Marquette University's 2023 Prison Education Symposium: Reimagining the Role of Colleges and Universities in Prison Education
April 24–25, 2023
Reimagining the Role of Colleges and Universities in Prison Education: Research, Policy and Practice is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It will be held in the Alumni Memorial Union Ballrooms (3rd floor) on April 24th (8am-5pm) and April 25th (8am-2:30pm).
*Please register for both days if you plan to attend the whole symposium!*
The Keynote Speaker is Dr. Christopher Beasley, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Tacoma
Dr. Beasley is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Tacoma, where he studies social and psychological factors involved in prison and post-prison higher education, leads the development of the Husky Post-Prison Pathways initiative, and advises the Formerly Incarcerated Student Association. His scholarly work emphasizes the possibilities incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people imagine, influences on these possibilities, and how they alter life courses. He’s also spoken extensively about the role of people with lived expertise in the creation of social change and ways to realize this potential. Dr. Beasley is invested in this scholarship because of his own transition from prisoner to social change agent and scholar. He attended community college after leaving prison and “cut his social justice chops” fighting for queer liberation as an undergraduate student in the early 2000s. He began organizing and supporting formerly incarcerated college students as a graduate student in the 2010s and co-founded the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network in 2014—an organization that now has over 1,000 members across 44 states and 10 countries. In addition to his scholarship, Dr. Beasley currently focuses on investing in student leaders while creating systems and structures in which they can realize their potential. He also serves as board director for From Prison Cells to PhD while co-planning the annual Rise Up Conference and advising other efforts to develop higher education during and after incarceration.
There will also be several panels throughout both days (they will NOT be concurrent).
