Center for Prison Education

North College 419
237 High Street
Middletown, CT 06459
cpe@wesleyan.edu
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Center For Prison Education

The Center for Prison Education (CPE) advances Wesleyan’s leadership as a creative force for expanding access to bold and rigorous liberal learning. CPE students at Cheshire and York prisons enhance our academic community and demonstrate the power of a Wesleyan education.

Since its founding by Wesleyan students over a decade ago, the Center has offered some 180 courses across the liberal arts to nearly 200 students in prison, engaging a passionate collective of Wesleyan faculty, administrators, staff, and traditional undergraduates in the project.

  • 2009: Wesleyan students found the CPE; first cohort enrolls at Cheshire 
  • 2013: The CPE expands to York, CT's only women's prison
  • 2018: First graduation; 19 associate's degrees awarded 
  • 2021: Seven students graduate with Wesleyan Bachelor of Liberal Studies degrees

To date:

  • 50 students in prison to date have earned their associate's through the CPE partnership with CT State Community College
  • 15 men and women have earned their Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree from Wesleyan. 

“The CPE education … is about opening up an opportunity for new types of participation that we may not even envision.” -CPE student 

“I feel like I’ve set an example [for my kids], and that I have kind of been a better role model for them, because I felt like I wouldn’t be able to be one while I was here, but this college education has changed all that.” -CPE student

“I do CPE because it is the most exciting and engaging academic environment that I have experienced in my time at Wesleyan. The students that I have encountered in my time at CPE are curious and intense learners. They bring a high level of excitement, focus, and care to every study hall and it has been an amazing experience getting to know them and learn with them.” -Wesleyan senior Grace Brustin, teaching assistant with the CPE

"They come in with deep questions. They have a hunger for learning that demands the best of us.” -Professor of Science in Society Anthony Ryan Hatch

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    The CPE is grateful to the Mellon Foundation for significant partnership to our current work. Gratitude also to the Tow Foundation, the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority, Propel Capital, the Weissberg Foundation, the Friends of Kang Yun Foundation, the Singer Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Bard Prison Initiative for support now and in nurturing CPE's development.

    And thank you to our generous community of individual supporters for fueling the expansion of access to bold and rigorous liberal learning to CPE students, enabling their enrichment of this University community and their claiming of new futures for their lives.