$8 Million Grant to fund Prison Education Action Research Lab (PEARL) Associate professor Erin Castro and team secure funding for first center of its kind in the nation
Salt Lake City, UT — Erin L. Castro, associate professor of educational leadership and policy, received an $8 million award from Ascendium Education Group to launch the first national center dedicated to prison education research and leadership in the College of Education at the University of Utah.
A team led by Castro will use the grant to establish the Prison Education Action Research Lab, or PEARL, to advance educational justice for people and communities impacted by incarceration. The lab will serve as a vital resource in a growing field in need of the next generation of researchers, leaders, and practitioners focused on prison education.
The anchor project of PEARL, called Prison Education Research Initiative (PERI), is the first comprehensive multi-institutional study to collect systematic and longitudinal data on PEP programs, their students, and their outcomes. In partnership with 22+ colleges and universities, PERI will link postsecondary and workforce outcome data with institutional data on incarcerated learners across a diverse range of academic pathways and modalities. Bringing practitioners and researchers together in partnership, PERI aims to strengthen data and evaluation capacity so that practitioners can use these data to best support incarcerated students and alumni. PERI will also provide relevant and timely evidence on PEP programs to policymakers to enhance state and federal policies supporting incarcerated students, particularly as PEP programs grow and expand.
The inaugural PERI cohort includes:
- Adams State University, Colorado
- Arkansas State University-Newport, Arkansas
- Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, North Carolina
- Augustana College, Illinois
- Barton Community College, Kansas
- Charles Stewart Mott Community College, Michigan
- Chemeketa Community College, Oregon
- Connecticut State Community College, Connecticut
- Cornell University, New York
- Davis Technical College, Utah
- Lee College, Texas
- Life University, Georgia
- Marian University, Indiana
- Metropolitan Community College, Nebraska
- Metropolitan State University, Minnesota
- Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, North Carolina
To read the full article, visit Ascendium Grant Will Support New Research Center Focused On Postsecondary Education In Prisons.
