‘Getting back my humanity’

Carmichael Hall on the Rez Quad at Tufts

—Photo by Jellymuffin40

Tufts College circa 1854, on Walnut Hill, soon after its founding, in 1852.

Edited from a report by the New England Council, based on a Boston Globe story

“An initiative by Tufts University, has achieved remarkable success in recent years by allowing inmates to pursue and complete a college education. The Tufts University Prison Initiative at the Tisch College (TUPIT), at Tufts’s main campus, in Medford, Mass., established in 2016, fosters collaboration between Tufts faculty, students, and both incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. This partnership aims to address challenges related to mass incarceration and racial justice. TUPIT also provides a unique opportunity for students who begin their studies while incarcerated to continue and complete their education on the Tufts campus after their release.

“TUPIT was created by Hilary Binda, a senior lecturer at Tufts, and now the program’s executive director. TUPIT also includes the Tufts Educational Reentry Network, MyTERN, an accredited one-year college and reentry program for people post-incarceration.   

“One of the program’s graduates, 33-year-old Juan Pagan, said in his graduation speech, ‘Professors affirming that I am worthy and have something positive to offer society is the greatest gift I have ever received. I now know that I can be an asset to my family and community because [the program] helped me gain back that ineffable part of me that prison repressed — my humanity.’’