My analysis is on “From Mass Incarceration to Mass Education Fostering Collaboration Between State Prisons and State Universities” by Miriam Edwin. She gives a critic of the education system and their collaboration with incarcerated people. Stating that state universities should make education more available to individuals in prisons. By doing so, they will be benefited in different ways, avoiding recidivism and post released unemployment. By the end of her thesis paper, she describes what components wouldn’t make a program like this one successful. She claims that state funding is undeniably needed, but just as important is for universities like CUNY and SUNY to partner up to grant degrees to prisoners. It is also considered giving them the opportunities to obtain certifications for the skills they can use after they have been released to work. Edwin provided with some examples of graphics that can be helpful to the reader however most of the paper is just text which is completely understandable because it is a thesis for a Master’s Degree.
This issue is critical and extensive. In the past few years, I have heard a lot of activism hoping to benefit prisoners and also people who have been released. For society to be more informed and aware of the problems and solutions we could think of work being done in ways that are not necessarily considered academic. Different ways of artistic expression like image and video are essential for activism ad social change. I believe that the podcast with Nick Sousanis brought a relevant issue to the table of academia being more accepting of works that are not purely theoretical and textual because then the expression of the issue becomes and stronger as he did with comics.
Miriam’s thesis work can be expanded into the “real world” to create social justice and awareness for this cause. Thinking of Figuring the Word by Johanna Drucker, I was able to understand how visual representation supports the communication between academia and society. Perhaps, Edwin could expand her work outside academia to gain a bigger audience to this influential thesis.