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Background In 2000, the College & Community Fellowship (CCF) was established to address the educational, community, and organizational needs of formerly incarcerated women in the New York metropolitan area. The program was designed to provide long-term opportunities for educational accomplishment, professional development, self advocacy, public leadership, and civic participation. CCF brought together the expertise and the concerns of the formerly incarcerated, prison educators, social service workers, philanthropists, criminal justice professionals, and race and gender scholars who were interested in developing alternatives beyond the short-term, concrete, and immediate needs approach of current prisoner re-entry and transition programs. Building on a vision of life "beyond mere existence", CCF was created to offer education-based alternatives to the available program options for the formerly incarcerated, in particular women. |
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Recent History During the first three years of operation, CCF focused intensively on providing tuition assistance, academic counseling, and mentoring to CCF fellows as they pursue their degrees. Each CCF fellow receives a $600 stipend per semester. This makes a difference for the vast majority of CCF fellows who are raising children and facing other financial obligations while they work and pursue degrees. Mentors supply academic motivation and career advice, as well as assist with the overall adjustment to academic life. Students seeking additional support receive referrals to agencies that specifically offer re-entry services related to housing, mental health, substance abuse treatment, financial support, family reunification, and employment. Having successfully worked on the educational mission of CCF, in 2002 the program began to focus on the other aims of its mission. Because we understand the barriers and challenges formerly incarcerated women face, and because we exist within the university, CCF also works to create a supportive and committed community environment in which women can openly strategize about how to challenge those barriers and find support and guidance in the process. Specifically, we have elected several CCF students and graduates to be members of CCF's Board of Directors and we have organized three leadership and advocacy projects: Community Leadership and Education After Reentry (CLEAR), The Speaker's Bureau, and The Theatre for Social Change.
Finally, CCF continues to serve as a nexus of information and resources related to the impact of higher education on the prison and post-prison experience. In close collaboration with the Center for the Study of Women and Society (CSWS) at the Graduate Center, under the direction of Professor Anne Humphreys, and with academics from the departments of Sociology, Psychology, and Urban Education who are members of its board of directors, CCF engages in public education and advocacy through research, seminars, and conferences. |
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