Project Summary

Saint Joseph’s University is deepening its college-in-prison programming at SCI Chester by combining rigorous Inside-Out courses with new pre-college workshops. These workshops, led by SJU faculty and staff, provide skill-building in writing, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy while expanding instructional capacity through training by system-impacted facilitators.

Key Activities

• Offer three credit-bearing Inside-Out courses across Fall 2025 and Spring 2026, pairing campus and incarcerated learners.

• Run three pre-college workshop series focused on writing & communication, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy.

• Engage system-impacted facilitators via the Greater Freedom Think Tank in training.

• Provide faculty development, including in-house and national Inside-Out training.

• Utilize focus groups to guide workshop and course design, centering the experiences of directly impacted individuals..

Impact

By layering pre-college workshops onto an established Inside-Out model, Saint Joseph’s is lowering academic barriers and broadening access inside SCI Chester. This design helps reach a wider range of incarcerated learners, supports reentry readiness, and reinforces system-impacted leadership in program delivery — a model that could amplify educational access across other correctional settings.