Cathy Lechowicz Day!

Cathy Lechowicz, right, displaying her award with William Dyson, chairman of the Connecticut Commission on Community Service, and Jane Ciarleglio, executive director of the commission.
Cathy Lechowicz, right, displaying her award with William Dyson, chairman of the Connecticut Commission on Community Service, and Jane Ciarleglio, executive director of the commission.

Mayor Dan Drew proclaimed Tuesday, April 28 Cathy Lechowicz Day in Middletown! Many Wesleyan students, staff and faculty make enormous contributions to Middletown, and so it’s wonderful to see one of our colleagues recognized for her profound dedication to the community. Recently, the Connecticut Commission on Community Service and the Office of Higher Education announced the recipients of the 2015 Community Service Awards, and Cathy Lechowicz was singled out for her great work.

In a letter nominating Lechowicz for the honor, Rob Rosenthal, director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, pointed to her work with the Center for Prison Education and the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center.

Under Cathy’s direction, the Center for Prison Education “has flourished,” he wrote.

“The Center now provides a program in the women’s prison at York as well as the men’s prison at Cheshire. In the 2013-14 school year, 54 students were taking classes. Over 20 professors (mainly Wesleyan, but others as well) have taught classes ranging from Molecular Biology to Political Philosophy, and always at the same level as they teach these classes to their undergraduate students. Additionally, over 130 Wesleyan undergraduates have served as teaching assistants, writing tutors, research interns, and workshop facilitators. Finally, the Center has been extremely successful securing funding.”

Rob also wrote of Lechowicz’ achievements at Green Street.

“In three years, Cathy has achieved incredible results: Wesleyan’s financial contribution has been cut almost in half, total visitors have more than doubled, student involvement has more than doubled, and faculty involvement has tripled.”

Center for Prison Education Receives Major Grant!

Wesleyan has received a $300,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to support our Center for Prison Education. This is an important infusion of support to a program that has made a powerful, positive difference in the lives of incarcerated people and the faculty and students on campus who work with them. As a recent Connection story emphasized, “the grant will not only help fund the classes taught at the Cheshire and York Correctional Institutions, but also support CPE’s re-entry services, which assist students who complete their sentences in continuing their college education post-release.”

The Connection story goes on to note that “CPE’s mission is informed by research that shows the rate of return to prison – recidivism – is reduced by education. Studies have found that participation in postsecondary education while incarcerated can reduce rates of recidivism by more than 40 percent. Further, CPE believes that an investment in individuals is also in the communities and families to which the prisoners belong.”

I remember well when Russell Perkins ’09 came to my office to discuss his ideas for teaching college classes at a nearby prison. I have to admit that I was skeptical that the program could be sustained, and whether our efforts would have the kind of impact that our students hoped it would. Over the years, I have been impressed by the seriousness and dedication of the staff and students who ensure that our classes meet real learning objectives, and by the faculty who pour heart, soul and intellect into their work with those who are incarcerated. Last year I lectured at the Cheshire prison about liberal education, and I had the clear sense that these were students eager to get the most out of our undergraduate classes.

Recently one of our Wesleyan students at Cheshire wrote powerfully about his experience of working in the program. You can read his essay here.

I am so grateful to the Ford Foundation for recognizing and supporting the great work of the CPE!

Teaching, Research and a Busy Weekend

Yesterday felt like the first warm spring day since students returned from Spring Break, and it was great to see Andrus Field and Foss Hill fill up in the late afternoon. I’d begun the day with a visit to our pilot program at the Cheshire State Correctional Institution. VP Sonia Manjon and I visited Melanye Price’s class in political science, and I was struck by the seriousness with which the men were approaching complex issues in American political culture.  Russell Perkins ’09, who helped get this program underway and continues to coordinate it, met us at the prison. It was important to see first-hand some of the issues that arise in a program that teaches liberal arts classes in correctional institutions.

For the last year or so Provost Joe Bruno and I have sponsored talks by faculty for their colleagues across the campus. The faculty lunch lecture yesterday was delivered with panache by Stewart Novick, one of our star professors of chemistry. Stew’s subject was astrochemistry, and he did a masterful job of explaining the “rich chemistry” of dense interspatial dust clouds — even to someone as chemistry-challenged as I! I was especially impressed by the interdisciplinary importance of the work for astronomy, physics and cosmology. The collaboration on this sophisticated research by undergraduate and graduate students was yet another sign of how our science programs are dedicated to the scholar-teacher model at the highest level.

Busy weekend on the horizon at Wesleyan. The senior theses art exhibitions at Zilkha gallery are always worth checking out. This week Sarah Abbott, Julian Wellisz, Rachel Schwerin, Megumu Tagami and Yang Li have their recent work on display.

Baseball hosts Middlebury today and Saturday afternoon, and the softball team is at home against Hamilton. Men’s lacrosse is at home against the always strong Tufts team. Come out and support the Cardinals!

[tags]Cheshire State Correctional Institution, Russell Perkins ’09, Provost Joe Bruno, Stewart Novick, senior art theses[/tags]