his talent and passion for drawing while in one of the darkest places imaginable: solitary confinement.

TEJI Senior Graduate Fellow and Mathematics Ph.D candidate Marisa Gaetz ‘20 recently provided reflections on her work as project lead for TEJI’s participation in the “Summer of Hope” (SOH) program, a collaborative intervention program for high-risk youth in Boston.

A short documentary featuring MIT’s prison education program received an Emmy Award from the New England Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at its virtual award ceremony on June 20. Produced by WGBH, the film bested five other nominees in the Education/Schools category.

Vivian Nixon was a key voice in the Education Department’s decision in 2015 to reinstate Pell Grants for a limited number of incarcerated students. On Monday, the executive director of the College and Community Fellowship exhorted lawmakers to take what criminal justice reformers view as the next step: lifting the 1994 ban on federal student aid in prisons.

Together, the inmates and college students are learning how to turn a small image that Deshowitz and her peers designed into a massive two-story mural. It's a course to teach the group about scenic painting — and a little bit about collaboration along the way.