Education on the Inside; Celebrating Incarcerated Graduates

It’s college graduation time behind the walls of the state correctional facility in Stillwater, Minn. Three students on the dais are wearing royal blue graduation mortarboards and robes, but what you can’t see underneath are their gray prison uniforms. 

Larry Foster, Lennell Martin and Micah Morson are pronounced graduates by Ginny Arthur, president of Metro State University. The Stillwater facility graduates are part of the TREC Program (Transformation and Reentry through Education and Community), a partnership among Metro State, Minneapolis College and the University of Minnesota which began two years ago. The program is also in place at Lino Lakes and Faribault correctional facilities in Minnesota.

The program’s director at Metro State, Travis Sands, says the program’s aims are what one might expect: personal and career advancement. But just as key, he adds, is the initiative’s other goal is to ensure role modeling for incarcerated people in Minnesota. “Those students who come through our programs are going to be and are critically positioned to offer their colleagues who are incarcerated alongside them with the sort of wisdom that has come through their higher education,” said Sands, a few days after the ceremony. The graduates offer proof that “there are other opportunities, there are other modes to be in the world," he added.

Foster, the elder statesman of the graduates at age 70, said "It feels like I’ve stepped into a new level of my life. This college and these professors have really helped transform me into a new and improved man,” he said. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity to be able to take what they’ve given me and give back to the other men in the institution.”

Martin stated in his speech that the other men at Stillwater have been supportive. “Our incarcerated peers who are not currently in the TREC program, who have been inspired themselves, or just being encouraging … because they know that it’s a great opportunity," he said. "My success is yours."

Morson had surprise guests at the graduation: his sister Mercedes Morson and grandmother. “I’m just really proud of him. I’m happy that he took the initiative to get it done,” Mercedes Morson said.

“I feel accomplished,” Micah Morson said. “It’s probably like my first main accomplishment ever in my life.”

The Transformation and Re-entry through Education and Community program enrolled more than 80 students in the first year and will enroll 150 students for 2022-23. You can read more about the Transformation and Re-entry through Education and Community program at the Minneapolis College website.