Northwestern Prison Education Program

• What are mini-courses?
  • In the spring of 2019, NPEP launched a partnership with the Cook County Department of Corrections (CCDOC) to offer “mini-courses” at the Cook County Jail. The courses are taught by advanced graduate students or post-doctoral fellows at Northwestern. These courses are not credit-granting, but students who complete all the course requirements receive Northwestern certificates of completion.
  • Mini-courses are each 12-contact hours (there is some flexibility in how these 12 contact hours are distributed over the teaching term).
  • NPEP offers mini-courses at the jail year-round, and right now we are accepting applications for people interested in teaching in the: Spring quarter of 2020.
  • The deadline for applications to teach in Spring 2020 is: February 14, 2020.

     

• Who is eligible to (co-)teach a mini-course at Cook County Jail?
  • To be eligible to teach or co-teach your own class at Cook County Jail, you must:
  • Be an advanced graduate student, i.e. you must be done with your coursework. MA/MFA students, and post-docs, are also eligible.
  • Have attended an NPEP training. There will be one offered in the beginning of each quarter.
  • There is no citizenship requirement.
  • We highly encourage co-teaching a mini-course with one or two other instructors; however, this is not a requirement.

•  What kinds of courses are you looking for?
  • We are looking to offer courses in all kinds of disciplines. So far, we have offered classes in a variety of disciplines including philosophy, sociology, statistics, theater, poetry, and biology. The students at the Cook County Jail have varying levels of education, and you might get students who have not completed high school along with students who have college degrees. What we recommend is for the course to be similar to a college prep course, or a freshman seminar, i.e. courses that introduce students to a discipline, and that are aimed at skill-building (writing skills, analytical skills, performance skills, research skills, etc).

• Would I get paid to teach at the jail?
  • No, this is a volunteer position. However, we have some funding from TGS and the Kaplan Institute for reimbursement of course expenses.

• I’m eligible and interested in teaching a course at CCDOC, what should I do?
  1. Fill out an application with your course proposal and personal bio (see link below). If you are co-teaching a course, each instructor must fill out their own application. 
  2. Attend an NPEP training. To know the dates of upcoming training sessions, please check our Volunteer Opportunities page. You can also stay up-to-date by adding yourself to the NPEP mailing list. To be added on the NPEP mailing list, email Sophia Ruark (sophiaruark2020@u.northwestern.edu).

      

• Once I apply, what happens next?
  • Once we receive your course proposals, we will invite you for a 15-20 minutes interview. For Spring quarter courses, interviews will most likely take place on the week of February 24-28.
  • If you are selected after the interview stage, we will send your course proposal to CCDOC. Every quarter, CCDOC decides which courses they want to offer, depending on their needs and capacity.
  • If your course proposal is selected by CCDOC, they will contact you to agree on the dates and times of the class. Before the class starts, CCDOC does a background check on all instructors, and asks for a full syllabus and list of supplies needed. Moreover, you will be invited to attend a preparatory meeting with all instructors for the quarter, in which we will go over any issues specific to teaching at Cook County Jail.
  • Every applicant will hear whether their course has been selected within one month of the application deadline.

• What is the time commitment?
  • Depending on the schedule of the course, instructors should plan to spend between 1.5 days to 3 days per week on their mini-courses. This includes time for teaching and preparation, as well as commute time. 
  • Mini-courses are each 12-contact hours (there is some flexibility in how these 12 contact hours are distributed over the teaching term).
  • Prior to teaching, you will need to make time for attending an NPEP training (2 hours), an orientation meeting at the jail (half a day), and a pre-quarter meeting with NPEP’s director of the Cook County Jail partnership (2 hours).

• Summary of application process:
  • We are now accepting applications for people interested in teaching in the: Spring quarter of 2020. 
  • The deadline for applications to teach in Spring 2020 is: February 14, 2020.
  • Please fill out an application using the link below
  • Please plan to attend an NPEP training

     

• If you have any questions about this opportunity, please email us.

APPLICATION FOR TEACHING A CCDOC MINI-COURSE