University of Utah Prison Education Project


University of Utah Prison Education Project

Committed to social transformation, UPEP advances educational justice through on-site higher education, empirical research, and advocacy.

 

Advocacy

UPEP seeks to be a local, regional, and national leader in forging ethical prison-university partnerships that provide high quality and meaningful postsecondary opportunities for incarcerated people. We aim to bring partner institutions into the work of higher education in prison by fostering a responsibility among stakeholders to making quality prison higher education a central aspect of democratic life in Utah.

Higher Education

UPEP provides on-site college curriculum to two groups of students incarcerated in
the Utah State Prison in Draper, one in the women’s facility and one in a men’s facility.Through face-to-face coursework, we assist incarcerated students and non-incarcerated volunteers to live lives of impact, both in prison and post-incarceration, by fostering academic excellence, leadership, and civic engagement.

Research

The Research Collaborative on Higher Education in Prison is a team of researchers at the University of Utah concerned with issues of quality of postsecondary education in prison. We work in collaboration with programs across the country to transform the landscape of higher education in prison through quality, ethical, and collaborative research. Our goal is to expand the field of quality higher education in prison through empirical research and dissemination.

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