EMERITI NEWS
Since 1996, when the College Program at San Quentin was
first started, well over 500 people have volunteered with the
program as teachers, TA’s, tutors, and guest lecturers. Many
of those individuals have since moved away from the Bay
Area; below are some updates…
Olga R. Rodriguez (Spanish): After getting graduate degrees
in Journalism and Latin American Studies from UC
Berkeley, I took a job with The Associated Press in Mexico
in 2003. I first covered the Mexico-U.S. border and was
based in northern Mexico. I’m now one of four correspondents
in Mexico City in charge of covering Mexico and
Central America.
Amy E. Lerman (English and political science): In the fall of 2008, I joined the faculty of Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Saying goodbye to PUP was one of the hardest things about leaving the Bay Area. Teaching at San Quentin has had a profound influence on my personal and professional life in ways I never could have predicted. I can honestly say it was a defining experience for me as a teacher, a researcher and a human being.
Adam Booth (math): I began formation to become a Catholic priest with a religious order called the Congregation of Holy Cross in August 2008, after two years teaching at San Quentin. Right now I’m on my novitiate year in Cascade, CO, a year away from studies to pray, reflect and get more work experience before I return to the University of Notre Dame in August to continue my studies. In my time at San Quentin, I was privileged to work with so many students with such a spirit of conversion that was contagious enough to challenge me to really consider what I needed to do with my life. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.
Josh Page (sociology): I am now an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I volunteered in the college program during my first couple years as a graduate student in sociology at Berkeley. It was through participating in the program that I became interested in studying issues related to imprisonment. My first published article analyzed Congress’s decision to eliminate Pell Grants for prisoners in 1994. My first book, The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers Union in California, is scheduled for release in December 2010. My wife Letta, our two dogs, and I have a wonderful life here in the frigid Midwest.
Susan Amrose Addy (math and physics): I’m working as a postdoc in Civil and Environmental Engineering. I’m doing great, and am married to another former volunteer [Nathan Addy]! Did SQ change my life? In every way. It was teaching at SQ that gave me the courage to leave the graduate program I wasn’t passionate about and go into a field with more direct impact on people in the real world. It was teaching at SQ that taught me to teach. And it was interacting with so many inspirational SQ students that taught me there is no excuse not to go after your dreams, and there is no situation where giving up is the only option.
Vanessa Agard-Jones (literature): I taught at SQ while also serving as the coordinator of the Prison Activist Resource Center, then went on to join Teach for America and worked for a number of years in Atlanta, and am now plugging away on a PhD at New York University – a joint degree in Anthropology and Francophone Studies, doing research on politics in the French Caribbean. Teaching at SQ was the very first impetus for me to move from the nonprofit world to the classroom, and for my students then and for that experience I will forever be grateful.
