Marymount Manhattan students at 71st Street and Bedford Hills Learn Together in New Combined Class

In keeping with the College’s commitment to giving back to the community, the Bedford Hills College Program offers many of the same classes as those offered at Marymount Manhattan’s main campus. Over 150 inmates have earned degrees, and over 1,200 have earned college credits since the program’s inception. In 2004, the program became a Marymount Manhattan extension campus, making all the enrolled prisoners officially members of the student body.

Professor Ronda’s students at both campuses are doing the same work – but for the first time, they’ll have the chance to do that work together.

For the pilot version of the combined class, Professor Ronda will teach “Theories of Justice,” an upper division course from Marymount Manhattan’s new Justice Studies minor. The course, which will explore the history, theory and applications of a variety of models of justice, will meet once a week at the women’s prison.

Mixing the students from both campuses together could potentially be eye-opening for both groups. Students from the prison will benefit from welcome outside contact with new peers and the encouragement that comes from confirming that they are indeed taking the same classes offered at the main campus.

“They know each other very well, but their peer experience is limited,” says Professor Ronda. 

Meanwhile, the main campus’s students will gain the eye-opening perspective on social science offered by the prisoners’ experience with the justice system, as well as perhaps some motivation – students in prisons are often among academia’s hardest-working scholars.

Aileen Baumgartner, the director of the Bedford Hills College Program (BHCP), explains that many of the students in the program take it seriously because it initially seems daunting. 

“For a lot of these women, they’re the first in their families to go to college,” emphasizes Ms. Baumgartner, “but they’re smart! It’s very gratifying to see them realize that they’re capable of doing college level work. So they’re very motivated. It’s hard work for them just to be able to attend.”

“They’re seriously committed to their education in a way I find rejuvenating,” adds Professor Ronda.

Students from the College’s campus at 71st Street have already been involved in the BHCP through informal reading groups, as scholarly panelists and audience members at the BHCP’s biennial Crossing Borders academic conference and in raising awareness about the program on the Manhattan campus, but this combined class will mark the first time that students from the two campuses will simply learn alongside each other.

Published: December 06, 2012