In an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, John profiles three fellow prisoners at Sing Sing who chose to educate themselves — and pay it forward as a sort of healing.
EXCERPT
In Sing Sing Correctional Facility, 30 miles up the river from New York City, the New York Theological Seminary (NYTS), offers a graduate program in professional studies with a concentration in urban ministry. In the 1970s, the Rev. Edwin M. Muller began advocating for the expansion of the prison system’s undergraduate education programs. The first graduate classes started in Sing Sing in 1982.
On a hill among the cellblocks, a brick structure holds an auditorium and two chapels. Deep in the basement, through a narrow corridor, sits the North Campus of NYTS. One room holds 17 computers that have Bible and encyclopedia programs, but no internet. In another, dungeonlike doors open to the best view in the joint. It overlooks the yard and an old death house where 614 people were executed. Behind it, the Hudson River runs for miles through rock-faced mountains.
For the past year, the 16 men who make up the 36th NYTS graduating class have lived in these cramped rooms. In addition to taking courses on leadership, systematic theology, and foundation of ministry, they have written papers, debated the necessity of war, and written capstones, which lay out proposals known as “ministries” aiming to improve society.