Two-year $980,000 award to support education access, social justice in two prisons
Students at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center in Pacific, Mo., in 2017. (Photo: Joe Angeles/Washington University)
April 19, 2021
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Washington University in St. Louis’ Prison Education Project (PEP) has won a two-year $980,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The award resulted from the Mellon Foundation’s “Future of Higher Learning in Prison” competition.
“This has been quite a year,” said Robert Henke, professor of drama and of comparative literature in Arts & Sciences, who serves as PEP director as well as co-principal investigator of the Mellon grant. “Last spring, because we were no longer able to have on-site classes, we worked with WashU and the Missouri Department of Corrections to make the switch to virtual instruction. It has been a steep learning curve for everyone involved.”