A group of University students is interacting with local incarcerated residents as part of a normal course schedule this semester. Fifteen students in the class Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature and Community Leadership discuss Slavic literature once a week with about 18 Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center residents selected by the facility's staff, said Andrew Kaufman, the lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literature who teaches the class.
The students work in pairs to design lesson plans, creating activities and questions based on readings, said Bayly Buck, a fourth-year College student taking the class.
Most of the residents involved with the program already have completed their GEDs and are looking to learn more.
"They want to occupy their time productively, and many of them are seriously considering college, so this is an opportunity for them to get a feeling of what college discussions might be like," Kaufman said.
The project grew from Kaufman's experience leading a prison workshop in 2009, where he said he saw the ability of discussion about literature to transform all of those involved.
"It was important for me to create an atmosphere in which authentic conversation about life issues can take place," Kaufman said.
Many of the students said they are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with an unfamiliar and often marginalized sector of society.
"It was a group that I hadn't been able to work with and it's a group that, not me, but a lot of people have looked down on," Buck said.
Kaufman said interacting with residents helps break down the often established stereotypes of incarcerated youth and allows students to see these residents as their peers.
"Many of these residents have been abandoned by the traditional educational system, and I think that their participation in this program sends them the message that they are being taken seriously as students, learners and participants in these discussions about life and literature," he said.
The class also brings a fresh perspective of Slavic literature to University students.
"Students are seeing in a very personal way how classical literature from the 19th century is relevant to their lives and to the lives of other people," Kaufman said.
Resident attendance can be a problem at times, however.
"The biggest challenge is definitely the stability of the program, because we never know how many students will come," Buck said. "But it certainly doesn't take away from me wanting to go every week."
This is the second year the class has been offered. A pilot of the program was run at the Jefferson Trail Treatment Center for Children during the spring 2010 semester. Last year, the program earned $9,000 in funding from the Academic Community Engagement Faculty Fellows, a faculty grant program. Megan Raymond, who oversees the program, said the grant is open to faculty members from any discipline at the University to apply for the funds that will allow them to design new courses. Kaufman is keen to continue building on the success of Books Behind Bars by increasing the number of students who can take the class and the number of facilities that run the program.
"My long-term goal is to offer this learning opportunity to as many U.Va. students and incarcerated youths as possible," he said.
He also hopes the program will act as a model for other universities as well as more professors here. Students attribute the success of the course to their commitment.
"I don't think one person [from the University] was ever absent; it's not just about being there, it's about being there for the benefit of someone else," fourth-year College student Hannah Ehrlinspiel said in an e-mail.
The interaction among students, residents and Kaufman is vital to the success of the program.
"We have a 'we're all in this together' kind of philosophy." Buck said. "[Prof. Kaufman] wants to learn from us, and he wants us to learn from him. That's what makes it so different from every class I've ever taken"
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