Cohort: 2
Where are you from?
Freeport, Ilinois.
What is your favorite field of study/topic?
History and writing.
What is something you would like people to know about you as a student?
I’m extremely blessed to have this opportunity and education is truly the key to freedom. Mental freedom — to be free in mind comes before anything else.
What does being a part of NPEP mean to you?
NPEP means to me, growth, strength, and life. Illinois prison culture has taken on a very grim picture over the years. An incarcerated woman or man, I believe, is at their worst when hope for living and learning is stripped away. NPEP is at the center of helping us restore hope and purpose for ourselves and whomever we interact with within and outside these walls.
What course has had the biggest impact on you and why?
I’ve enjoyed them all thus far but I have to say Asian Studies has been groundbreaking for me. This course made me reflect on how similar we all are as human beings, no matter what race or part of the world we are from.
What is your favorite book or article that you have read in your NPEP classes?
“The Monkey and the Monk.” I love the complexity of the three main religions practiced in the book: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.
What assignment (paper, project, homework) have you found the most rewarding?
Chemistry of Nature and Culture, a powerful course taught by Andrea d’Aquino and Steven Swick. Textbook compiled by Shelby Hatch. I wrote my final paper on the history and chemical makeup of multiple sclerosis (MS). Most rewarding because my father Frank L. Scott succumbed to the disease on January 2, 2014, after about a 20-year battle with the deadly neurological disease.