Amherst students and Hampshire County inmates share an educational experience unlike any other
By Rachel Rogol
January 6, 2016
Amherst students Sylvia Hickman ’16 and Teresa Frenzel ’17 with inside students Phillip and Tyler, chatting after their last class together at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction
Last semester, Sylvia Hickman ’16 enrolled in the Amherst course “Equality and Violence,” which met every week at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections in Northampton, Mass.
Organized as part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, the course brought 10 Amherst and Hampshire College undergraduates (“outside students”) and eight incarcerated men (“inside students”) together as peers. The course focused on gender, racial and class inequality, and how these disparities are linked to violence and sexual assault on college campuses, in prisons and in the wider world.