(16 Dec 2013) Nine female inmates at the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville were the first students to earn associates degrees from Lipscomb University.
The students earned their degree after taking classes taught by Lipscomb faculty inside the prison once a week for the last seven years.
Lipscomb started offering basic college classes for credit to the inmates, but the women who attended classes faithfully each week did not want to stop. So the university created a special associates degree just for them.
On Friday, Dec. 13, the university held a graduation for the students inside the prison gym to celebrate their achievement.
Barbi Brown, one of the graduates, said as she was getting ready for the ceremony that because of the mistakes she made as a young women, she never thought she'd have a chance to go to college.
"I am in here for especially aggravated robbery," Brown said. "I was 18 years old when I made the worst decision of my life."
But while in prison, Brown started taking the college classes and graduated with a 4.0 GPA.
"After that point, I knew that college was not in my future," Brown said. "So I never thought that coming to prison would be my route to college."
Even those students who will remain in prison for decades, like Erika East, the classes have given her an opportunity to help other women in prison.
"I want to be able to give back and if that means spending my life in prison, then I want to continue to do something that makes it worthwhile," East said.
Lipscomb University President L. Randolph Lowry handed the degree certificates to each graduate. He said after the ceremony that each graduate understood the power of education on their lives.
"A number of them are here for the rest of their lives, a number of them are here for years and years," Lowry said. "As you talk to them they are all amazingly honest about the reality of life. But they are all also amazingly hopeful in terms of what education can do even here."
The university has agreed to let the inmates now pursue bachelor degrees.
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30 июл 2015
