Club Meeting Recap--November 9, 2015
Posted
on Nov 09, 2015
Professor Carolyn Schrock-Shenk Spoke to the Club
About the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program
Honorary Members Art Decio and Sheriff Brad Rogers were in attendance.
Mrs. Diana Lawson was appointed to be an Honorary Rotarian.
Members Rhonda Banta and Steve Riikonen were presented with Paul Harris Fellow Awards. The Paul Harris Fellow recognition acknowledges individuals who contribute, or who have contributions made in their name or the name of family members, of $1,000 to The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. Plus recognitions indicate the member has donated additional one-thousand-dollar amounts. The award was established in 1957 to show appreciation for and encourage substantial contributions to what was then the Foundation’s only program, Rotary Foundation Fellowships for Advanced Study, the precursor to Ambassadorial Scholarships.
The Sergeant at Arms was new member and new Sergeant, Mike Christofeno. For his first turn at Sergeant, Mike did an excellent job raising fines. The fine cap is lifted for the months of November and December so maximum dollars can be raised for the Salvation Army Christmas Drive. The money the Sergeant’s committee raises over the year is pooled into a fund and then disbursed annually to area non-profit organizations.
The speaker was Professor Carolyn Schrock-Shenk, who spoke about the Inside-Outside Prison Exchange Program. Inside-Out creates a dynamic partnership between institutions of higher learning and correctional systems in order to deepen the conversation about and transform our approaches to understanding crime, justice, freedom, inequality, and other issues of social concern.
Inside-Out brings college students together with incarcerated men and women to study as peers in a seminar behind prison walls. The core of the Inside-Out Program is a semester-long academic course, meeting once a week, through which 15 to 18 “outside” (i.e.: undergraduate) students and the same number of “inside” (i.e.: incarcerated) students attend class together inside prison. All participants read a variety of texts and write several papers; during class sessions, students discuss issues in small and large groups. In the final month of the class, students work together on a class project.
Inside-Out is an opportunity for college students to go behind the walls to reconsider what they have come to know about crime and justice. At the same time, it is also an opportunity for those inside prison to place their life experiences in a larger framework. Inside-Out creates a paradigm shift for participants, encouraging transformation and change agency in individuals and, in so doing, serves as an engine for social change.
Through college classes and community exchanges, individuals on both sides of prison walls are able to engage in a collaborative examination of issues of social significance through the particular lens that is the “prism of prison.”
Up Coming Program(s):
November 16, 2015: Kay Ball--Elkhart General Hospital
Nov 23, 2015: Greg Anders & Cindy Lindahl --"A Strange Thing Happened in a Box in My Attic"