Please join Willamette Women Democrats to welcome Associate Prof. Deborah Smith Arthur and Lanelle Rowe for our Thursday, May 12th program beginning at 4:30 pm. With advocacy from women in custody at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility who wanted access to educational opportunities and from Assoc. Professor Deb Arthur at PSU, the Higher Education in Prison Program was launched in 2019. It offers students first-year level, 15-credit interdisciplinary college courses centered on a theme. Similar to the PSU freshman inquiry course, it is designed to be a part of a larger degree program or a certificate that could stand alone. Lanelle Rowe will reflect on how higher education challenged her to invest in her own future and think about what she could offer the community. She and her fellow students had a unique opportunity to expand their worldview all the while being inside a concrete building with barbed wire. Higher education provides these students with a new pathway for them upon release. A Q&A session will follow.
Deborah Smith Arthur, M.A., J.D. worked as a criminal defense and juvenile law attorney for ten years. She has taught as an Associate Professor at PSU for 18 years. In 2019, she received the Campus Compact Western Region Engaged Scholar Award for her extensive work to bring college education and support to people experiencing incarceration. She teaches courses at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn and at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. She has worked on numerous successful clemency petitions, is a long-time volunteer with the Oregon Youth Authority, and serves on a statewide task force charged by the Oregon legislature to study and recommend state and local governmental actions addressing prison education. She organized and is an active member of the Oregon Coalition of Higher Education in Prison. Deb is a co-founder and directs PSU’s Higher Education in Prison Program. She holds a Master’s Degree in Black Studies from The Ohio State University and earned her J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law.
Lanelle Rowe is an enrolled member of the Warm Springs Tribe. She was a student in the first cohort of PSU's Higher Education in Prison program while she was incarcerated at Coffee Creek. She now works as a hair designer, and she is planning her return to PSU as a student in the Indigenous Studies Program.
The program will be held in person at the Celebrate Conference Center at 15555 Bangy Road #100 in Lake Oswego. Members and guests are asked to reserve by noon May 9 at www.W2Dems.com or call 503-656-4445 (CM Bookkeeping). For our first in person meeting in over two years, we're welcoming everyone back at the membership rate of $15. There will be light refreshments. Doors open at 4:00.
Willamette Women Democrats (W2D) is a local organization established to provide informative programs, promote progressive policies and encourage women to be politically active.
To attend, please click the registration link below. When you register, you will be added to our guest list.
Willamette Women Democrats (W2D) is a local organization established to provide informative programs, promote progressive policies and encourage women to be politically active.
Empowering Change: Higher Ed in Prison Registration Link