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News: College behind bars: Roane State faculty helping inmates attain degrees

Instructor standing at the front of a room with an individual with a TN DEPT OF CORRECTION shirt on.

December 1, 2021

By Bob Fowler
Roane State staff writer

When Roane State Professor Arthur Lee teaches this class, he has to go through a security check and have all his class materials searched.

An officer then escorts him down corridors where heavy metal doors clang shut and locked behind them.

Finally, they reach a small, sparsely furnished room, where 12 men await, each wearing drab gray garb with the words TN Department of Correction printed on shirt backs.

Lee’s late afternoon geology class at the Morgan County Correctional Complex is about to begin. When it’s over, Lee will be escorted back to freedom by an officer.

Twice a week, Lee drives to the prison. The three-hour sessions on Tuesdays are lectures; while three-hour labs are scheduled for Thursdays.

Roane State faculty members have been driving to Wartburg since the fall semester of 2019 to teach inmates in an innovative program launched by the nonprofit Tennessee Higher Education Initiative.

The goal is for inmates to obtain associate degrees from the community college as part of a rehabilitation effort. Once paroled, officials say the students will be better equipped to rejoin society as contributing members.

“Some of these guys can get their lives turned around, and I hope they do,” Lee said.

“The rapport that Prof. Lee had with the inmates was really, really neat to see,” said Robert Reburn, public information officer for the Department of Correction’s East Tennessee region. “You could tell the inmates respected Prof. Lee. They were very much engaged.”

Roane State was asked by the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative to participate in the program.

Thus far, inmates have had lessons in a variety of subjects ranging from English and history to psychology, math and speech.

Faculty members who have participated include Dr. Jim Doyle, Jeff Davis, David Adkins, Glenda Walls, Andrew Hicks and Jeff Sexton.

“The men in the program are starting to get excited about finishing their degree,” Dr. Diane Ward, Roane State’s vice president for student learning, said of the students. “One even asked if he was paroled before they finished if he could come back and graduate with the group.”

Prison officials, Ward said, “are very pleased with the program.”

“I am proud of our faculty for the extra effort they are giving to offer these students college classes and the opportunity to complete an associate degree,” Ward said.

“Without the faculty, it simply would not be possible.”

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