WELCOME

The Rise Up planning committee welcomes you to the 2025 Rise Up Conference, which seeks to liberate higher education during and after prison. Higher education in prison (HEP) was a direct result of organizing by people locked in Attica’s cages and later those at Bedford Hills and Greenhaven. The scholarship we’ve produced since has provided insights into the mechanisms of HEP as well as its limitations. More recently, it was the leadership of formerly incarcerated people who ensured Pell grants for incarcerated people were reinstated. When discussion about exclusionary clauses arose, we were the ones who held firm with the position that HEP would be for all of us or none of us. And, we made sure we won that fight. Few in the HEP community stood by our side and supported our leadership of the Pell reinstatement movement. Instead, the community largely focused its energy on securing and growing its position of power and authority over the field. If a community or organization is led by and predominantly composed of people who have not been incarcerated and is focused on securing and growing their community or organization's leadership, then they are engaging in behavior that seeks to maintain and grow power at the exclusion of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. These are oppressive acts. This is an occupation of space developed by and for incarcerated people. This ends today. Higher education after incarceration exists because of the tireless work of formerly incarcerated over the past 50 years. We have never and will never forget our sisters, brothers, and other siblings behind the walls. We have never and will never forget them after their release. It seems our HEP colleagues have not had a similar perspective. All too often, we find we’re forgotten after release and our leadership goes largely unsupported in HEP spaces. We simply are not seen as the peers, leaders, and experts we know we are. We are seen as deficits in need of continued help rather than assets who can take the HEP movement to places it cannot even imagine are possible. This is a phenomenon seen all-to-often in education and helping professions. So long as the helpee is subservient, the helper is enthusiastic with encouragement and support. However, as the helpee begins to rise, such encouragement and support wanes. There are two types of masters. There is the kind that sees others as inferior and seeks to keep them in subservient status such as those who enslave, and those who seek for others to outgrow them such as seen in the martial arts. We believe the HEP community has been more like the former than the latter. As philanthropic interest in post-prison higher education has grown, many from the HEP community have tried to gain recognition for and power in this work as well. We realize these statements could be interpreted as attacks and our movement being one that is against others. If they feel like attacks, we urge you to consider why they land as such. They are simply our observations of the field’s history and our feedback about our experiences. We don’t blame any particular people, organizations, or communities for the oppression and occupation of this space. We are not here to attack others or organize against them. We understand how social forces and paradigms create situations like this. Rather, we are here to educate the community about this oppression and to organize for our people, organizations, and movement toward liberation. We are not here to dismantle but rather to build the community we wish existed. We hope to ignite awareness and discussion about the ways in which higher education during and after prison has been and is oppressive as well as how our community and our HEP allies can foster liberation from this oppression. We have an abundance of skills, abilities, and other assets that are lacking in spaces where we are not centered as leaders. First and foremost, our lived experience provides lived expertise. This is particularly important in a field with so little scholarly knowledge about various outcomes related to higher education during and after prison, the mechanisms through which such education produces these outcomes, and thus best practices for the field. Additionally, we offer intrinsic motivation and commitment. Many of us have done and continue to do this work without compensation or need for recognition. We advocate for education because we believe our and others’ potential have gone unrecognized, unnurtured, and unrealized. We also offer entrepreneurial efficiency and collective capacity. Our historical lack of funding for this work has forced us to develop relationships and skills for meaningful impact with minimal resources. Our stories inspire others to take action while also fostering possibilities among other incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. Furthermore, the same divergent thinking and behavior that resulted in incarceration has potential for ingenuity in the field. Such divergent thinking combined with our historical exclusion from HEP provide an opportunity for critical reflection as well as creative ideas and strategies. For all who care to look, it is evident we have experience running multi-million-dollar operations, securing investments, strategic planning, developing alliances, engaging in high stakes political negotiations, and developing other executive-level leaders. This conference is a prime example of these assets converging. We hope this conference fosters the liberation of higher education during and after prison. Most immediately, Rise Up centers the leadership and voice of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. We do this through our planning, community building, and slate of speakers. However, the planning team is intentionally limiting our long-term vision for what that liberation will look like. We’ve noted some ways in which oppression exists and thereby said what such liberation does not look like. It is not the occupation of space by others who didn’t forge it and haven’t been incarcerated. It is not systems and structures that maintain the power of these occupiers. It is not a deficit-based mindset that keeps others in needy subservient status. And, it is not constant vigilance about how those in positions of power might feel and react. However, we seek a broader community discussion about what a liberatory community can and should look like. We expect to follow up on this conference with such a discussion. We don’t expect that this future is absent of our allies but rather incorporates an allyship lens in which our leadership is centered and invested in. Prospective allies can take cues from other liberation movements. For example, it is generally accepted that racial, gender, and queer liberation movements should be driven by people with these identities. Similarly, it is generally accepted that programming related to these identities should be led by those who hold them. We ask the same from the allies of our movement. Allies in other movements generally approach the work with a critical analysis power, privilege, and voice. We ask the same of the HEP community. Recognize the ways in which we created spaces that you’re now occupying and work with us toward their liberation. Hold this value and propagate it among your peers. View us as people with the right and capacity to lead in these spaces. As more than advisors. As educators, program directors, executive directors, board officers, and funders. See your students and graduates as people destined to outgrow you. Develop an understanding that any organization or community not led or at the very minimum co-led by us is illegitimate. Internalize your role as one in which your prime directive is to foster our liberation. Not only while we’re incarcerated but also when we’re out. Not only for us as individuals but for the movements we’re part of. You must operate in a manner that provides labor, support, networking, and amplification of our messaging to minimize our labor while maximizing our voice. During those two days, the Rise Up conference will highlight the role of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in birthing this movement, the ways in which these spaces have been occupied by others, the assets we offer to these spaces, and the ways in which allies can help foster liberation. The conference also will provide perspectives on higher education during and after prison that are unique to those with lived expertise. Sessions will foster not only general knowledge about higher education during and after prison but also a greater understanding of why the field wouldn’t exist without our expertise and why it shouldn’t exist without our leadership. We expect that those with lived expertise and other HEP leaders will deepen their critical lens and understanding of the field so that, together, we CAN and WILL #RiseUpHEP. Thank you to everyone who has supported this conference and the liberation of HEP directly through your labor, donations, and networking as well as indirectly through your encouragement and enthusiasm. The Rise Up Planning Team

RISE UP HIGHLIGHTS

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RISE UP STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Dr. Stanley Andrisse

Rise Up Conference, Co-Founder

Executive Director, From Prison Cells to PhD
Assistant Professor, Howard University College of Medicine

Stanley Andrisse is a formerly incarcerated individual who served a ten-year prison sentence after three felony convictions, designated as a prior and persistent career criminal. A prosecutor once told him he had no hope for change. Today, he is Dr. Stanley Andrisse, an endocrine scientist and assistant professor at Howard University College of Medicine. He is also former faculty at Johns Hopkins Medicine and visiting faculty at Imperial College London and Georgetown University Medical Center. Dr. Andrisse recently authored a "#1 New Release in Educator Biographies" book titled From Prison Cells to PhD: It is Never Too Late to Do Good.

Dr. Christopher Beasley

Rise Up Conference, Co-Founder

Assistant Professor, University of Washington Tacoma

Dr. Beasley is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Tacoma, where he studies transitions from prison to college, leads the development of the Husky Post-Prison pathways initiative, and advises the Formerly Incarcerated Student Association. His scholarly work emphasizes the possibilities incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people imagine for themselves, influences on these possibilities, and how they alter life courses. He’s also spoken extensively about the role of people with lived expertise in the creation of social change and ways to realize this potential. Dr. Beasley is invested in this scholarship because of his own transition from prisoner to social change agent and scholar. He attended community college after leaving prison and “cut his social justice chops” fighting for queer liberation as an undergraduate student in the early 2000’s. He began organizing and supporting formerly incarcerated college students as a graduate student in the 2010’s and co-founded the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network in 2014--an organization that now has over 1000 members across 44 states and 10 countries. In addition to his scholarship, Dr. Beasley currently focuses on investing in student leaders while creating systems and structures in which they can realize their potential. He also serves as Board Director for both the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network and From Prison Cells to Ph.D.

Joel Jimenez

Rise Up Conference Visionary, Co-Founder

Program Director, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison

One of Rise Up’s proud co-founders, Joel was promoted to the position of Program Director at Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison after serving for two and a half years as a Hudson Link Academic Coordinator, first at their Greene Correctional Facility site and later at their flagship site, Sing Sing Correctional Facility. While the Academic Coordinator at Sing Sing, Joel grew the site to a student body of over 200 pre-college and college students, as well as assisted in building critical funder relationships through participatory site visits. Now as Program Director Joel oversees academics and operations of Hudson Link’s six program sites as well as its Alumni Services. In 2022, Joel launched Hudson Link’s newest site at Green Haven Correctional Facility. Valedictorian of his Hudson Link class at Sing Sing, Joel graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Science from Mercy College and is currently pursuing his MBA, also at Mercy.

Jay Holder

Rise Up Conference, Co-Founder

Director, National Executive Council at the Center for Justice

Jay Holder is the director of the National Executive Council (NEC) at the Center for Justice, which supports communities simultaneously impacted by poverty and incarceration. The NEC uses an ecological approach to promote personal, community, and social change that supports life-long healthy, human development which is executed by bringing together neighborhood, business, and government leaders to co-design “community-centered” programming & policies around education, arts, economic mobility, and civic engagement.

Bronwyn Hunter

Senior Site Work Manager, Justice Lab's Probation & Parole

Bronwyn Hunter focuses on engagement with sites to reduce the use of supervision and increase community-led supports, services, and investment. Prior to joining the Justice Lab, Bronwyn was a faculty member in the Psychology Department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where her research program and community work has focused on promoting health and well-being for people and communities who are indirectly and directly impacted by the criminal legal system. Bronwyn holds a PhD in Clinical and Community Psychology from DePaul University, and completed Pre- and Post-Doctoral training at Yale University. She is also the President of AJFO: The Association for Justice-involved Females and Organizations, and a founding member of FICGN, the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network.

Dr. Noel Vest

Rise Up Conference, Co-Founder

Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Public Health

As a formerly incarcerated scholar, Dr. Vest is an advocate for social justice issues and public policy concerning substance use disorder recovery and prison reentry. His research interests include mental health, substance use disorders, poverty, social justice, addiction recovery, and pain. He received his PhD and Master’s degrees in Experimental Psychology from Washington State University. He recently finished a postdoc in the Department of Pain Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Lila McDowell

Rise Up Conference, Co-Founder

Executive Director, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison

Lila is responsible for executing the organization’s operational plan and meeting performance objectives and standards for development, programs, and operations. As the Executive Director, Lila partners with the President to represent Hudson Link and manage fundraising relationships and opportunities, as well as leads all internal processes from performance management to fiscal management, and directly manages all members of senior staff. She holds a doctorate in Education from Oxford University, a Master’s of Science in Educational Research Methodology, also from Oxford, and a Bachelor’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. Lila is honored to participate as a member of the Rise Up Steering Committee and grateful to her colleagues for the opportunity to serve the Rise Up community.

Shon Holman-Wheatley

Director, Transitional Programs at the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative

Shon Holman-Wheatley Ed.S., leads and supports a team of case managers and peer mentors across the state of Tennessee who provides supportive individualized transitional services to their HEP students so they can achieve social, economic, and spiritual well–being post-incarceration. Shon is a graduate of East Tennessee State University with a B.S. in Human Development and Learning, an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, and an Education Specialist degree Ed.S in Counselor Leadership. His research area for the entire span of my academic career has been Non-traditional Student Success with a focus on African American Males. Shon was an academic counselor for Medical Professions Students for three years at ETSU before coming to THEI. Because he justice impacted, he knows the importance of how a well-thought-out and planned reentry can make difference in one’s journey back into society.