Liberal Arts in Prison Program

The Rhodes College Liberal Arts in Prison Program offers credit-bearing courses to incarcerated students at the West Tennessee State Penitentiary.

History and Vision

The Rhodes College Liberal Arts in Prison Program began in 2016 with a vision to offer incarcerated students a version of the Search sequence that has been a signature feature of the Rhodes curriculum since 1945. The result was The Great Books Reading Group, which began meeting in the spring of 2017 at the Women's Therapeutic Residential Center (WTRC), part of the West Tennessee Penitentiary in Henning, TN. Twenty-five WTRC residents wrote essays indicating their desire to participate in the program, and seven Rhodes professors volunteered to teach.

For five semesters, the Great Books Reading Group met on Monday evenings with six faculty teaching two-week series on books of their choice. In mid-2019, the reading group was replaced by a for-credit program consisting of four courses over two years, leading to a Certificate in Liberal Arts. Eighteen of the 57 incarcerated women who applied for the Culture & Values program in 2019 were accepted and in-person classes commenced in September.

In spring 2020 the program went remote, relying on Zoom for class sessions and JPay tablets for quizzes, lectures, and other assignments. In May 2021, Rhodes faculty and students returned to WTRC to celebrate the graduation of the first cohort of students to earn Rhodes Certificates of Liberal Arts. As of 2025, 32 incarcerated women have completed the certificate and a total of 92 women have earned 765 Rhodes credits.

In 2025, the Rhodes faculty approved a new BA in Liberal Studies, which will be offered for the first time in Summer 2026. All Rhodes academic policies and regulations apply to this program, and students will follow the standard academic calendar, with the addition of a 7-week summer session.

Students enrolled in the BA program are selected through a rigorous application process that includes transcript review, writing samples, faculty interviews, and recommendations. Eligible applicants must be in good standing, have completed the Rhodes Certificate of Liberal Arts, have earned an AA or AS degree, and demonstrate readiness for upper-level liberal arts study.

Through partnerships with organizations including the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative, the program is designed to be externally funded, supporting instructional costs, materials, and program delivery while removing direct educational costs for participating students.

Student and Faculty Volunteers

The first Rhodes undergraduate student to volunteer in the program was Madison Zickgraf '21, who facilitated classes and trained student volunteers from 2019 to 2021. In 2020, Prof. Stephen Haynes began teaching RS 232: “Mass Incarceration: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives,” in which enrolled students serve as peer tutors at WTRC. In all, about 70 students have volunteered in the program.

As of 2025, 40 Rhodes faculty from 12 departments have taught in the Great Books Reading Group and/or the Certificate of Liberal Arts programs at WTRC. Departments represented include Biology, Chemistry, Humanities, Ancient Mediterranean Studies, English, History, Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, Political Science, Russian Studies, and Religious Studies.

The program works closely with the Tennessee Department of Correction, the Tennessee Board of Regents, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative, the Southern Collective for Higher Education in Prison, and the Bard Prison Initiative. In 2024 the Liberal Arts in Prison program joined the Consortium for Liberal Arts in Prison.