School's in Session 2

Spring semester began the other day and we’re one week back into college. It’s funny really, how close we came to losing the whole program. And yet, out of the worst came a new feeling of excitement. Guys are generally excited about getting back in classes. There’s a new air in “4A,” our college-only dorm (or soon to be).

            There’s still fallout from December’s purge. Computers won’t return to the building until February. Another aide was let go. It’s simple really; you were either with the program or against it. If you were against it, you’re out. Four guys who ran their mouths and cut corners were axed. It was like the scene in “Godfather I” when the family convinces a young Michael Corleone to kill his father’s attacker. “It’ll lead to a bloodletting, but that’s good. You need one every five years or so,” Michael was told by one his father’s capos. And so it is in here.

            Change – even when traumatic – can be good. At MSRs all over the Commonwealth (medium security re-entry facilities) representatives of the community college are meeting with vets to get students for our GI Bill “IT” program. So far, over 50 such men have filed for their DD 214 (the Department of Defense form showing the vet had an honorable discharge and is GI Bill eligible). The first thirty approved will move here in late February; the remainder will be waiting listed until later this year.

            Think college doesn’t matter to guys in here? One of our grads recently won an award from Apple and the college he’s attending for designing a new app. In the press release it said he learned IT development in the “Campus within Walls” prison education program sponsored by SVCC.

            School’s back and it’s busy, and it’s challenging, and it’s making a difference. If only the rest of prison time was so successful.