Satellite classroom
available to inmates
By Sean McCarthy
Staff Reporter
A new nationwide satellite system
allows students across the country to
take classes they might not have been
able to take before.
But those students are not sitting
in the classrooms of universities; they
are sitting in the nation’s prisons.
The Correctional Training Net
work has been broadcasting for four
days. Program founder Mark Davis
said the educational programs were
aimed at reducing recidivism, or the
rate of reincarceration for prisoners
after their release.
Nebraska Educational Telecom
munications joined with the Virginia
Correctional Training Network to
bring the series of live instructor
based classes to inmates. Through a
studio at NET, an instructor from
Southeast Community Collegebroad
casts a course to institutions across
the country.
Davis said 75 percent of people
released from prison were
reincarcerated within five years. The
majority of those received no educa
tion while incarcerated, he said.
When inmates are offered the
chance for education, the recidivism
rate is much less, he said. Among
those taking college-level courses in
prison, only 20 percent are
reincarcerated, he said.
Davis said he hoped his program
could provide better opportunities to
inmates — and to the states that jail
them.
“It is far cheaper to educate some
one than it is to reeducate someone,”
Davis said. “The small investment in
educating inmates makes education
an affordable alternative to incar
ceration.”
And the public cost of giving an
inmate the tools to get a college de
gree is far lower than the societal cost
of ignoring the situation, he said.
“Do you want to give them the
tools to work with you?” Davis asked,
“Or would you rather see them sell
ing drugs on your street comer?”
A total of 543 inmates across the
country are participating in the pro
gram, Davis said. TTie Nebraska State
Penitentiary is not currently partici
pating in the CTN program, he said,
but has indicated interest in subscrib
ing.
Davis, a former parole officer,
originally named his organization
Correctional Educational Consult
ants. He began offering educational
programs in correctional institutions
by having instructors teach inside the
institutions.
Davis changed the name to the
Correctional Training Network once
he had the ability to use satellite
technology, he said. Institutions that
carry the CTN program include Texas,
Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Davis said his group has now be
come the nation’s largest provider of
college programming in correctional
institutions.
Davis said he was attracted to
NET because of the expertise of
people and groups working on it,
such as the Friends of Public Broad
casting.
“It’s the best that I’ve seen,” he
said.
Classes being taught to inmates
include general equivalency devel
opment, advanced occupational train
ing, life skills, literacy programs and
drug and alcohol educational courses.
SCC is offeringcollege credit courses
where students can earn associates,
applied science degrees and business
administration degrees.
Inmates enrolling in the classes
have to agree to special provisions,
Davis said. To take the class, they
must do the assigned work and attend
every class, he said.
To get a feeling for what classes
inmates wanted to take, CTN sur
veyed more than 5,000 inmates.
Eighty percent of those surveyed in
dicated they wanted business-related
classes so they could improve their
chance of employment, Davis said.
Tama Khmaman/DN
lelling professor Molra Fer9uson talks about her trip to the Women’s Conference in
Ferguson
Continued from Page 1
broaden their horizons by telling
them about her experiences in
Beijing.
“Going to China helped me to
broaden my own way of thinking,”
she said. “I would like to relay that
idea.
“Part of the honor of being a
delegate to the fourth World Con
ference on Women is sharing that
experience as widely as possible
with others.”
Ferguson, who returned recently
after 10 days in Beijing, was a
featured speaker at the women's
conference.
The conference, which ends to
day, has established a set of guide
lines that governments all over the
world could follow when dealing
with women’s issues. First Lady
Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at
the conference.
Ferguson said she received an
invitation to be a cultural delegate
because she was a member of the
Feminist Press publications board.
Ferguson said she had great hope
for the conference’s results.
“I hope it is going to alter na
tional policies all over the world,”
she said.
Ferguson also said she hoped
the conference would change the
structure of many governments.
At the conference, Ferguson
spoke about two Midwestern au
thors — one from Nebraska —
who had ties to China. She said she
was fascinated to find that few
Americans and Nebraskans knew
of Anna Louise Strong, who was
bom in Friend, and Agnes Smedley,
who was bom in Osgood, Mo.
Both were buried in Beijing.
In China, children are taught
about the two American writers
beginning in grade school.
Ferguson said the limousine driver
and the translator her group trav
eled with both knew the authors.
According to some media re
ports from the conference, some
delegates misinterpreted the ac
commodations as being a cover
up for the Chinese government’s
less than exemplary record on gen
der issues.
“I had no sense that things were
being altered for us,” she said.
“They were certainly being gener
ous hosts.”
Do Ferguson’s experiences and
insights make her a role model?
When asked, she blushed, himmed,
hawed and stammered through an
answer.
“This is a hard question for me,”
Ferguson said “I would like to
think, with my writing and my
service to the university and to die
community... I would like to think
of myself as a role model for con
temporary men and women,*’ she
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