About

Mission

The Center for Prison Education and Research (CPER) improves higher educational access for people imprisoned in the Appalachian region and generates experiential learning and research opportunities for students and faculty. 

CPER coordinates a range of higher education programming inside prisons, including an associate degree program in a state prison. We provide reentry support for currently and previously incarcerated students. We also organize campus and community events that explore solutions to the crisis of mass incarceration. Undergraduate and graduate students contribute to all aspects of our work as teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and student workers. 

Guiding Beliefs 

CPER emerged from a decades-long partnership between West Virginia University (WVU) and the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP). Our central work has been building an associate degree program at State Correctional Institution Greene (SCI Greene), a maximum-security prison in Waynesburg, PA. In Fall 2022, we launched the degree program in partnership with Waynesburg University. Upon completion of the sixty-credit curriculum, students will earn an Associate of Arts degree in Professional Studies from Waynesburg. We also offer credit-bearing classes at Hazelton Correctional Center in WV. 

Our work bridges the divide of prison walls and makes possible a more diverse, inclusive, and dynamic Mountaineer community. 

The Center raises money to cover all costs for tuition, books, and instruction. We are grateful to our funding partners, including the Mellon Foundation, the Laughing Gull Foundation, the Sunshine Lady Foundation, the Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education in Prison, and APBP.  

Timeline

• 2004: Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP), founded by Dr. Katy Ryan
• 2006: First WVU Inside-Out Class (Pruntytown Correctional Center, WV) 
• 2014: First APBP Prison Book Club (Hazelton Correctional Center, WV) 
• 2019: First For-Credit WVU Inside-Out Class (SCI Fayette, PA)
• 2021: Higher Education in Prison Initiative (HEPI) co-founded by Dr. Katy Ryan and Dr. Rayna Momen
• 2025: Center for Prison Education and Research Opened on WVU Campus
• 2026: First For-Credit WVU Inside Out Class in Federal System (Hazelton Correctional Center) 

CPER is committed to reciprocal modes of learning, to broadening horizons and hopes, and to joy. Classes are taught by WVU faculty who experience a revitalized commitment to teaching and, without access to technology, develop interactive and collaborative classroom strategies. Similarly, on-campus undergraduates and graduate students develop skills and passions, pursue new career and educational paths, and name this experience as the most impactful in their college lives. 

Dr. Katy Ryan, WVU English Professor and the Center’s Founding Director, taught the inaugural Inside-Out course in 2022. “This American drama class was beautiful. Each week students collaborated on original performances in response to plays by August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, ntozoke shange, Clifford Odets, Tony Kushner, and Quiara Algería Hudes. They made props (roses from toilet paper, keyboards from cardboard), wrote poems and songs, and they built a community.”

After the course ended, students, faculty, and prison staff began meeting biweekly as a Think Tank to develop more programming at SCI Greene. This group, named the Inspiring Change Collective, created a book club that now rotates through the prison, increased access to mental health awareness strategies, and formed an inside advisory council for the degree program. The Collective also worked to strengthen vocational training, develop a peer mentoring program, and increase creative outlets for people inside. 

"The whole process of us coming together for this collaborative project," said an inaugural cohort member, "is the tangible proof that by working together, side by side, we could achieve a lot in making a way for better living… Things are finally looking up for once.”