Long-Term Exhibition

During the 2023-2024 academic year Knox College Art Department partnered with the Peace & Justice Study program to create a pilot program that provides a high-quality liberal arts education to incarcerated students at Henry Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg, Illinois in partnership with Illinois Department of Corrections. As a member of the Art Department faculty, I participated directly in this pilot initiative and contributed to its development and implementation. By expanding access to college-level courses for a systematically disadvantaged population, this pilot program—originally focused on writing, language, and the visual arts—seeks to promote transformation through education by fostering a community of scholars within prison, reducing recidivism rates, and opening pathways to the broader world after incarceration.

Part of this initiative included a collaboration with Chicago-based Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project in the organization of the exhibition The Long Term in 2024.

For more insight on this topic, we encourage readers to listen to a recent interview featured on NPR News here