• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • STUDENTS
  • ALUMNI
  • FACULTY
  • MTC NEWS
  • RECENT PRESS
  • STUDENT BLOG
  • STORE
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Staff & Board
    • Strategic Plan
    • Accreditation
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Academics
    • Admissions
    • AA Degree
    • College Prep
    • Commencement
    • Alumni Scholarship Program
  • Campus Life
  • Research & Evaluation
  • Resources
  • Donate

Mount Tamalpais College

MTC News

Seeking Faculty for Fall 2022

May 21, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

From instructors to TAs, tutors to research assistants, it takes a remarkable and generous community to provide a world-class education to our students. We’re currently seeking volunteers to serve as faculty at Mount Tamalpais College in fall of 2022. Join us to be part of a college unlike any other in the U.S — an independent, accredited Liberal Arts college inside San Quentin state prison. 

There are a variety of roles for educators at Mount Tamalpais College. For all of these roles, we seek individuals who are committed to our mission and to working with diverse communities. All faculty are required to have some teaching or tutoring experience, and credit course faculty also must have a graduate degree—ideally a PhD—in a relevant discipline. People who have been directly impacted by incarceration, or who reflect the cultural, ethnic, socio-economic, and racial diversity of our student body are especially encouraged to apply.

You can learn more about the various roles and teaching opportunities here, and submit your application at the links below. We will start reviewing applications on May 31, 2022. While we will still accept applications past the deadline, applications received by the deadline will be prioritized.

Application to teach or tutor in STEM

Application to teach or tutor in Writing, Social Sciences, and Humanities

Filed Under: Announcements, MTC News Tagged With: News_P-1

Mount Tamalpais College Opens First On-Campus Computer Lab

May 5, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

In May 2021 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, agreed to grant Mount Tamalpais College the opportunity to offer students the first computer lab for the only independently accredited liberal arts college in the nation that is located in a prison. 

The lab, designed to accommodate 25 students, seats two to three students at elongated tables — socially distanced at 6 feet. In the classroom, students scurry around waiting for Dell computers to come out of the secured storage space. They then log in with their IDs and passwords. All currently enrolled students have full access to the computer lab on a drop-in basis during its open hours. 

 On a recent visit to the lab, students returned from the day before to access works they started the previous day. Like the library at UC Berkeley or a study hall in USC’s Doheny Library, the lab is very busy.

Informed students assisted new users and worked on essays and presentations — on topics from ecology to Sophocles, to MLK’s “I Have a Dream.” Others prepared rough drafts of poetry, songs, or works that more extensively relate to their aspiring goal of becoming published authors. The room bustled with academia.

Arthur Jackson, a Mount Tamalpais College clerk, was busy helping the lab get open. “The Lab attracts new students — people incarcerated for a long time who are excited because they now practice skills which are transferable to the real world,” said Jackson.

Jackson spoke of an older resident of San Quentin—a single letter man, people who came to prison before August of 2009. Now CDCR is using two letters for people’s identification status. They started with A00000, they are now on CZ0000. “The guy told me this is what rehabilitation should be. Expecting to return to our communities, we can now be more productive because Mount Tamalpais College equips us with new skills.”

He surveyed the classroom. “Look at them. Typing to meet deadlines just like at a real university. With all the camaraderie of the volunteer professors and teachers who provide interconnectivity with inmates, Mt Tam is as diverse as UC Berkeley,” said Jackson.

Carlos Drouaillet, a TA for the lab exclaimed, “Three months ago, we had nothing in relation to computers. During the pandemic, we had to write out our homework for correspondence courses in dark cells, usually having to re-write three or four times in our cells.”

The computers provide basic programs pre-installed on the Dells include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and MS OneNote. There is no internet access, however, there is limited intranet access to whitelisted sites, and Mount Tamalpais College is working to get more sites whitelisted so that students will be able to do research.

Ethan Annis, Anila Yadavalli, Amy Jamgochian, Kirsten Pickering, and Newton Xie all contributed to this project, which took two years to come to fruition. From deciding the model of computers, getting them inside of the facility, where to put them, what programs to put on them, etc. etc. The agreement with the warden was a simpler and more efficient process.

Annis, Librarian and Technology Specialist at Dominican College, supported Amy Jamgochian in the negotiations with CDCR and San Quentin about all the particularities of the computer lab and helped create the Letter of Understanding between the College and San Quentin. Volunteer instructor Xie designed the curriculum for the computer lab’s literacy and orientation program, offering students a five-module program before they begin to use the laptops.

Amy Brunson, the college’s new Director of Library Services and Educational Technology, looks forward to maximizing the college’s computer use and is planning the expansion of technical services at Mt. Tam College. Priya Kandaswamy, the Academic Program Director for MTC who also teaches Introduction to Ethnic Studies, said, “It’s something we’ve tried to do for a long time and we are very excited it’s happening.” 

Observations of the lab do not happen without hearing the name Kirsten Pickering. Pickering, who is the Research and Program Fellow at Mount Tamalpais College, instructs the classroom, “Anyone who needs to pick up printing can come with me to the printing station.”

Two men follow her out of classroom B-4 to the administrative hub where print requests are delivered. She also notes there will be a final pick-up of printed materials at 7:30 p.m., approximately 15 minutes before all students must return to their cells.

As the sunset bounces off the actual Mount Tamalpais located outside of San Quentin and radiates into the roof-lined windows, Rudy Moralez tries to improve his academic experience. “The lab helps with my grammar and spelling and corrects my writing fragments,” he says. “I believe it will help my grades improve.” 

Pickering says San Quentin’s administration, especially Warden Ron Broomfield, were supportive in coordinating the concerns of CDCR and the college. Broomfield said he envisions the day when a large proportion of prisoners, those dedicated to reformative education and rehabilitation will possess their own laptop computers.

“This ‘child’ has many parents; for years Jody Lewen wanted technology for our students because that’s how college works on the outside,” said Pickering. 

Pickering believes challenges operating the lab include expediting the current replacement time for broken computers and the synchronization of laptops to San Quentin’s intranet. “We could easily have more computers from donations, but turnaround time for licensing through CDCR is lengthy,” said Pickering.

Mount Tamalpais College plans to implement the same learning management system that the University of California education system uses.

This system, called Canvas, allows remote lecturers and programs that could increase availability to all students while protecting against future lockdowns. 

Pickering spoke of the Canvas system, “Where our vision is to get every student a laptop for equal access, Canvas gives us the same quality as the UC system. CDCR has worked to modify the Canvas program to fit within their specifications…We should incorporate Canvas shortly.”

Pickering spoke of the Peer-to-Peer Computer Lab Assistants who trained with her and STEM Coordinator Anila Yadavalli prior to the installation of the lab. “Quincy, Carlos, Daniel, Ron, Rob, Rufael, C.J. and Rodney were an instrumental part of getting this off the ground.” She added the assistants had to complete rigorous interviews and an orientation that ensured consistency and equal access to all Mount Tamalpais College students.

James Jenkins, who has been incarcerated for 31 years said, “The computer lab is God sent to the extent it enhances our computer and typing skills. It allows me to learn Excel and other apps.

Because of the lab, I am able to do all of my papers, mid-terms and homework here in our classroom. Without this place, I would not be around other motivated peers who share the same hopes and dreams. I would most likely be in my 4 x 8 cell, instead of gaining a whole new outlook on society. Mt Tam has enlightened my behavior towards others.”

Currently 300 other Mt. Tam. students share Jenkins’ vision. Now they can print their visions instead of writing them three to four times. (Read more about MTC computer lab.)

Photo Courtesy of San Quentin News

Filed Under: Announcements, MTC News Tagged With: News_P-2

Spring 2022 Course Offerings

April 12, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

We’re excited to have the semester in full swing after a delay due to covid restrictions earlier this year. Our Spring classes resumed in March, and we’re grateful to welcome our students back into the classrooms. Below is a complete list of our Spring 2022 courses and their instructors. To our faculty and tutors, we are incredibly thankful for your dedication to our students and sticking it out through these unprecedented times! Inspired to join us? Click here to learn more about how to teach or tutor at Mount Tamalpais College.


AST 217: Astronomy

Taught by Brian Lenardo and Andrew Westphal


COM 146: Communications

Taught by Theresa Roeder, Alex Naeve, Will Bondurant and Mick Laugs


ENG 101A: Reading and Composition

Taught by Marcia Klotz and John Fielding


ENG 101B: Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

Taught by Douglas Arnwine


ENG 102: Introduction to Literature

Taught by Susan Hirsch and David Buuck


ENG 204: Interdisciplinary Reading, Writing, and Research

Taught by Tavi Steinhardt, Max Kaisler, Jeff Manglin (TA & replacing Tavi as of May 12)


ENG 99A: Developmental English I

Taught by Matt Culler, Leasa Graves and Natasha Haugnes


ENG 99A: Developmental English I

Taught by Bridget Gelms, Lisa Star and Maddie Alvendia


ENG 99B: Developmental English II

Taught by Jim Bowsher


ENG 99B: Developmental English II

Taught by Alex Naeve and Cherie McNaulty


ENG WKSP: Workshop: Creative Writing

Taught by Amy Shea


GS 99: Introduction to College

Courtney Torres


GS 99: Introduction to College

Taught by Amy Lee


MTH 115: Intermediate Algebra

Taught by Maureen Lahiff, Jamie Sullivan and Drew Behnke


MTH 220: Precalculus I

Taught by Theo McKenzie, Steve Martin and Clarke Hardy


MTH 50A: Developmental Math I

Taught by Billy Morrison, Alex Broekhof and Sahil Shah


MTH 50A: Developmental Math I

Taught by Cordelia Radin, Madeline Adee and Andrew Tricker


MTH 50B: Developmental Math II

Taught by Judy King, Esme Bajo and Mauricio Cespedes


MTH 99: Elementary Algebra

Taught by Jean Chadbourne and Brian Knight


MTH WKSP: Workshop: Math Circle: Recreational Math

Taught by Jordan Davis


POL 241: American Government

Taught by Ian Sethre


PSY 121: Social Psychology

Taught by Mari Larangeira and Anoop Jain


SSC 280: Special Topic: Introduction to Ethnic Studies

Taught by Priya Kandaswamy

Filed Under: Academics, MTC News Tagged With: News_T-1

Join us for Reaching Higher, a benefit and community celebration

February 17, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

Join us in person or virtually for a special benefit to celebrate Mount Tamalpais College’s  independent accreditation, and to honor over twenty years of higher education at San Quentin. The evening’s program will include:

  • An award presented to Mount Tamalpais College alumnus Jesse Vasquez, Executive Director of Friends of San Quentin News
  • A short documentary by filmmaker R.J. Lozada, featuring MTC alumni Corey McNeil and James Cavitt
  • Refreshments, dinner, and opportunities to mingle in-person, and special guests joining us virtually

Friday, April 22

6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Julia Morgan Ballroom
San Francisco 
proof of vaccination required

7:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. PST
Livestream for virtual attendees

Sponsor the event or purchase tickets here! Please note that there is a discount code for MTC faculty, and all former students and their families are welcome to complimentary tickets. Reach out to development@mttamcollege.org to learn more.

Filed Under: Events, Fundraisers & Campaigns, MTC News Tagged With: News_P-1

Announcing the Mount Tamalpais College Alumni Scholarship

February 15, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

We’re pleased to introduce the Mount Tamalpais College Alumni Scholarship Program!

This program will provide scholarships and other support to MTC alumni who are interested in pursuing further education. The scholarship program will be administered by 10,000 Degrees, an organization that administers scholarships and provides college advising. Their mission is to achieve educational equity and support students from low-income backgrounds to and through college to positively impact their communities and the world. We’re proud to partner with them to connect MTC alumni to valuable support.

Interested in learning more? Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and applications details here.

10,000 Degrees is currently accepting applications from eligible MTC alumni. The priority deadline to apply is March 2, 2022, however, the application will be left open until all scholarship funds are distributed. The first round of funds will be awarded for the Fall 2022 semester.

We are excited to grow this program in the years to come and to support MTC alumni throughout their education journey.

Filed Under: Academics, Announcements, MTC News Tagged With: News_T-1

Mount Tamalpais College Achieves Accreditation

February 1, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

Mount Tamalpais College is proud to announce that on January 27, 2022, we were granted Initial Accreditation by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). This is a historic moment for Mount Tamalpais College, and a landmark event in a society that has persistently excluded the incarcerated from educational opportunity. San Quentin State Prison is now the site of an academic institution unlike any other in the US: an independent liberal arts college specifically dedicated to serving incarcerated students. 

We could not have achieved this without our community of supporters, faculty, alumni, staff, and friends, whose belief in our mission made this possible. MTC staff, faculty, and students played an especially critical role in hosting the first ACCJC site visit, as well as in developing new program learning outcomes and systems for assessment. Their hard work and dedication over the last two decades are the foundation and inspiration for our current achievements. 

Having reached this milestone, we now continue the essential work of building a world class higher education institution at San Quentin, while helping the field of higher education in prisons across the United States to flourish. This year we will continue to improve the quality of academic instruction, expand student support services, increase access to technology and library resources, and expand our work in the realm of research and evaluation, to name just a few exciting initiatives. 

We extend deep thanks to many people and institutions for their hard work and support throughout the accreditation process: Past Presidents of ACCJC Richard Winn and Stephanie Droker; Interim President Cindy Miles; ACCJC Vice President Catherine Webb; Accreditation Process Director, Elizabeth Dutton. Our ACCJC Peer Review Team, led by Dr. Keith Curry, President of Compton College provided invaluable feedback and guidance that has already profoundly strengthened us as an institution. San Quentin Warden Ron Broomfield, as well as former California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Ralph Diaz, have also supported this bold initiative from its inception.

You can read more about our accreditation journey and find the press release announcing our official accreditation here.

Filed Under: Accreditation News, Announcements, Current Affairs, MTC in the News, MTC News Tagged With: News_P-2

Save the Date for Reaching Higher

January 30, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

Join us on April 22, 2022 for Reaching Higher, our first in-person celebration since 2018. This special evening will gather former students and their families, faculty, partners, and supporters for a celebration of our officially becoming Mount Tamalpais College, and all that we have achieved as a community along the way.

Individual tickets will go on sale in February, with special ticket options and pricing for formerly incarcerated guests and their families. To join us as an event sponsor or host, you can learn more about sponsorship levels and benefits here and purchase a sponsorship package here or by contacting us at development@mttamcollege.org.

We can’t wait to be with our community again in celebration and support of this powerful work. See you there!

Filed Under: Events, MTC News

First Person: Why College Matters for People Serving Extreme Sentences

January 19, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

I attended a college surrounded by fences “adorned” with barbed wire. In early 2021, at 50 years old, I earned an associate’s degree from Mount Tamalpais College, which is located on the lower yard of San Quentin State Prison. It’s been life changing.

Mount Tamalpais College, which we call Mt. Tam, provides a classroom education on the prison grounds. The teachers are volunteers from other schools including Stanford, San Francisco State University, Harvard, and Berkeley. It has a study hall area where tutors are available five nights a week and a recently opened computer lab with 36 laptops that allow communication with teachers and access to reference materials through a “mediated internet,” according to Kirsten Pickering, research program fellow. 

For incarcerated people, the quality or success of a college program is often measured by recidivism rates. By that standard, Mount Tamalpais, formerly the Prison University Project, is a success. Its students had a recidivism rate of 17 percent compared to the 65 percent recidivism rate for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as a whole, according to a 2011 program evaluation. 

Moreover, MTC provides jobs for graduates on parole. I’ve seen Dimitri, a former student, come back into the prison, dressed up in a sharp black suit, as an employee of Mt. Tam. The college recently hired Richard “Bonaru” Richardson, the former editor in chief of San Quentin News. I know of at least three other former incarcerated students that are now Mt. Tam employees. 

For those of us serving long sentences, recidivism rates and jobs can’t measure the success of our college education. My pursuit of a degree started in 2016, approximately 16 years into a 55-years-to-life sentence. I would have to live to be 85 years old to evaluate whether an associate’s degree will break the cycle of incarceration that’s circled my adulthood. Proof of the quality of a Mount Tamalpais education has shown itself in several other ways that impacts society and my life.

Incarcerated graduates have a positive influence on their peers and families. I remember attending a graduation where the valedictorian was a man with locks. His siblings attended the event, two sisters and a brother, plus his mother, sat in the front row as he gave a short speech. Afterwards, one of his sisters said, “I’m so proud of my brother. He’s the first to graduate from college in our family. And if he can do that from prison, I can get my degree too.”

The influence of college on peers is also apparent on the yard. In other prisons, the conversations you usually hear about are sports, war stories, or women. At San Quentin, you can walk by and ear hustle (overhear) debates about ethics, politics, or Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. 

A 2016 qualitative study featuring interviews with 27 Mt. Tam students showed that the program positively transformed how students think about themselves, others, and their futures. Over 90 percent of respondents reported that college positively affected their self-identity, mental health, and personal relationships. More than two-thirds also said that the program has positively influenced the prison culture at San Quentin, particularly in regards to race relations.

Personally, I see education as the key to my success from behind bars. After getting sentenced to a term beyond my life expectancy I needed a path to redemption in the eyes of my mother, my sons, and society that didn’t involve going home. I came up with becoming a writer because my voice was the one part of me that was still free.

I envisioned writing a memoir that people who grew up in tough neighborhoods like I did would read and drop their guns. The problem with that plan was that I only had a high school education and no creative writing skills. In isolation I wrote for 10 years without training or a mentor. Words stacked up that no one heard.

 In 2013, my security level dropped and I was transferred to San Quentin, a progressive lower security prison. Here they have all kinds of programs and I signed up for anything that could make me a better writer, including college, creative writing and the San Quentin News Journalism Guild.

Each program made my writing better and better. I became the sports editor for San Quentin news, and a contributing writer for The Marshall Project and Current. Additionally, the college program offered a communication class that developed my speaking skills. I pursued the oral art to deliver prerecorded speeches over a collect call to reach Stanford, MoMA and to honor James King, the campaign manager for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and California State Senator Nancy Skinner for their work by the nonprofit law firm UnCommon Law. Plus, speaking skills landed me the cohost and co-producer job with the Ear Hustle podcast, which was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist and DuPont award winner. 

In a trailer used for a classroom, I learned the history of Black codes, unions, the New Deal and other events that shaped the environment that shaped me. From gaining this worldview, I began to look beyond the people who bullied me growing up and instead began to see the systems that pitted us against each other. My new perspective made it easier to quit taking things personally, forgive others, let go of my anger, and heal.

Additionally, I learned how political systems work and put that knowledge to use. I inspired Taina Angeli Vargas of the nonprofit advocacy group Initiate Justice to fight for the restoration of voting rights for incarcerated people. Our efforts led to Prop 17, an initiative on a 2020 ballot in California which gained the support to restore voting rights to people on parole.

Another thing that made learning from teachers in person a high-quality educational experience was the socialization. Other prisons only offered correspondence courses that pale in comparison to in person learning. Imagine professors from famous universities volunteering to give you a free education. Their dedication made me feel a love and loyalty to society that I never felt before — I can’t be a waste of their time.

I think the biggest mark of success stemming from my college education on a prison yard is the opportunity to go home. On January 13, 2022 California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted my sentence, which grants me a parole board hearing this summer for a chance of getting a release date in early 2023. As a reason for granting mercy, Newsom’s Legal Affairs Office cited “participating in self-help programming and completing college coursework.”

Editor’s Note: Mount Tamalpais College was founded in 1996 as the Prison University Project, and operated as an extension site of Patten University. In January 2020, the program changed its name to Mount Tamalpais College when it became a candidate for accreditation by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). The college is the first independent liberal arts institution dedicated specifically to serving incarcerated students.

Rahsaan “New York” Thomas is a writer, podcaster, and director. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the DuPont Award in 2020 for his work as a co-host and co-producer on Season Four of the Ear Hustle podcast. He’s also the chairperson of the San Quentin satellite chapter of the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists and a contributing writer for Current, the Marshall Project, and San Quentin News. All from a cell at San Quentin State Prison.

Attribution: This article originally appeared in Open Campus on January 19, 2022.

Read Story

Filed Under: Current Affairs, MTC in the News, MTC News Tagged With: News_P-2

What’s Next for Pell Grants for Incarcerated Students

January 10, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

In December 2020, a nearly three-decade-long ban on people in prison getting Pell Grants, or federal aid for low-income college students, ended after years of bipartisan advocacy and research on the benefits of education behind bars. But with this ban lifted, questions linger among some advocates around how new federal dollars will be used to ensure people in prison get quality college programs.

“We’re constantly concerned about incarcerated students as a vulnerable population—and we instead need to approach them in higher education in similar ways as we do first-generation students and students from economically disenfranchised communities,” said Dr. Mary Gould, the director of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prisons, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization for college programs in prisons.

She stressed that people in prison are often given substandard resources “because it’s seen as okay to give them something rather than nothing.”

When it comes to college programs that can get federal dollars from Pell Grants, Gould worries that predatory practices in prisons could flourish if reporting mandates on program quality as well as equity are not careful.

Last fall, the Department of Education (ED) launched a subcommittee on prison education programs during its negotiated rulemaking sessions. These sessions bring together higher education stakeholders with an ED negotiator to tackle big issues like the college affordability crisis and how for-profit colleges will be regulated. The subcommittee on prison education has meanwhile been debating next steps in the Pell Grant expansion to incarcerated people.

While guidelines are a start, some advocates voiced concern about how such rules will be enforced inside prisons. This includes whether the accreditation process for college programs will take a close enough look at the kind of instruction that incarcerated people will get. Many people in prisons may additionally need college preparatory coursework before they can work towards a degree. If that preparation is not factored into programs, then a lot of people will likely be either unable to participate or the program expectations will be lowered.

“If you really want to create federal funding for this, I think you should probably create block grants and tie them to a clear, detailed set of standards, as well as a concrete system for ensuring compliance,” said Dr. Jody Lewen, founder and president of Mount Tamalpais College, which provides a free associate’s of arts degree program and college preparatory program to people incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in California.

Lewen and Gould added that this Pell Grant expansion arrives at a time when higher education has been financially suffering, largely due to declining enrollments in the pandemic. With colleges facing a potential financial incentive to educate incarcerated students, problems could surface if the ED’s guidelines are not enforceable enough.

Lewen, for instance, suggested that schools be required to submit a proposal with a budget in order to receive Pell Grants for prison education programs.

“I love the potential,” she said. “And I hope I’m wrong, but I’m very concerned that without any mechanism for compelling schools to provide quality programs this will basically be like blood in the water with the incarcerated student essentially becoming prey.”

Yet there may be some lessons from California on how to get the Pell expansion right. Incarcerated students there have been able to get state grants for the last few years through the California College Promise Grant.

“Our colleges have not needed Pell because the students are eligible for financial aid like any other student thanks to the Promise Grant,” said Rebecca Sullivan Silbert, senior director of the Rising Scholars Network, which is made up of California community college programs that support incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. 

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office leads the Rising Scholars Network in partnership with the Foundation for California Community Colleges. In the Network, about 20 community colleges currently serve roughly 14,000 students in 35 prisons. Silbert said that they want to reach more students, yet they are limited not by demand but classroom space that the Department of Corrections offers.

“For our incarcerated students, we’re guided by the Chancellor’s vision for success just like any other student,” said Silbert. “That means we’re focused on making sure that the students reach their degrees, that they do so in a reasonable time, that they are able to transfer if they want to, and that they have clear advising and academic support to complete those degrees.”

Silbert added that Pell Grants could similarly be used to support not only incarcerated but formerly incarcerated college students along their continuum of education.

“When we look at the Pell extension nationally, I think those same things—like degree completion and transferability of credits—are important for all students,” said Silbert. “For the California community colleges, it’s important to view incarcerated students as part of a whole student body in a whole system. That way if they are transferred from prison to prison, for example, they can transfer from community college to community college.”

Silbert also noted that the Pell extension should keep in mind the unique needs of people in prison. For example, students need to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to get Pell Grants. But students in prison often do not have wifi and cell access, so completing that paperwork by hand and trying to gather the necessary financial information can be a big challenge. College programs will likely need to have advisors who can help incarcerated students navigate the FAFSA.

As for what comes next for the Pell expansion, Gould would like to see a panel come together to guide the ED accreditation process for prison education programs. An identified prison expert should be part of that accrediting body, she added.

“And the program reporting responsibilities need to be shifted to the colleges and universities,” said Gould, who noted that the Department of Corrections rather than a higher education institution as of now would mostly handle the reporting. “That to me seems critical.”

Attribution: This article originally appeared in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education on January 10, 2022.

Read Story

Filed Under: Current Affairs, MTC in the News, MTC News Tagged With: News_P-5

Two words for you this #GivingTuesday: thank you

November 29, 2021 by Mt. Tam College

While this year has been full of immense challenges, it has also been full of profound generosity and gratitude. Today we have some powerful messages of appreciation to share with you.

Eighteen months ago, in the face of the challenging prison conditions brought about by the pandemic, Mount Tamalpais College sent care packages to everyone incarcerated at San Quentin. A year and a half later, thanks to an incredible outpouring of support, we have now provided packages to nearly every state prison in California, totaling over 100,000 packages. We will reach them all by the end of this year.

To date, we have received several thousand letters from care package recipients, as well as emails and phone calls from their loved ones, expressing gratitude and hope in response to this simple act of caring. Today we want to share with you excerpts from some of those letters.

We are also very happy to be able to share a thank you video that was made by MTC student Jesse Rose, for all our donors and care package team members. Jesse is also part of FirstWatch, a filmmaking program in San Quentin State Prison.

The deepest of thank yous from the entire MTC staff and community.

To donate to the college program, visit our giving page here.

Full letter from Brian Asey

“Please know that me, my celly, and everyone else really appreciate the packages that the friends of the college program put together. They came at a time when we really needed some uplifting. What really made me feel good is the reaction my celly had when he read the letter and realized it came from the college program here at SQ. Now he can’t wait to get his GED so he can go to college. “ -Brian Asey

Full letter from Bobby Braggs

“I want to say thank you on behalf of myself and all of the inmates who received one. Again thank you. I’ve never seen so many men in jail happy. Y’all put a smile on people’s faces in these hard times. When we get unexpected mail it’s because COVID 19 killed a loved one or friend but to get a package from people we don’t even know gives us hope to look forward to brighter days.” – Bobby Braggs

Full letter from Phillip Long

“When I was called up to receive my care package I had no idea that it wasn’t just a care package but my answer to a prayer. The joy and elation I felt from receiving my package was uplifting. To know that there are those that exhibit such kindness and selflessness to prisoners like myself sparks a hope in me that the last year or so had dimmed so blatantly.” – Phillip Long

You can find more messages of gratitude from care package recipients here.

Filed Under: Fundraisers & Campaigns Tagged With: News_P-4

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 7
  • Go to Next Page »
mtc seal

Contact Us

PO Box 492
San Quentin, CA 94964
(415) 455-8088

 

Please note: Prior to September 2020, Mount Tamalpais College was known as the Prison University Project and operated as an extension site of Patten University.

Quick Links

CONTACT US
CAREERS
ACCREDITATION
PUBLICATIONS
OPEN LINE

 

Join Our Mailing List

© 2022 | Mount Tamalpais College | Photography by RJ Lozada | Design & Development by //DESIGN AGENCY//

  • COVID-19
  • About
    ▼
    • Our Story
    • Staff & Board
    • Accreditation
    • Contact Us
  • Academics
    ▼
    • AA Degree
    • Admissions
    • College Prep
    • Commencement
  • Campus Life
  • Research & Evaluation
  • Resources
  • Students
  • Alumni
  • Faculty
  • Giving
  • News