Temple Alumni New Project Proposal

The Inside-Out Alumni group at Temple University is gearing up to begin an exciting new program working with a Re-Entry Project. The project is still in the development phase, but things are moving quickly toward implementation through a collaboration with the Community College of Philadelphia.

Here's the proposal for their project:

The Temple University alumni group of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is proposing an “Inside-Out”-inspired workshop series with participants of the Community College of Philadelphia -Cambria Re-Entry Pilot. Our vision of the project incorporates Inside-Out values, processes, and parameters applied to an ongoing project that would include the inside participants of the Cambria Pilot as well as Temple University and CCP Inside-Out alumni in weekly dialogues about crime and justice as it pertains to course work assigned by CCP in their respective pilot. Our hope is that this will not only offer constructive and innovative programming for the inside participants, but will also allow previous Inside-Out outside participants to continue to engage what they learned about dialogue, encounters with individuals of different backgrounds, and the setting of correctional institutions. Moreover, the intent is to complement the Cambria pilot in a fashion that will facilitate the success of all involved in this innovative effort with an overarching synchronicity in motivation and outcome.

We envision the project to consist of a once-a-week workshop (ten weeks) involving conversations about subject matter with a unifying theme. We will begin this series in mid-January. While there will be a facilitator designated to maintain focus and to facilitate dialogue, there will not be a single leader of the class, but rather group ownership (a shared collective) of the material and the conduct of the workshops. The workshops will be based on intergroup dialogue and conducted in a circle format as are Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program classes, with one-on-one and small group discussions along with large group dialogue. Ideally, the group will include equal numbers of outside and inside participants, so that all participants can feel on an equal footing with one another. Realistically, according to the numbers to date, the outside members comprise about six to ten members. We plan to hold a series of recruitment presentations at Inside-Out final classes in the upcoming week in an effort to bolster membership for Temple’s group and the CCP pilot project.

More information about this project coming soon!