Courses in Prison

Founded in 2016 as a program of Dwight Hall, Yale’s Center for Public Service and Social Justice, the Yale Prison Education Initiative (YPEI) began offering Yale courses for academic credit at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Summer 2018 with the admission of its first cohort of 12 students. In 2021 the University of New Haven joined the program, adding the ability to matriculate in two- and four-year degrees to incarcerated students, and creating pathways for any released students onto the college campus. The program is designed to provide students with a strong liberal arts curriculum that allows for exploration in a wide variety of disciplines and interests. To date YPEI and the University of New Haven together have facilitated over 1611 unique enrollments in credit-bearing college courses for over 150 incarcerated students, with over 180 faculty members, staff, and graduate students from the University of New Haven and Yale teaching, guest lecturing, or otherwise extending access to their on-campus classrooms and research to students in prison.

Past courses from 2018 to present have included:

Academic Inquiry and Writing
Advanced Poetry Workshop
Africa in the World
African American Autobiography
American Politics and Government
American Strangeness
Applications of Graphic Design Production
BA Interdisciplinary Studies Capstone
Basic Drawing
Basic Drawing II
Beginning Latin: The Elements of Grammar
Bioethics
Bioethics and the Law
Black Literature Since the Millennium
Black Women Writers
Chemistry of Food
Classical Mythologies
Close Reading for Craft
College Algebra
College Mathematics with Embedded Review
Comparative International Education
Criminal Procedure I
Criminal Procedure II
Debate Club
Diversity and Social Justice
Domestic Worlds, Global Fictions
Dramatic Literature
Early American Studies for 21st-Century America
Early British Literature
Early Modern City Comedy: Civic Identity and the Politics of Belonging
Education and Empire
Enlightenment and the Modern World
Ethics
Eugenics and its Afterlives
Experiments in Survival
Film Club
Food, Race, and Migration in U.S. Society
Foundations of Modern Social Theory
General & Organic Chemistry Lab
Great Books of the Humanities: Human Nature
History and Freedom
History of Scientific Revolution
How Poetry Can Change the World
Information History

Intro General and Organic Chemistry w/Lab
Intro to Psychology
Intro to US Healthcare System
Introduction to Academic Inquiry & Writing
Introduction to Creative Writing
Introduction to Criminal Justice
Introduction to Ethics
Introduction to Graphic Design
Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies
Introduction to International Relations
Introduction to Macroeconomics
Introduction to Microeconomics
Introduction to Narrative
Introduction to Philosophy
Introduction to Political Theory
Introduction to Psychology
Introduction to Race and Ethnic Studies
Introduction to Writing Studies
Irish Literature
Kafka and Poe
Legal Studies
Life Writing Across Genre
Literature and Historical Imagination
Literature and the Future
Medicine and the Humanities
Modern American Writers
Narrative Nonfiction
Narrative Structure in Games
Non-Cynical Social Thought
Painting Basics
Pandemics and Public Health
Peer Tutoring Practicum
Philosophies of the World
Philosophy of Religion
Poetic Form
Principles of Communication
Quantitative Reasoning
Reading and Writing the Modern Essay
Readings in African American Studies
Readings in American Literature
Russia: Empire & Communism
Science Fiction
Sociology of Work
Special topic: Developments in Modern Physics
Special Topics (Race, Space, Power)
Special Topics: Writing Ethnography: Perspectives in Anthropology and the African Diaspora
Story and the Brain
The Early Modern World
The History of American Spirituality
The Mind of the Architect: An Introduction to Architectural Ideas
The Science and Culture of Memory
Theories of Personalities
Thinking Historically About…
Toni Morrison & the Matter of Black Life
Topics in Ethnicity Race and Migration
Topics in World Literature, 1789-1848
Truth & Politics
Typography I
Visual Storytelling
Visual Thinking
War and Peace and Tolstoy's Russia
Women's Literature
Writing About Family

Connect Incarcerated Students with Resources

We provide our students with the resources they need in order to ensure their academic success. Our staff and volunteers, including Yale faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates, are the first point of contact for our students and serve in many capacities, including as writing tutors, peer editors, discussion facilitators, and research partners. They ensure our students have access to the materials they need to succeed academically. Through our partnerships on campus, we are also able to connect our students to Yale resources.

Assist in Reentry

Though our primary work is to offer college courses in prisons, our students' needs extend beyond the classroom. That's why we foster relationships with community partners to help our recently released students transition back to life outside of prison. Through these partnerships we are able to offer resumé-building help, assist with job search, and connect students with continuing educational opportunities.

Advocate for Higher Education in Prison

We are committed to the premise that education for incarcerated individuals is a worthwhile endeavor and support programs that offer access to higher education in prisons.

We advocate for this cause on- and off-campus, and seek to bring together Yale and the broader New Haven community around these issues.

To view some of our past events, visit our archive