“If you’re free in your mind, walls can’t contain that.”
Those were the words of Mary Maguire, a college dean at California State University, Sacramento. She was speaking to 10 students at Mule Creek State Prison on the morning of their graduation ceremony in May.
“This is really a celebration of the liberation of your mind, because you have done that,” she said. “You have engaged in that process in a very real, genuine way.”
The graduates, dressed in cap and gown, were treated to the celebratory music of “Pomp and Circumstance” and a proud, boisterous audience that nearly filled Mule Creek’s visiting room to capacity. In addition to family and friends, local TV news station KCRA, representatives from the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Sacramento State deans and instructors, and various prison administrators and educators were also present. The event was livestreamed for those who could not attend.
Fellow residents of Mule Creek took part in the ceremony, which included renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Dawaun King and “America the Beautiful” by graduate Frederick Dew. Tony Silva provided musical accompaniment.
The graduates had completed the Transforming Outcomes Project at Sacramento State, a partnership between Sacramento State University and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that offers bachelor’s degrees in communications to Mule Creek and Folsom state prison residents.
The students’ tuition at Sacramento State was covered by federal grants — money awarded to undergraduate students in financial need — through a program called Second Chance Pell, which provided Pell Grant eligibility to select incarcerated individuals throughout the country. That eligibility has since been expanded to all incarcerated people.
It costs California $106,000 a year to incarcerate one adult but only $20,000 to provide this same individual with a bachelor’s degree through TOPSS, according to a report from the Associated Press.
Angie Gordon, one of the graduates and the first student speaker, said that the class included nine people with life sentences, two of whom lacked the possibility of parole. Most of the graduating class had been youth offenders.
“It is one thing to push forward in life when you are told the world is waiting for you, that every possibility is open for the taking,” Gordon said. “It is another thing entirely to push forward when you are told that your possibilities are limited, that you are too broken and dysfunctional to live beyond the terms of your captivity.
“The breadth of character represented by this graduating class is humbling.”
Alexandro Baeza, a fellow graduate, reminded everyone of the joys of the moment.
“We didn’t give up,” he said. “When some of us were dealing with personal problems — perhaps a marriage falling apart … the traumas of incarceration, or even a death in the family — we made sense of it, found meaning, and continued to move forward together.”
Dew was the last student to address the crowd. He commented on the hardships families have endured during a loved one’s incarceration.
“Today is your paradigm moment,” Dew said. “We may not have received freedom out of this institution yet, but many of us have received freedom from our criminal ways and failures of life.”
Other students reflected on the significance of their earned degrees.
“I have had a long educational journey,” Michael Owens said. “I remember the quiet pride I felt when I earned my GED in Folsom at the age of 19, way back in 1994. I couldn’t imagine a bachelor’s then. Now I know the sky’s the limit.”
Jesse Carson had his eyes on a bachelor’s degree since he earned his associate degree in 2008.
“It can be hard to find things to be proud of in prison, but for me this was an accomplishment 15 years in the making,” he said.
Prison and education officials also spoke about forthcoming changes.
This includes the introduction of laptops to modernize education behind bars as well as the expansion of bachelor’s degrees to a total of 10 correctional institutions in California this year. Also on offer soon will be a correspondence master’s program at another state university, said Shannon Swain, superintendent at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“I had a bunch of really profound things I wanted to say, and then I realized that y’all said it already,” Swain said. “So, I just want you to practice with me three little words: ‘Don’t stop now.’”
The 10 graduating students at Mule Creek were Alexandro Baeza, Jesse Carson, Frederick Dew, Angie Gordon, Tony Johnson, Jerry King, Michael Owens, Jacob Robles, Luke Scott and Evaristo Toscano.