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Mount Tamalpais College

News_T-2

Fall 2022 Course Offerings

September 28, 2022 by Mt. Tam College

Fall classes are underway and thriving, and we’re grateful to have our students back in the classrooms. Below is a complete list of our Fall 2022 courses and their instructors. To our faculty, and tutors, we are extremely grateful for your hard work and dedication to our students and for being strong in times when we need it most! Inspired to join us? Click here to learn more about how to teach or tutor at Mount Tamalpais College.

LA 99: Introduction to College

Wilton Marin-Cruz, Windy Franklin Martinez, and Audrey Boochever

LA EXTR: Ethics Bowl 

Kyle Robertson and Enoch Yim

LA WKSP: Academic Skills Workshop

Matthew Mueller

MTH 50A: Developmental Math I 

Andrew Tricker, Rie Uzawa, and Sahil Shah

MTH 50B: Developmental Math II 

Billy Morrison, Judy King, and Mitra Akhtari

MTH 99: Elementary Algebra

Jean Chadbourne and Newton Xie

MTH 115: Intermediate Algebra 

Brian Knight, Drew Behnke, and David Wong

MTH 221: Precalculus II 

Esme Bajo, Ethan Dlugie and Steve Martin

MTH WKSP: Applications of Mathematics Using Computer Software 

Aparna Komarla

PHY 154: Physics I with Lab 

Clarke Hardy, Jamie Sullivan, and Jeremy Goodreau

ENG 99A: Developmental English I 

Izzy Routledge, Leasa Graves, and Natasha Haughnes

ENG 99B: Developmental English II 

Doug Arnwine, Nandita Dinesh, Alex Naeve and Janet Christensen

ENG 101A: Reading and Composition 

Jim Bowsher

ENG 101B: Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing 

Jeff Magnin and Oliver Organista

ENG 204: Interdisciplinary Reading, Writing, and Research 

Ian Sethre

HIS 102: U.S. History II 

Julie Liss

PHL 270: Ethics

Andrew Wood

PHL 271: Introduction to Philosophy 

Jenn Fisher

ART 220: Introduction to Film

Bill Smoot

SPA 101: Elementary Spanish I

Ahmed Correa Alvarez, Cameron Flynn, Jazdil Poupart-Feliciano and Suzanne Jones

SSC 280: Special Topic: Community-Based Research Clinic at San Quentin

Naomi Levy

Filed Under: Academics, MTC News Tagged With: News_T-2

An interview with former staff member and student David Cowan

October 22, 2021 by Mt. Tam College

This year, our longtime Director of Operations David Cowan left his role at Mount Tamalpais College to devote himself full time to his work as Executive Director at Bonafide. Bonafide’s mission is to ensure that people affected by incarceration have the material, emotional and advocacy support they need to both integrate into society and build healthy, productive lives going forward, and we are so proud to partner with this organization and to have known David since his time as a college student at San Quentin. We sat down with David to ask him about his time as a student and then a staff member at MTC and what inspired the work he’s doing now.

What was your educational journey like?

It was always a desire of my family that I would go to college. When I became old enough, I joined the military. I had talked to a recruiter and they said they would pay for my college, and that I could go to college while I was there. But of course, I didn’t. While I was in the military I committed a crime, and went to prison. 

After I was arrested, my parents flew out {from Pennsylvania} to see me. At that point I didn’t feel like college was an option. I felt like there was no recovery. I didn’t even want to live, let alone think about the future. But one of the things that redirected my trajectory was that my dad said, on that first visit, “Whether or not you recover from this depends on the decisions that you make from here on out.” That was the first inkling I’d had that recovering from my decision was even possible.  It completely changed the direction of my thinking. My parents made me promise that I wouldn’t let the system change me, and that my number one priority would be to come home. 

How did you eventually become a college student? 

At first, I looked at some college programs {at another prison}. They were all correspondence. I attended some, but they weren’t real to me. I felt like the correspondence courses were just handing something over without care for the quality. It wasn’t the experience that I had thought it would be. Then, kind of by chance, I ended up at San Quentin. One of the first things I saw was a sign-up sheet for the college. 

I met Jody during my first orientation. There were just two staff members back then. It was amazing. The expectations were for us to learn and to think critically. In this program we were never treated like prisoners, which is valuable and rare. It felt like a training in being a free person, with  a focus on being a student. I felt a sense of fulfillment of the promise to my parents in a way that I hadn’t felt before. 

Why was the quality of your college education so important to you? 

At that time people with indeterminate sentences were not getting out. But I felt that if I ever did get out, I would be too old to do really tough physical labor. So I knew that I needed my brain. 

I was very suspicious at the beginning, looking for any sign of dumbing down the curriculum, or the instructors having low expectations of us. Early on some of the instructors would teach the same class inside and at a university, and some of them would bring their classes from the outside in so they could teach everyone at the same time. Having that proof that we were learning the same things that the students were learning outside and that we were able to excel with real curriculum, not dumbed down for prisoners, was very satisfying. It made me feel secure to know that I was getting a quality education. And that meant that I would be able to compete in the outside world, or at least survive. I came back to that belief from my father. I always had this underlying belief that I could work my way out. 

How did you end up joining the staff of MTC? 

I became the clerk {an administrative support role in the program}. I would set up the class boxes for the instructors, and gather and deliver mail to students. I had a reputation for being helpful to everybody, and the college program was so revered. If I was delivering papers for the college, I could go anywhere. Even places where I wasn’t supposed to be going because of my skin color. In prison, there’s this really strict segregation between communities. 

The most special thing about being a clerk is that it was embedded in the culture of the organization that I was a person. Unlike any other job in the prison, I wasn’t called an inmate while I was working, I was a staff member. They were holding me to the same standards as other staff. It was preparation for the outside. The staff never subscribed to the way the prison culture wanted them to be. That was the most valuable thing, in my time inside as a student and as a clerk. 

What was your experience of release and re-entry like?

Jody offered me a job before I’d even gotten out.  So I just walked right into a job. She knew I had a lot of things to process, so she said I could come in a day, in a month, in six months—the job would be open. So I took two days off. And then I went to the office. 

The staff was instrumental in where I am now. Amy Rosa, a staff member at the time, taught me how to get to work by bike. She showed up at my transitional house early in the morning with two bikes attached to her car and said, “we’re going to learn how to bike to work.” With other staff members, we walked all over San Francisco and they showed me how to ride BART. They were really instrumental in my re-entry. It was very lonely and depressing going to the transitional house after work and getting lost if I tried to explore by myself, but they were there. They are the inspiration behind Bonafide’s Critical Adventures program. We do those things that the staff did for me. 

What is your hope for the future of MTC? 

MTC is breaking new ground in the life of the organization. One of the things I think is critical is that it doesn’t lose sight of the fact that the students are people. That sense of responding to humanity – it’s kind of extra.  It’s not something that’s required to run a college program, but I think in this context it is. And that means work that isn’t necessarily in the job description. 

MTC has been a bigger part of my life than anybody realizes. It wasn’t just a school or a job. It gave birth to, and nourished, so much that is me. 

You can learn more about Bonafide and get involved in their critical work here. Thank you, David, for all that you do!

Filed Under: Campus & Community, People Tagged With: News_T-2

Fall 2021 Course Offerings

October 6, 2021 by Mt. Tam College

We’re delighted to share that in-person courses at San Quentin resumed on September 14, and we’re thrilled to be back in the classroom with our students after over a year apart. This fall semester brings back some beloved courses and introduces a few new offerings to our course catalogue. Below is a complete list of our fall 2021 course offerings and their instructors. Thank you to our incredible faculty and tutors for your dedication to our students! Inspired to join us? We will soon be recruiting faculty for the spring 2022 semester — stay tuned. 


CHM 111: General Chemistry with Lab

Taught by Randal Pendleton, Maxwell Coyle, and Noam Prywes


COM 146: Communications

Taught by Theresa Roeder, Alex Naeve, and William Bondurant


ENG 101A: Reading and Composition

Taught by Joel Childers


ENG 101B: Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

Taught by Matthew Culler


ENG 204: Interdisciplinary Reading, Writing and Research

Taught by Mari Larangeira, John Fielding


ENG 99A: Developmental English I

Taught by Amy Shea, David Buuck


ENG 99A: Developmental English I

Taught by Susan Hirsch, Oliver Organista, Natasha Haugnes


ENG 99B: Developmental English II

Taught by Cherie McNaulty, Alestra Menendez


ENG 99B: Developmental English II

Taught by Alex Naeve, Anoop Jain


EST 204: Environmental Science

Taught by Emily Barnes, Salma Elmallah


GS 99: Introduction to College

Taught by Nigel Hatton


GS 99: Introduction to College

Taught by Priya Kandaswamy


HIS 101: U.S. History I

Taught by Benjamin Perez, Ian Sethre


HIS 280: Special Topic: The History and Art of Ancient Egypt

Taught by Rita Lucarelli


MTH 115: Intermediate Algebra

Taught by Mark Dittmer, Noah Bonnheim, Theo McKenzie


MTH 50A: Developmental Math I

Taught by Anila Yadavalli, Billy Morrison, David Wong, Juleen Lam


MTH 50B: Developmental Math II

Taught by Emmanuel Schaan, Judy King, and Mia Ihm


MTH 99: Elementary Algebra

Taught by Drew Behnke, Jean Chadbourne, and Kenny Daniels


PHL 270: Ethics

Taught by Bill Smoot


SOC 230: Sociology

Taught by Jane Yamashiro


SSC 280: Special Topic: Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies

Taught by Gabriella Licata, William Scheuerman


GS WKSP: Workshop: Ethics Bowl

Taught by Kyle Robertson and Collin Anthony

Filed Under: Academics, MTC News Tagged With: News_T-2

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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.

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