Thirty-nine incarcerated students in the Augustana Prison Education Program [APEP] are pursuing their undergraduate degrees at the East Moline Correctional Center [EMCC].
Since 2021, APEP has offered the opportunity for a select group of incarcerated men at EMCC to earn a bachelor’s degree. Professor of Communication Studies and Executive Director of APEP, Dr. Sharon Varallo, said the program grew from a cohort of ten students and eight faculty members, offering a few courses, to now over 30 faculty members teaching in the program.
“Folks from biology and classics to physics and communication and English and you name it, all over. So part of that has been intentional and it has to be because APEP is Augustana,” Varallo said. “And it's the same expectations for coursework. The general education requirements are the same. The language requirement is the same. So we have faculty from all over the college. And it's just a thrill to be able to open that door, to be that bridge into a prison system that is quite different than many people realize.”
In November, researchers at the University of Utah's College of Education received an $8 million grant from Ascendium Education Group, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that offers educational opportunities for students from low-income backgrounds, to fund the launch of a nationwide prison education research project called Prison Education Action Research Lab or PEARL. An initiative of PEARL is to collect systematic and longitudinal data on PEP programs, their students, and their outcomes.
“Are your students graduating? You know, the kind of data that Augustana collects anyway, that any college collects anyway about their students,” Varallo said. “We now have a place in the country where there will be a repository of information so we can do these analyses to have meaningful work, robust research studies of higher ed prison programs that can affect policy.”
Augustana College will be among 25 institutions participating in the program. Varallo said the work of expanding education opportunities in the United States has been challenging.
“[C]olleges aspire to be open systems, right? We aspire to a flat hierarchy to really empower our students to think on their own,” Varallo said. “That does not happen at the center of most prison systems. A lot of prison systems have a sort of paramilitary hierarchy or structure, and maybe there's aspirationally closed systems.’
“And so it is a culture shift to bring an educational program into a prison for the past 30 years. Higher ed in prison nearly disappeared in the early 90s, and it's just now coming back. We're at a critical place right now, where we see mainstream Americans sort of realizing that we're hurting ourselves by throwing away millions of people to prisons. Where we make sure they're stunted, come out worse than they went in, and have nothing. Sometimes, there's very little hope because it's been legal to discriminate against folks with a felony record.”
The program is looking to expand next academic year to double its first-year class size. Currently, 16 students are in the first year of the program. Varallo said the acceptance rate is 1 in 10, and word is spreading.
“So we now take applications from prisons all over the state, and we have a five-member faculty and staff team who read essays. The application to be in the Augustana program, people have to have a high school diploma or a GED. They write an essay. And we read every essay and rank them and narrow down and have an interview with them if we can, a virtual interview.”
She says the team reviewed 150 applications, including an applicant from South Carolina. Since EMCC is a minimum-security facility, applicants must meet the criteria to transfer to the facility and join the program.
“So Augustana has been willing to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to the mission. These are our neighbors,” Varallo said. “They are eight miles down the road at the East Moline Correctional Center, eight miles down the road from Augustana College. There's no reason why we should not be in there. And it's just healthy for everyone.”
Eleven students are halfway through their final year of the program. Varallo said the students are working on their senior capstone projects and hope to graduate in May 2026.
“[W]e see how smart they are, how gifted they are, and tell them. Sometimes it takes repeated conversations for someone to believe us,” Varallo said. “I'm like, ‘we're not lying to you. We teach on this campus, and we go there, and we're telling you, you're doing quality work.’ Most of our students, it takes them a little bit to really… they have this imposter syndrome. And a lot of us have [it]. A lot of us have imposter syndrome. But when you are in prison and devoid of autonomy in most areas of your life, to really feel that you've got something to offer and a unique perspective and a voice in a conversation that can change things. There's nothing like seeing somebody come to life again.”
Varallo recommends reading Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness to understand the history of mass incarceration in America. To learn more about APEP, visit their website.
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