The BRIDGE Model

The twofold purpose of the BRIDGE model is to enrich all students’ educational experiences through the free exchange of ideas and dialogue across teaching locations, and to pave the way for more seamless re-entry of incarcerated students to society.

MMC is a leader in building multiple strong and dynamic bridges across our main campus and prison locations:

• The CourseLinks initiative—a new initiative for the spring 2020 semester—seeks to increase and systematize linkages between prison and main-campus courses.
• The biennial Crossing Borders academic conference brings together the best scholarly and creative work from main campus students and faculty and students at the BHCP.
• MMC’s annual Stand Up Speak Out film festival unites small teams of students in the BHCP and on main campus to write and produce short films around a social justice theme and screen within two weeks. The 2019 Stand Up Speak Out festival underscored the importance of higher education in stemming mass incarceration and promoting rehabilitation for justice involved individuals. 
• The Book Arts Project is a collaboration between students in the BHCP and those on the main campus to write and then visually interpret fables, a back-and-forth process that will be documented via video by MMC faculty and students. The project will culminate in parallel exhibitions at the Bedford Hills facility and on the main campus in 2020.
• Honors Day is an annual colloquium of student achievement held at MMC’s main campus in which, each year, BHCP students have scholarly work accepted and presented by a main campus volunteer.
• The Moby-Dick Project was an art exhibition held in 2017 in MMC’s Hewitt Gallery of Art in celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the BHCP. BHCP students created artwork based on Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville and those projects were displayed along with pieces by invited artists whose work shared an affinity with the great American novel.