A Graduation Unlike Any Other
Incarcerated students LIFTED by UC Irvine sociology degrees
By Jim Washburn
UC Irvine commencement ceremonies have typically been held in unsurprising locales: in Aldrich Park (where attendees one year were surprised by the sprinkler system activating), at the Bren Events Center and, in 2014 and 2022, at Anaheim’s Angel Stadium.
Then there was the graduation this past June in a concrete, warehouse-like structure ringed by a 30-foot wall and an electrified fence 90 miles from the university on a bluff in San Diego County.
That’s the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, where almost two dozen incarcerated men received diplomas marking their B.A.’s in sociology – the first graduating class in the UC Irvine-born Leveraging Inspiring Futures Through Educational Degrees program. More than 80 friends and family members, 60 people from UC Irvine – including 20 faculty who had taught the students – and an array of state officials attended the momentous occasion.
Says UC Irvine LIFTED director Keramet Reiter: “We celebrated the first 23 incarcerated students earning bachelor’s degrees from a top 10 public university, and we also celebrated the realization of more than five years of planning and collaboration between two major state institutions, the University of California and the state prison system, who are working together to bring world-class public educational opportunities into state prisons.”
‘Anyone From Anywhere’
The idea for LIFTED came from Reiter, professor of criminology, law and society, who had previously taught inside San Quentin State Prison. By 2020, she and several others on campus – notably UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman – were bringing the program to fruition. The initial class of students had their introduction to sociology at the Donovan facility by earning A.A. degrees in a two-year program from Southwestern College, UCI’s partner in the project. UC Irvine professors then took the helm in fall 2022, leading students through the upper rungs of their four-year path to B.A. degrees.
Gillman, who had taught the LIFTED students in an online course on the First Amendment, said in the commencement speech that the experience “reminded me of why I became an educator and then a higher education administrator.”
“It really is an honor to be in the business of teaching and learning,” he continued. “In marking today’s graduation, we give new meaning to UC’s commitment that ‘anyone from anywhere’ can earn a B.A. from one of the finest universities in the country, if not the world. Today’s graduation is the first class of incarcerated students to earn B.A.s from a UC, but not the last. We will be back next year to celebrate the graduating class of 2025 and, thereafter, for many more years to come.”
Another commencement speaker was Sergio Guil, one of the LIFTED graduates, who similarly expressed a great appreciation for education, though from a very different perspective. During a phone conversation reflecting on that milestone day, the 55-year-old speaks in a soft yet thoroughly engaged voice.
“Education has been a vital part in my 28 years of incarceration,” he says, “and the sociology B.A. program was an incredible opportunity to enhance my learning – and also to see new ways to become a better person.” Guil had already been involved in education programs at the Donovan facility and had learned American Sign Language “to help the deaf community here get more communication in their lives.”
He says: “Studying sociology, I have a better understanding of the dysfunctional environment I grew up in and the role it played in shaping me – but ultimately how I’m the one responsible for my own actions. I can’t undo the past or the hurt I’ve caused to others, but through education, I’m better able to understand and help others now. Our studies were a big part, but most important, I think, was the compassion and kindness of our instructors, which allowed me to cultivate that.”
Graduation Highlights
On June 20, the first 23 incarcerated students earned bachelor’s degrees from a top 10 public university, marking a historic milestone. The event also celebrated the realization of more than five years of planning and collaboration between two major state institutions—the University of California and the state prison system—working together to bring world-class public educational opportunities into state prisons.
Lowering Recidivism
One person absent from the graduation, due to a family medical emergency, was LIFTED initiator and director Reiter. She’d looked forward to the day for two years – and had done much to plan it – but says that “in the end, I felt like not being there was almost better, because I received hundreds of texts, and many of them made me cry, seeing reflections on how much it had meant to so many people and how the people from our UCI community had made the LIFTED program run so well.”
Reiter goes to the Donovan facility at least once a month to conduct workshops and meet with students, but she has yet to teach a course. “In part, that’s because I’m busy dealing with the bureaucratic stuff, but it’s mainly because more UCI faculty are asking to teach there than we can accommodate,” she says. “I don’t want to be in the way of any of them having a chance.”
Among the things keeping her busy are plans to slowly grow the class size at the Donovan facility until there are 120 students a year; expanding LIFTED to other prisons and UC campuses; adding more minors; and building a master’s degree program.
“Even some of the students who probably assume they’re lifers have found education to be transformative, helping them to better come to terms with themselves and their lives,” Reiter says. “We have done a lot of work to not just teach the courses they need but also try to give them the UCI experience. We run wellness workshops and career readiness workshops. We bring in guest lecturers and other things that students might access on campus. And they love their Anteater gear.”
According to Shannon Swain, superintendent of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Office of Correctional Education, the LIFTED program “is a win-win.”
We have done a lot of work to not just teach the courses they need but also try to give them the UCI experience.
Keramet Reiter, UC Irvine LIFTED director
I can’t undo the past or the hurt I’ve caused to others, but through education, I’m better able to understand and help others now. Our studies were a big part, but most important, I think, was the compassion and kindness of our instructors, which allowed me to cultivate that.
- Sergio Guil, a LIFTED graduate
I can’t undo the past or the hurt I’ve caused to others, but through education, I’m better able to understand and help others now. Our studies were a big part, but most important, I think, was the compassion and kindness of our instructors, which allowed me to cultivate that.
- Sergio Guil, a LIFTED graduate
“The rate of recidivism is significantly lower for folks who have some education, and the ones who go to college while incarcerated just don’t come back,” Swain says. “It costs almost $130,000 a year to keep someone in prison, while the cost for our California State University programs is a small fraction of that.”
The bulk of the state’s educational programs aim to give inmates a high school education, but there are several CSUs and community colleges providing A.A. or B.A. degrees. UC Irvine is the first in the UC system to participate, and Swain is counting on others to join in.
“I’m thrilled with LIFTED,” she says. “Keramet is a miracle worker, and the LIFTED model is something that can be replicated. We’re working now toward bringing UC Riverside into the prison in Norco.”
Ask Annie McClanahan, UC Irvine associate professor of English, if she thinks college classes can actually change lives and she replies, “I wouldn’t be in this job if I didn’t believe that higher education changes people for the better.”
McClanahan has been teaching English literature to the Donovan facility students. It’s a sociology breadth requirement choice and recently has been offered as a minor. In this quarter, she has her students reading and reflecting upon Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, Alice Childress’ Like One of the Family, John Okada’s No-No Boy and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed.
“We talk in class a lot about the capacity of literature to help you inhabit someone else’s perspective and point of view,” McClanahan says. “A question we’re thinking through in the class is ‘How is it that we can feel and cry on behalf of a fictional character?’”
“The level of commitment the students have is tremendous,” she continues. “Two recently told me that every other night, they only sleep a couple of hours, then get up and study between 1 and 6 a.m. because it’s the quietest time of the day.”
McClanahan admits tearing up during the graduation ceremony. “It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life,” she says. “You could feel a sort of ripple rolling through the room when the graduates’ relatives watched them receive their diplomas. Several of the students were the first in their families to ever get a college degree, and it was a proud and emotional time for them.”
“The rate of recidivism is significantly lower for folks who have some education, and the ones who go to college while incarcerated just don’t come back,” Swain says. “It costs almost $130,000 a year to keep someone in prison, while the cost for our California State University programs is a small fraction of that.”
The bulk of the state’s educational programs aim to give inmates a high school education, but there are several CSUs and community colleges providing A.A. or B.A. degrees. UC Irvine is the first in the UC system to participate, and Swain is counting on others to join in.
“I’m thrilled with LIFTED,” she says. “Keramet is a miracle worker, and the LIFTED model is something that can be replicated. We’re working now toward bringing UC Riverside into the prison in Norco.”
Ask Annie McClanahan, UC Irvine associate professor of English, if she thinks college classes can actually change lives and she replies, “I wouldn’t be in this job if I didn’t believe that higher education changes people for the better.”
McClanahan has been teaching English literature to the Donovan facility students. It’s a sociology breadth requirement choice and recently has been offered as a minor. In this quarter, she has her students reading and reflecting upon Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, Alice Childress’ Like One of the Family, John Okada’s No-No Boy and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed.
“We talk in class a lot about the capacity of literature to help you inhabit someone else’s perspective and point of view,” McClanahan says. “A question we’re thinking through in the class is ‘How is it that we can feel and cry on behalf of a fictional character?’”
“The level of commitment the students have is tremendous,” she continues. “Two recently told me that every other night, they only sleep a couple of hours, then get up and study between 1 and 6 a.m. because it’s the quietest time of the day.”
McClanahan admits tearing up during the graduation ceremony. “It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life,” she says. “You could feel a sort of ripple rolling through the room when the graduates’ relatives watched them receive their diplomas. Several of the students were the first in their families to ever get a college degree, and it was a proud and emotional time for them.”
‘The Best Teaching Experience’
If there was an award for the greatest distance traveled by the teachers, it would go to David John Frank, UC Irvine professor and chair of sociology, who routinely drives a 300-mile round trip from his West Hollywood home to teach at the Donovan facility, saying, “I allot three hours to get there, four hours to teach and three hours back.”
Frank also had to travel some distance in his thinking before signing onto LIFTED. “I was against the program when it was proposed to the Department of Sociology, not because of its goals – any reasonable sociologist is in favor of education in prisons – but because I had a practical opposition,” he says. “The tenuring of our assistant professors rides on their research productivity, and taking a full day every week to drive for hours and teach one class didn’t strike me as a great idea.”
“Then Keramet invited me to visit the prison with them for an accreditation meeting,” Frank continues. “I met firsthand several of the guys from the first-year cohort, and their testimony for the accreditors had a religious-like quality.
Never in any circumstance have I heard students sound so deeply committed to their classes and education, and I’d taught at Harvard, Stanford and UCI for decades. I decided I had to teach in this program. Shortly thereafter, there was an opportunity to teach a theory course, and I took it.”
The material taught and the way classes are conducted doesn’t vary much from his classes at UC Irvine, Frank says, but the experience is different in other regards.
“First of all, the classes are larger at Irvine, where you’re looking at maybe 50 people who are relatively disconnected from one another,” he says. “Some might have a friend or two in the class, but plenty of them are alone, and some sit there silently. At Donovan, it’s a smaller group of people with very dense interconnections. They live together, breathe together, exercise together, study together and sleep in the same housing units.”
‘The Best Teaching Experience’
If there was an award for the greatest distance traveled by the teachers, it would go to David John Frank, UC Irvine professor and chair of sociology, who routinely drives a 300-mile round trip from his West Hollywood home to teach at the Donovan facility, saying, “I allot three hours to get there, four hours to teach and three hours back.”
Frank also had to travel some distance in his thinking before signing onto LIFTED. “I was against the program when it was proposed to the Department of Sociology, not because of its goals – any reasonable sociologist is in favor of education in prisons – but because I had a practical opposition,” he says. “The tenuring of our assistant professors rides on their research productivity, and taking a full day every week to drive for hours and teach one class didn’t strike me as a great idea.”
“Then Keramet invited me to visit the prison with them for an accreditation meeting,” Frank continues. “I met firsthand several of the guys from the first-year cohort, and their testimony for the accreditors had a religious-like quality.
Never in any circumstance have I heard students sound so deeply committed to their classes and education, and I’d taught at Harvard, Stanford and UCI for decades. I decided I had to teach in this program. Shortly thereafter, there was an opportunity to teach a theory course, and I took it.”
The material taught and the way classes are conducted doesn’t vary much from his classes at UC Irvine, Frank says, but the experience is different in other regards.
“First of all, the classes are larger at Irvine, where you’re looking at maybe 50 people who are relatively disconnected from one another,” he says. “Some might have a friend or two in the class, but plenty of them are alone, and some sit there silently. At Donovan, it’s a smaller group of people with very dense interconnections. They live together, breathe together, exercise together, study together and sleep in the same housing units.”
You could feel a sort of ripple rolling through the room when the graduates’ relatives watched them receive their diplomas. Several of the students were the first in their families to ever get a college degree, and it was a proud and emotional time for them.
- Annie McClanahan, UC Irvine associate professor of English
You could feel a sort of ripple rolling through the room when the graduates’ relatives watched them receive their diplomas. Several of the students were the first in their families to ever get a college degree, and it was a proud and emotional time for them.
- Annie McClanahan, UC Irvine associate professor of English
“Because they all have long sentences, many of them have known each other for decades, and there’s a sense of mutual support there,” Frank says. “One of the things that surprised me the most about them is the humanity, the laughter and the warmth.”
As a result, he says, “I tell my colleagues, ‘If you want the best teaching experience of your life, you should teach in this program.’ When I retire, I can imagine moving to San Diego and doing this with the rest of my life. It means that much to me.”
If that does turn out to be what Frank’s future holds, there will likely be familiar faces there, since many at the Donovan facility are serving life sentences. Guil, for example, has already spent more than half his life in prison and is serving a sentence of life without parole. He says he isn’t without hope that his sentence might someday be commuted to allow the possibility of parole, but he’s not sitting around waiting for that to happen.
“I’m wondering how this education can help me give back to my community here,” Guil says. “Like me, a lot of the people here never had an education, and like me, with so many years inside, they left the world a long time ago. The sociology courses I took help me to reconnect with humanity, and I try to share that with others. The example my classmates and I have made inspired a lot of others here to further their education. That can make their lives better here – and certainly better if they get to go back into the world.”
“Because they all have long sentences, many of them have known each other for decades, and there’s a sense of mutual support there,” Frank says. “One of the things that surprised me the most about them is the humanity, the laughter and the warmth.”
As a result, he says, “I tell my colleagues, ‘If you want the best teaching experience of your life, you should teach in this program.’ When I retire, I can imagine moving to San Diego and doing this with the rest of my life. It means that much to me.”
If that does turn out to be what Frank’s future holds, there will likely be familiar faces there, since many at the Donovan facility are serving life sentences. Guil, for example, has already spent more than half his life in prison and is serving a sentence of life without parole. He says he isn’t without hope that his sentence might someday be commuted to allow the possibility of parole, but he’s not sitting around waiting for that to happen.
“I’m wondering how this education can help me give back to my community here,” Guil says. “Like me, a lot of the people here never had an education, and like me, with so many years inside, they left the world a long time ago. The sociology courses I took help me to reconnect with humanity, and I try to share that with others. The example my classmates and I have made inspired a lot of others here to further their education. That can make their lives better here – and certainly better if they get to go back into the world.”
UC Irvine Magazine is produced by the Office of Strategic Communications & Public Affairs.
To contact the editor, email ucimagazine@uci.edu.