Education Justice Project

The Education Justice Project (EJP) offers education programs to men incarcerated at Danville Correctional Center, a state prison about 35 miles east of the Urbana-Champaign campus. EJP has served Danville students since 2008.

The mission of the Education Justice Project is to build a model college-in-prison program that demonstrates the positive impacts of higher education upon incarcerated people, their family members, the neighborhoods from which they come, the host institution, and society as a whole. EJP is supported in its work by the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, which provides EJP with an office and multiple meeting spaces, administrative assistance and support, and financial assistance.

The core of EJP’s program is upper-division U of I courses, which are taught at the prison by University faculty and advanced graduate students, currently numbering about seventy. EJP also offers a range of extracurricular activities, including a Theatre Initiative; writing, computer, science, and math workshops; guest lecture series; reading groups; and tutoring. With the assistance of faculty and graduate students in the College of Education, EJP continues to engage in a multi-stage evaluation, with the aim of producing data that will support prison higher-education programs efforts nationwide.

More information about the Education Justice Project can be found at the EJP Website.