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WUWM's Emily Files reports on education in southeastern Wisconsin.

Marquette expands prison education program to correctional officers

On the last day of Marquette's African American Studies class at the Black Holocaust Museum, Professor Robert Smith played a documentary about Frederick Douglass.
Emily Files
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WUWM
On the last day of Marquette's African American Studies class at the Black Holocaust Museum, Professor Robert Smith played a documentary about Frederick Douglass.

A unique African American studies class just wrapped up at Milwaukee’s Black Holocaust Museum.

The Marquette University course has undergraduates learning alongside correctional officers. It's part of Marquette's growing prison education program, which for the first time is including jail guards in its class roster.

Joy McGowan, 55, is a corrections officer at the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center, or CRC — a jail in Franklin. McGowan says she likes working with the incarcerated people, known as “residents” at the CRC.

"I just like talking to ‘em, trying to get in their head that doing bad things is not the right way to go," says McGowan. "And hopefully I make an impact on at least one of them."

McGowan says many of the officers at the CRC are Black women from the Milwaukee area, like herself. She says that helps them get along with the men behind bars.

Joy McGowan is a corrections officer at the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center, or CRC. She is one of seven COs taking a Marquette class this semester.
Emily Files
Joy McGowan is a corrections officer at the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center, or CRC. She is one of seven COs taking a Marquette class this semester.

"So they’ll look at us like the aunts, the moms, the grandmas," McGowan says. "So we have a better relationship with the residents, where they don’t have explosions in the dorms where they may be fighting or something like that. They’re kind of mellow when we’re in there."

Marquette professor Dr. Robert Smith was struck by the makeup of the CRC’s staff when he started teaching there.

"This lived expertise that the corrections officers bring is particularly interesting, especially this community of corrections officers, who are overwhelmingly African American women," says Smith.

Smith teaches African American History as part of Marquette’s Education Preparedness Program, which offers free classes to incarcerated students. This spring semester, he opened the class to corrections officers at the CRC instead. Seven are registered, alongside 11 traditional Marquette students.

Janell Woods has worked at the CRC for 17 years. She enrolled the Marquette class because: "When can get education for free, you should take advantage of it."
Janell Woods has worked at the CRC for 17 years. She enrolled the Marquette class because: "When you can get education for free, you should take advantage of it."

Janell Woods, 47, another CRC officer, says the class opened her eyes to how Black history is connected to the present-day criminal justice system.

"The way that history with slavery, how it is similar to how the residents [incarcerated at the CRC] are being treated a little bit," Woods says. "I don’t know how to really explain it, but it’s really sad to me."

The through line from slavery to mass incarceration is bound to come up in an African American studies course, says Professor Smith.

"You can’t teach the African American experience, and systems of surveillance and criminalization not be a part of every era, it’s impossible," Smith says.

The class has been eye-opening for the traditional Marquette students as well. Nicole Laudolff is a 21-year-old studying political science and philosophy.

Qwanzo Rodriguez, 22, and Nicole Laudolff, 21, are undergraduates enrolled in the "blended" Marquette class along with CRC guards.
Emily Files
Qwanzo Rodriguez, 22, and Nicole Laudolff, 21, are undergraduates enrolled in the "blended" Marquette class along with CRC guards.

"Oftentimes when you’re in a class full of other undergraduate students, the diversity of experiences is a bit limited," Laudolff says. "But here we can really interact with people who are interacting with the content of the course in a much different way, from a much different point of view in terms of life experience."

Corrections officer Joy McGowan says it was hard for her to keep up with the high-level college course. She works second shift, from 2-10 p.m. and would do her homework at 1 or 2 a.m. some nights. She’s also a mom of 13, including foster kids. And she says, she often works forced overtime due to short-staffing at the CRC.

"It was a couple times I was like man, I don’t think I can do this," says McGowan. "But I’m not a quitter so I just kept going. I don’t even know what my grade is."

Taking a college class has inspired both officers McGowan and Woods. Woods plans to go back to MATC to finish an associate degree. McGowan is encouraging her 17-year-old son to go to college.

"I’m trying to get him into Marquette ‘cause I like their programs," McGowan says. "So hopefully I can push him — you know I went to college, go ahead, do it!"

More college classes could be available in Wisconsin jails and prisons soon. Marquette is creating a prison education consortium with other schools, in order to offer full degree programs to incarcerated students.

This African American studies class shows that corrections officers may also benefit as education expands in prisons.

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Emily is WUWM's education reporter and a news editor.
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