It was the last day of the semester, and I was all set up in the classroom to administer a final exam. This comprehensive test, worth 20 percent of the grade, was something my students and I had been reviewing for weeks. They were ready and I was ready. I looked at the clock; they should be arriving any minute. I sat down with the stack of exams to wait. And then I waited and waited.
That would be an odd situation on a regular college campus, but this wasn’t a regular college campus. It was the Utah state prison. You never know what it will be like there day to day or even hour to hour. So, as I sat wondering how I could trim down this timed exam, an officer came to the door. “There’s been an IMS incident,” he told me. “They aren’t coming.”
“Wait,” I responded, “not coming at all?”
“Nope.” Then he started walking back.
I followed him down the hall. “But it’s the final exam. It’s a big part of the grade. What am I supposed to do?”
The officer had no answer for me, but he kindly let me make a call to David Bokovoy, the director of the Salt Lake Community College prison education program. His response was an attitude I’ve found you must always embrace when teaching college in a prison: “You have to adapt.”
On a regular campus, an emergency like the IMS incident would include a collegewide text, email or other kind of mass communication. And then, as an instructor, you would pivot and offer the test online or some kind of alternative assignment. But there’s no making up a class at a prison, which has no email or any type of digital communication. I would not see those students again that semester, and I ended up having to drop the final and change the weight of other assignments.
College instructors and administrators increasingly use technological tools in the classroom—the trend has accelerated even more since the COVID-19 pandemic. But in some spaces, like a prison, those tools are not available. How can higher education help overcome the digital divide in a place with no digital resources?
This question is increasingly urgent as more colleges provide prison education programs. The U.S. Department of Education has expanded federal Pell Grant access for confined or incarcerated students. That program has led to more students enrolling across the country. It’s also expanded Salt Lake Community College’s prison education program into one of the country’s largest, serving more than 400 students in the spring 2024 semester. With that expansion and so many more students, communication and tech become more important. Many college functions—enrollment, advising, monitoring, grading and more—are reliant on technology. My college’s prison education staff and faculty members have had to be creative on all those fronts.
I don’t deal with the hard and sometimes tedious work of enrollment. I’m an adjunct faculty member who teaches business. But like other staff members, I’ve had to find innovative workarounds. I never know when some kind of incident like the one I previously described will occur at the prison. It’s happened several times: I show up, get checked in, go through six different gates, set up—and no one comes.
Here are five ways that I and other faculty members have had to adapt to a no tech or low-tech environment.
Prepare to teach offscreen. While both educational administrators and prison administrators want to decrease recidivism and help, they have competing priorities. Security is No. 1 for prison staff. That means hardware, with all its sharp edges, has to be monitored. It also means it’s locked up and accessible only with a key or badge.
As an instructor you don’t always know day to day if you will have any technology to use in your class. This past semester, the unit I taught at had multiple classes—and only four laptops. Sometimes those laptops were gone by the time I arrived, used by other volunteers at the prison. And not all the laptops connected to the internet, so you had to save any approved materials on a flash drive in advance. That meant no last-minute videos or fact-checking yourself on Google. You had to go in prepared to teach with a projector or on a whiteboard.
What I found helpful is to compile in advance a notebook of outlines, notes, references, stats, facts and more. If I enter a classroom with no laptop, an issue with a cable or something else, I can quickly pivot to no screens.
Adjust class structure. Every college instructor knows they will receive regular messages from their students. Whether emails, messages through the learning management system or even texts, they are digitally in touch with their students. Not so in a secure facility in lockdown.
An instructor can only communicate in person in a prison, but there are no office hours that students can attend. Notes are discouraged, if not forbidden. That means that any communication with students can be done in only two ways: during class or through written feedback on assignments.
I learned early on to build in time for questions, homework support and one-on-one time with students into each class. I dedicate the first half hour of my class to this time. That also helps with other issues at the prison. I’ve found in years of teaching that my students rarely if ever arrive when class is supposed to start. It’s not their fault. One time, a crisis arose in the women’s unit that ended up triggering the sprinkler system. Other times, a prison staff member has been late or unavailable to escort the students to the classroom. Having time at the beginning of class gives everyone a minute to arrive, breathe and transition.
Offer writing and feedback. “It is difficult to teach within a state prison,” David Hubert, associate provost for learning advancement at my college and another instructor at the Utah state prison, told me. “Limited access to technology is a pain in my neck.” I can feel his pain, and so can the students. They have to handwrite everything, which can be an issue for students with disabilities. Hubert found a workaround, though, with a pilot this last semester.
“I purchased decades-old battery-powered word processors and—with the help of my son—refurbished them and got the corrections department to approve them for use in my class, “ he continued. “They have no Wi-Fi and must hook to my laptop to transfer text for their assignments, which I then print out in my office and offer feedback. They then edit their work and continue toward a polished draft—something that was impossible with handwritten work … Essentially, for less than the cost of the laptop on which I’m typing, I had a classroom set of word processors, and my students really appreciated being able to use them in a ‘real-world’ writing project.”
The inability to type and have access to a word processor means adjusting assignments. This may be especially hard for some writing or English professors. Hubert found another option. My adaptations in class were adjusting the length of assignments—and building up my own hand strength for all my written feedback. For instructors who type constantly, you learn quickly that writing involves a different set of muscles!
Adapt assignments and assessments. Instructors in secure facilities will need to make other adjustments. Research assignments are possible; there are libraries and books available in facilities. But access to those resources can be spotty. Not all students have the same level of privileges to access certain areas of the prison. And even if they do, a library may not have a text on what they need or only so many copies of titles, and checkouts can be limited. That means that professors should adjust any research-based assignments, and if they do assign a book, they’ll need to get prior permissions to bring in a class set.
The business class I’ve been teaching has been made up of open educational resources that are all available online but not in a textbook. So I made a textbook for my classes, with the support of my college’s equitable and inclusive teaching practices. My goal was to put everything a student would need in just one book—including rubrics for projects, introduction pages, a table of contents and all the assignments for the class. That way, the students could read and work ahead when they weren’t allowed in class.
Adjustments Needed
It’s been an honor and joy to teach at Utah state prison. But it definitely requires a mindset of openness and flexibility, a willingness to shift practices and assumptions. David Hubert wrote in a reflection for my college, “I’ve learned to keep my stereotypes in check when I first started teaching my students. I came in with certain preconceived notions about how they’d be: surly, disruptive, disinterested, uncurious and unwilling to work. I was wrong. By and large, my students are interested, respectful, curious and hardworking.”
I’ve had to adjust my own stereotypes about students in prison. And I’ve also had to adjust my assumptions about technology. One was that the students would have more access to a tablet or laptop. I was wrong about that. Another was that I would need technology more—I was wrong again. I adjusted, just like Hubert and my other colleague, who has taught an ESL class next to me and brought in picture books from the library instead of using a laptop.
Our incarcerated students will need to adjust, too—not just to the uncertainty and stress of a prison, but to the outside, as well. Their education will be invaluable in this transition. While these students may not have access to technology on the inside, it will be immediately, and jarringly, available on the outside. One of my students this semester was recently released. I asked him before he left what he would do first, and he said, “Get a phone.” And soon after that, he visited our campus and got an email address.