Seven students walked — or stood — at a graduation ceremony inside a Connecticut prison in June 2023 C.E., earning associate degrees that took years of real academic work to complete. The Yale Prison Education Initiative (YPEI) and the University of New Haven marked the occasion with caps, gowns, flowers, family members, and a sitting governor in the room. It was the first time the program had conferred college degrees on incarcerated students, and for many of those graduates, it was the fulfillment of something they helped build from scratch.
At a glance
- Yale Prison Education Initiative: YPEI was founded at Dwight Hall in 2016 by Zelda Roland and offered its first credit-bearing courses to incarcerated students in Connecticut in 2018 C.E. — the first time any incarcerated person had ever earned a Yale credit.
- Associate degree graduates: Seven students received associate degrees in general studies from the University of New Haven at a ceremony held at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, Connecticut; six of the seven were still incarcerated at the time.
- Prison education expansion: A $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2021 C.E. helped grow the program from four classes per year to more than 30, with all Yale credits now transferring seamlessly toward University of New Haven degrees.
Years in the making
Four of the seven graduates had been taking YPEI classes since 2018 C.E., when the program was still limited to a small number of courses and just 12 students in the first cohort. They enrolled knowing they were helping shape something new.
“These particular graduates didn’t just graduate from this program — they built it,” said YPEI founder Zelda Roland. The commencement, she added, “was a celebration of dreaming something together and making it happen.”
Planning a ceremony inside a correctional facility took months of coordination with staff, students, and prison administrators. The visiting room at MacDougall-Walker was transformed with decorations, a podium, a blue photo backdrop, and flowers. Graduates wore caps, gowns, and stoles. Their families were there. So were Yale and University of New Haven faculty and staff, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, and Sharon Kugler, Yale’s outgoing university chaplain.
What the graduates said — and what the governor heard
All seven graduates gave individual speeches. They reflected on what it meant to pursue a college education while incarcerated, and several made a point of acknowledging their classmates. “What struck me was the fact that the graduates made mention of their classmates in their speeches,” said Vanessa Estimé, YPEI’s Assistant Director. “It really represented how much the community means to the graduates.”
Governor Lamont delivered the commencement address and responded to each graduate by name, directly engaging with what they had each said. YPEI staff said the impact on students was significant. “For students, it was the cherry on top that this is legitimate; you’re getting your degree and the government is here to recognize that,” said Tracy Westmoreland, YPEI’s Transfer Coordinator. Governor Lamont later said it was the most moving graduation he had ever attended.
Life after the ceremony
For graduates who are released, the YPEI-UNH partnership allows them to enroll at the University of New Haven immediately and continue toward a bachelor’s degree, with all their credits intact. The program also connects students to the YPEI College-to-Career Fellowship, which provides housing, basic needs support, and access to Yale’s campus while fellows pursue their next goals.
One graduate, Marcus Harvin, received the Dwight Hall Award for Community Engagement. He had already been released by the time of the ceremony and was actively working to support others still inside the program. He is now enrolled at UNH pursuing his bachelor’s degree, serving as a UNH President’s Public Service Fellow, and planning a career as a defense attorney.
By the end of summer 2023 C.E., the program had engaged 93 students in credit-bearing coursework since its founding. New programming for incarcerated women launched at Danbury federal prison in October 2022 C.E., expanding the reach of the initiative beyond the male-majority facilities where it began.
An honest look at the limits
Prison education programs like YPEI operate within serious structural constraints — correctional facilities set the rules, access can be restricted, and the number of students who can participate remains small relative to the overall incarcerated population in Connecticut and beyond. The program also relies heavily on grant funding, which can shift. Research from the Bureau of Justice Statistics consistently shows that education reduces recidivism, yet access to college-level coursework in U.S. prisons remains rare. YPEI is a meaningful model, but scaling it — and sustaining it — is ongoing work with no guaranteed path.
Still, what happened on June 9, 2023 C.E., in a visiting room in Suffield, Connecticut, was real. Seven people crossed a stage they helped build. Their families watched. A governor listened. And a program that started with 12 students and four classes now offers more than 30 courses a year, with degrees to show for it.
That is what educational equity looks like when it actually reaches people who have historically been left out of it — not as charity, but as rigorous academic partnership, built over years, one credit at a time.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Dwight Hall — Yale Prison Education Initiative celebrates its first commencement
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
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- The Good News for Humankind archive on education
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