Educating Inside.

Jamii Sisterhood is a professional development community of Black women in higher education in prison.

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Steadily Moving Forward

Despite the upheaval of 2020, Jamii Sisterhood LLC, via leadership of the Jamii Executive Team, pushed forward with honest and bold webinars highlighting topics like Black women in higher education in prison, the experiences/narratives of mothers with incarcerated children, decolonizing academic curricula, and generally disrupting the hegemonic infrastructure of higher education, the carceral system, and the delicate intersection of those two systems.

February 2021 will see the JET providing more webinars as we celebrate Black History Month and opening the application of Project Freedom, a Laughing Gull Foundation supported initiative. Project Freedom seeks to increase the presence of Black and LatinX instructors inside correctional facility classrooms through supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities as they design their higher education in prison programs. HBCUs, due to their long history of civic engagement and anti-racist activism, are uniquely suited to provide educational services to incarcerated individuals and, in fact, are poised to lead the field of higher education in prison through rigorous research, data-driven practice, and community service with an eye for equity.

Project Freedom Launching Feb. 1

We plan to select ten HBCUs, from the south(east) and southwest, to be in our inaugural cohort and will open the application process on February 1, 2021. We will work closely with this cohort around the following pieces to successfully launching a sustainable HEP program:

  • Strategic Planning

  • Student Recruitment/Admission Pipeline

  • Faculty Training

  • Curriculum Review

  • Evaluative Research

  • Affordability

  • Creation of an HEP Quality Index* & Individual School Dashboards

    This index will investigate the various axes that research indicates are helpful as we consider quality higher education. It will build upon work done in broader higher education around quality indicators, best practice around data collection and analysis, and other valuable measures that include BOTH inside and outside of classroom program aspects. This index will also adhere to the new legislative guardrails outlined in the Pell repeal and serve as a tool for programs to measure their level of quality.

Visit the Project Freedom Website

Consulting Services

HEP Equity Assessment

Curriculum review and interviews with faculty, students, other higher education institutional stakeholders to identify where your community stands, and what needs to be done.

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HEP Program Development

Expand or establish a comprehensive program delivering higher education in prison.

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DOC Institutional Training

Professional learning opportunities for Program Leadership, Staff, and Incarcerated Populations.

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Additional Training and Consulting Services Available

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