Yale Prison Education Initiative at Dwight Hall

The Yale Prison Education Initiative at Dwight Hall is a unique program that brings access to real, rigorous, credit-bearing liberal arts courses and other programming to incarcerated students in Connecticut. It comes on the heels of decades of Yale faculty and student volunteer service to students in prisons, and at the forefront of growing national conversations around higher education access and criminal justice reform. The program takes as its charter Yale College’s own mission statement: “...to seek exceptionally promising students of all backgrounds from across the nation and around the world and to educate them, through mental discipline and social experience, to develop their intellectual, moral, civic, and creative capacities to the fullest. The aim of this education is the cultivation of citizens with a rich awareness of our heritage to lead and serve in every sphere of human activity.”Coupling Yale’s commitment to liberal arts education in the 21st century with Dwight Hall’s longstanding dedication to public service and social justice, the Yale Prison Education Initiative (YPEI) works with students in prison who demonstrate extraordinary academic potential. YPEI also provides direct support to formerly incarcerated students returning home, offering our students resume-building assistance, job search help, and connections to continuing educational opportunities.