Happy New Year, and welcome to the inaugural STEM-OPS quarterly newsletter. The vision of STEM-OPS is that all persons impacted by the carceral system are able and encouraged to pursue a culturally responsive and equitable high-quality STEM education and career. STEM-OPS brings together people impacted by incarceration, higher education practitioners, education experts, and other community partners and stakeholders to increase access to education and career opportunities and diversity in STEM.
STEM-OPS is led by five core partner organizations: |
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| The STEM-OPS Website Launches |
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STEM-OPS has just launched its new website. In addition to background information about the STEM-OPS project, the website gives access to resources related to STEM and incarceration, the STEM-OPS blog, and The sySTEM Impacted podcast.
More importantly, it is where you can join the STEM-OPS community via the Glue Up CRM platform. Joining the STEM-OPS community gives you access to others who are working toward the same goal: access for the directly impacted to a culturally responsive and equitable high-quality STEM education and career. Check it out! |
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| The sySTEM Impacted Podcast |
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The sySTEM Impacted podcast, led by Chris Etienne (PTI) and Terrell Blount (EDC), shares stories of system-impacted people’s struggles and successes related to accessing STEM education and careers, through discussions of topics such as mental health awareness and application of trauma-informed practices to support people impacted by incarceration. |
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In our first episode, titled “Trauma-informed Teaching and Holistic Teaching Practices in Carceral Spaces,” Etienne and Blount talk with Kristi Webb and Maiya Monteiro of the Maya Angelou Academy at New Beginnings Youth Development Center, a charter school operated within the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Webb discusses her experiences teaching, coaching, and guiding students in secondary and collegiate education. She began her career in 2003 as a middle school teacher, which informs her views regarding mental health and schooling. Monteiro has dedicated the past 2 years to preparing incarcerated youth to transition into the community, offering workforce development, college preparation, and social and emotional learning opportunities
Some topics the hosts discuss with these two amazing guests include the irony of a “one-size-fits-all" holistic curriculum, how mental health training and trauma-informed teaching are related, and positionality and racialization.
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| Introducing the STEM-OPS Blog |
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Our inaugural blog posts are now live. Both written by Jacob Bennett, they introduce the STEM-OPS project and describe our first The sySTEM Impacted podcast episode. Check them out here. |
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NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU): Computational Biology Research Internship, Gateway to STEM Summer Research, June–August 2022 This REU program, supported by Princeton’s Prison Teaching Initiative, has the mission to support formerly incarcerated undergraduate students in gaining research experience in computational biology, the principles of scientific thinking, and research scholarship. Click here to apply for this summer research internship! |
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11th National Conference of Higher Education in Prison (NCHEP) |
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Last but not least, Terrell Blount's (EDC) keynote address reminded attendees of the support currently and formerly incarcerated people need to succeed in college and beyond. Apart from STEM-OPS partner presentations, STEM seemed to be in the air at NCHEP, with multiple panels on technology and information systems in prison settings. STEM-OPS partners were excited to see one another in person—being face to face reinvigorated our passion for the work! |
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Energy Justice and Reentry Opportunities Join @OperationFuel’s Brenda Watson and Adrienne Farrar Houel of the Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises as they discuss how to build courses, conversations, and pipelines to energy justice work for systems-impacted people.
This event is not sponsored by STEM-OPS |
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| New STEM-OPS and Partner Resources |
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Tenaj Moody (Womxn Cohort Facilitator for P2P and founder and executive director of Light to Life) is a first-generation to complete, accomplish, and succeed at many things. Carry It with You is a story about being rooted and embracing your lived experiences as strengths to the person you’re growing to be.
BOOK: From Prison Cells to PhD: It’s Never Too Late to Do Good, by Stanley Andrisse This incredibly powerful book is about abolition, redemption, transformation, and the power of story in the fight for justice, says Rich Milner in his online review. Stanley Andrisse (STEM-OPS co-PI and executive director of Prison to Professionals) reminds readers of the remarkable range of talent, intellect, skill, and strength among directly impacted people.
ARTICLE: “Narrating Normalcy: A Critical Autoethnographic Analysis of the Impact Racial Ideology Can Have on Teaching” by Jacob Bennett In this critical autoethnography, Jacob Bennett (associate director at RRJ) uses two tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy to analyze how these racial insensitivities affected his instructional and relational practices as a teacher.
VIDEO: P2P Docufilm: Reclaiming Silenced Voices “We Are the Experts.” Watch this new docufilm describing the work of P2P: Reclaiming Silenced Voices “We Are the Experts.” We, as a society, are witnessing compounding crises—a pandemic, lack of public healthcare system, structures of support and social security, growing systemic inequalities, and a simultaneous crushing of people’s assertions and aspirations without listening to the person with the lived experience. Through this docufilm, listen and learn from the voices of the directly impacted, their narratives, and their lived experiences. |
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