MMC Celebrates 38 New Grads from its Prison Education Programs

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Interim President Peter Naccarato with the Bedford Hills College Program's Class of 2024

Halfway through the commencement ceremony for MMC’s college program at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility just outside New York City, its two class speakers nervously approached the podium, having decided to give their speeches together.

Like their fellow graduates, they’d taken care to dress for the occasion, which is among the most anticipated events at the facility: Cynthia A., with her hair pinned up, Ashleigh W., with sandals on.

“Rise above and keep moving forward,” Cynthia said. “Be proud of what you’ve accomplished because you are worthy of it and so much more.” Emphasizing the commitment that had gotten them to this day, Ashleigh numbered the obstacles they’d overcome. “How many times did you take a class and say it was your last? How many of you felt there was no need to keep going after getting your associate degree?” she said.

They didn’t need to be nervous; at the ceremony, held on May 30, there was only support, only encouragement pouring from those who’d gathered in the facility’s gymnasium to celebrate the Class of 2024. Among the audience were graduates’ family members and classmates, faculty, and administrators, who’ve seen the effort it takes—often over many years or even decades—to finish a degree in prison. Their cheers reverberated off the gym walls.

“Commencement is everything to us because we know how hard people have struggled,” said Tonia R., who earned her associate degree last year and will earn her bachelor’s degree next year. “We want people to know how hard we work.”

This year saw 29 Bedford Hills graduates, including eight who received bachelor’s degrees, 10 who received associate degrees, and 11 who received high school equivalency diplomas. As they took turns walking across the stage and shaking hands with MMC Interim President Peter Naccarato, their classmates shouted, “I’m so proud of you!”

MMC has been the degree-granting institution for the Bedford Hills College program since 1997, deeming it a satellite campus in 2004. In 2019, the College began to award degrees at Taconic, a nearby medium-security facility for women, in partnership with the nonprofit Hudson Link for Higher Education. Taconic held its own commencement ceremony just hours after Bedford Hills, celebrating six grads who earned their associate degrees and three who received bachelor’s degrees.

Both ceremonies are a cherished part of commencement season at MMC, which kicked off with graduation exercises for students from the College’s 71st Street campus on May 20. All told, MMC has conferred more than 300 bachelor’s and associate degrees through its prison education programs.

According to administrators, part of the programs’ success is the high level of camaraderie amongst students, who serve as writing coaches, tutors, and mentors for classmates and encourage friends outside the program to enroll, as well as a deep devotion from faculty, who typically stay with the program for decades.

Indeed, during the Bedford Hills ceremony, artist and professor Duston Spear, who has taught in the college program for 22 years, was presented the Thea Jackson Service Award for her years of dedication. Spear, who received a standing ovation, “is beloved by students,” said Aileen Baumgartner, director of the Bedford Hills College Program. “Through her, they’ve come to find their own creativity.”

The service award is named after Theodora Grace Jackson, a long-time Bedford volunteer, who was pivotal in shaping the college program after a previous program at the facility, led by Mercy College, closed in the 1990s.

“I met Thea when I started teaching at Bedford Hills,” Spear said. “I had a lot of respect for her—she was such a quiet, dignified force. She and her husband would dress up and come to every Bedford graduation. Getting this award in her name is huge to me.”

Spear began teaching at Bedford Hills after she moved outside of the city to care for her young daughter, who was diagnosed with childhood cancer. “We passed the prison while we were driving one day,” she recalled. “We had lived in a pediatric cancer ward for a year, and it gave me a real strong sense of how trapped incarcerated people feel. I found out there was a college program at Bedford and immediately wanted to get involved.”

This year’s ceremony was as much a graduation for her as it was for her students; in July, she’ll move to Massachusetts, where her daughter and grandchildren live, bringing her long teaching career at the facility to a close. Still, Spear, who developed the Bedford Hills class Writing About Art after years of teaching studio and seminar courses, hopes to stay in touch with students and even collaborate with them on future projects. “Some of the students developed a really great style of writing about art that has stayed with me,” she said.

Spear is hoping that the model of correspondence by mail, which the program used during the Covid-19 pandemic, will help her to keep her connections with students alive. “During Covid, the women, to the miracle of Aileen Baumgartner, kept going, and I got all these amazing essays from my students who I think felt free to say things in writing that they couldn’t say in class,” Spear said. “I’m hoping we’ll have that same interaction even after I’m gone.”

View pictures from the ceremonies below.