April 19, 2007
Bowling
Green, Ky. - It’s 1 p.m. on a Tuesday and time for class. Sociology professor Holli Drummond and her students file into their dimly lighted classroom.
The Western Kentucky University students, all females, move the chairs into a circle and talk among themselves while Drummond hands out papers and nametags.
Most of the 13 students are wearing T-shirts, hoodies and blue jeans. One is wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Behind them, the classroom door is closed and locked. But it’s not an ordinary classroom door; it’s a door with metal bars.
The classroom for Drummond’s Sociology 346 class “Women and Crime” is inside the Barren County Correction Center. The class roll includes 15 “outside” students from WKU and three “inside” students from the Glasgow facility.
The special topics course is modeled on “Inside-Out,” a prison exchange program developed by Temple University, Drummond said.
On this day, the students divide into four groups to discuss the assigned reading material and then prepare to begin work on a final group project “Developing a Model Facility for Women.”
The class has been a learning experience for the traditional students and for the “inside” students, Drummond said.
“They’re very interested in what the inside students are thinking,” inmate Teresa Lewis said of the WKU students.
WKU senior Amanda Bragg said getting feedback from the “inside” students has been an important part of the class “because they’re the ones who are experiencing what we’ve been reading about.”
For the “outside” students, one of the class goals is to gain insights that will help them to better pursue the work of maximizing the potential effectiveness of the criminal justice system.
“For the inside students, I hope their interest in college is piqued and they have ambitions to go to college,” Drummond said. “I hope they can parlay that into continuing their education when they are released.”
Drummond realizes that college may be a lofty goal for some of the women inside the jail, but the class can serve as a source of empowerment. “We’re trying to improve people’s self-esteem and let them know they have valuable contributions to make in class and in society at large,” she said.
Inmate Heather Ward, who joined her classmates late this day after returning from a work detail, hopes to achieve Drummond’s lofty goal. “I want to get out and go to college,” Ward said. “Before this, I wouldn’t have thought about college but this class has proved to me that I am smart enough and that I could be a good student.”
Ward wants to attend college and become a counselor to juveniles “so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes I’ve made.”
Ward, who is serving time for writing bad checks and identify theft, said the class has helped her learn more about why women commit crimes and “it helped me understand why I as an individual committed my crime.”
WKU senior Megan Filiatreau said the class offered “an opportunity for me to grow as a student and learn from these women’s experiences.”
“I think it’s an amazing opportunity because it not only gives us an opportunity to learn from them but it gives them an opportunity to learn from us,” she said.
Filiatreau, Bragg and the other students also have learned about following the jail’s rules, especially when entering the classroom and when taking breaks. “I’m glad the Barren County jail gave us this opportunity,” she said.
The students are glad, too, that Drummond was willing to provide the opportunity by offering the course. “It’s unusual to have a class like this,” Bragg said. “It’s been a great opportunity.”
Drummond’s goal is to offer the class on a regular basis. She appreciates the support that Jailer Leland Cox and his staff have provided this semester.
One of the challenges for the class has been the transitory nature of the jail population. Only two of the original seven “inside” students remained in the course by mid-April.
“That’s been the most difficult aspect of the program,” Drummond said. “There’s a level of sadness of not seeing people there in class and you didn’t get to say goodbye. The program is so positive that when it’s disrupted it is reflected in people feeling sad.”
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu
For information, contact Holli Drummond at (270) 745-2259.
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