On May 15, 21岁的尤瑟夫·皮尔斯以优异的成绩获得了推荐十大正规网赌网站的组织研究学位, and he earned it from inside the California Rehabilitation Center, a medium-security prison in Norco, CA. On that day in May, 他成为第一个通过学院新的Inside-Out pathway to ba项目获得本科学位的学生, 在任何地方，第一个获得大学学位的学生都是基于这样的课程:“监狱里的”囚犯和“监狱外面的”大学生在同一个教室里一起学习.

“我想把这个学位献给我的妈妈和所有其他的妈妈,皮尔斯在推荐十大正规网赌网站的虚拟毕业典礼上说——他是推荐十大正规网赌网站的毕业生之一，被选中在典礼上发言. (You can watch his speech on Pitzer’s YouTube channel.)

Pierce took his first Pitzer Inside-Out course in 2019, 但他的高等教育之旅始于2010年他母亲的一封信, Drochelle Pierce, sent at the beginning of his 19-year prison sentence. 毕业典礼上，他头戴帽子，身穿长袍，读了妈妈那封改变他一生的信.

“‘Where do we go from here?’” his mother wrote more than a decade ago. “‘As I told you before, education is your key to success. You must believe me, there is no shortcut, and no easy fix. 你们现在比以往任何时候都更必须努力寻求和获得高等教育.’”

And he did. He first began taking classes through Norco College, a local community college with a prison education program, then through Pitzer’s Inside-Out classes.

In a story on NPR’s Morning Edition, “Student Makes the Most of Time Behind Bars, Finishes College With Honors,尤瑟夫谈到了知道“有人在读我的文章，有人觉得我思考的东西是有价值的”的影响.” (Listen to the NPR story.)

“It just really turned me into an overachiever,” he said. “And I just took class after class after class.”

His drive and dedication turned him into an exceptional student, says Pitzer Professor Nigel Boyle, 谁和泰伊·格里菲斯(Tyee Griffith)一起领导“由内而外通往文学学士”项目, 克莱蒙特学院司法教育倡议的创始经理.

“Every professor wants a Yusef in your class,” Boyle told NPR. “You want that sort of student who’s bright, does the work but is also helping to bring along the others.”

皮尔斯是首批8名学生中的一员，他们在2020年12月推出“由内而外通往学士学位”项目期间收到了录取通知书. (Watch the program’s launch ceremony on Pitzer’s YouTube channel.) At the launch ceremony, Pierce said being a Pitzer student “means opportunities, both new opportunities that I had never imagined for myself, as well as recovered opportunities that I thought were long lost.”

皮尔斯还谈到了他的哥哥，他的哥哥在皮尔斯十几岁时被枪杀. 他描述了失去哥哥如何影响了他获得大学学位的愿望.

“Most importantly, 作为一名推荐十大正规网赌网站的学生，意味着有机会为我已故的哥哥做出重大成就，也意味着有机会做一些让我母亲非常自豪的事情.”

在获得学位的过程中，皮尔斯探索了他的艺术和学术能力. In March 2021, 匹策学院艺术画廊举办了他作品的虚拟展览由他的一位Inside-Out教授Barbara Junisbai教授策划.

In his artist’s statement, 皮尔斯写道，值得注意的是，他在狱中发现了自己的艺术天赋.

的确，压迫往往要求个人为了生存而变得与众不同,” he writes. “我开始创作艺术是作为一种与我的孩子们交流的方式, at the time, were too young to read and write. 现在，视觉艺术已经成为我向世界传达我是谁的主要方式. My paintings are entire conversations on canvas.”

他还与推荐十大正规网赌网站教授马库斯·罗德里格斯(Marcus Rodriguez)合作，在Inside-Out心理学课程中编写了一本儿童读物, 在他的辩证行为疗法课程上，他让学生们选择写一篇论文或写一本儿童读物来反思他们在课堂上学到的观点. Pierce wrote 5 Simple Steps，讲述了一位祖母教孙辈如何处理人际关系的故事.

皮尔斯的本科学位并不是他高等教育之路的终点. 皮尔斯告诉博伊尔，他计划在2022年春季获释，并计划在今年夏天为GRE考试做准备，为申请博士课程做准备. 博伊尔打算提名他获得后学士学位奖学金，比如富布赖特奖学金.

During Pitzer’s virtual Commencement, 皮尔斯朗诵了一首诗，这首诗是他母亲在2010年寄给他的那封信里写的，这封信改变了一切. The poem is Invictus，出自维多利亚时代英国诗人威廉·欧内斯特·亨利之手，皮尔斯凭记忆背诵了这首诗:

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

On May 15, his mother saw her son, standing at a podium in prison, in cap and gown, now a college graduate, 与Pitzer学院2021届的学生分享了帮助他改变生活和未来的话语.

“我把它寄给了我儿子，因为我想让他这样想，‘好吧，给你. 现在，从这一点开始，你会发生什么真的取决于你，”她告诉NPR. “And look what he did. He turned a bad situation into something very, very positive. And, I mean, ’cause here he is graduating with his degree.”

Pierce told NPR that after he earns his PhD, he plans to teach incarcerated students, 那些在监狱里不知道从哪里去的人. As a professor, 他会给他的学生们同样的答案，就像11年前他母亲给他的一样:教育是你成功的关键.

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About Pitzer College’s Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA Program

Pitzer的Inside-Out通往学士学位的道路是一个基于Inside-Out课程的文学学士学位课程，面向目前被监禁的个人. 遵循由内到外的模型由天普大学的Lori Pompa教授开发, “内部”被监禁的学生在加州康复中心(CRC)在诺科, CA, and “outside” students from The Claremont Colleges learn together, 在克莱蒙特学院同样的教室里和同样的教授上同样的课程(目前), virtually; previously, in-person at the CRC). Pitzer initiated Inside-Out classes at the CRC in 2014. It launched the Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA in December 2020, 成为全国第一所将Inside-Out课程转变为面向在押学生的学士学位课程的大学. Pitzer的Inside-Out pathway to ba是克莱蒙特学院司法教育计划的一部分，是与CRC和Norco学院合作开发的.

For more information, please visit:

The Justice Education Initiative at the Claremont Colleges

The Pitzer College Academic Spotlight: Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA