A network of shared humanity
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This African proverb captures the approach of the Jesuit Prison Education Network (JPEN). Nine Jesuit institutions of higher learning make up JPEN. College classes in the prisons, through Jesuit institutions in the United States, surfaced initially almost thirty years ago.
However, it was not until 2008, inspired by a segment, on CBS’s Sixty Minutes, featuring Dr. Daniel Karpowitz and Bard College in upstate New York, that a group of professors, at St. Louis University (SLU), decided to start teaching courses in theology at Bonne Terre Correctional Facility in Missouri. Within a few years, they would further imitate the upstate, private school in New York, by offering college degrees. Since that time, several other Jesuit colleges have pursued similar ventures.
In 2022, Fr. Thomas Greene, SJ, provincial of the USA Central Southern province of the Society of Jesus, invited the Jesuit institutions of higher learning, in his province, to consider forming a Jesuit network of college education in the prisons. He identified the effort as the Jesuit Prison Education Network (JPEN). He missioned Fr. Thomas Curran, SJ to serve as its coordinator. Curran had served as the founder of the college credit program in Chillicothe, MO, known as Companions in Chillicothe, through Rockhurst University in Kansas City, MO.
The network was officially launched in early 2023 and then met, in St. Louis Missouri, in fall 2023, for its first “in person” gathering to coincide with SLU’s 15th anniversary celebration of its Prison Education Program (PEP). Directors, coordinators and other staff members, from seven Jesuit institutions involved with prison education, used the anniversary opportunity to share best practices and plan for bringing this mutually transformative experience to all Jesuit colleges and other institutions of higher learning.
JPEN will be reconvening its member, in summer 2024, at Loyola University Chicago, to make the case for Jesuit prison education. Their efforts will be one of the six tracts involving reconciliation and justice, the focus of the quadrennial gathering of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU). JPEN is determined to go far in this effort in a shared humanity. That’s why they are going together.
Directors and representatives of seven Jesuit colleges and universities involved with prison education, gather outside of the Bonne Terre Correctional Facility in Missouri for a photo and moment of thanksgiving for the 15th anniversary of SLU’s PEP. Institutions represented include Loyola University New Orleans (LA), St. Louis University (MO), John Carroll University (OH), Rockhurst University (MO), University of Scranton (PA), Regis University (CO), and St. John’s College, Belize.