LEADERS TOMORROW
About the Petey Greene Program:
VISION:
The Petey Greene Program will be the national leader of quality
tutoring and related educational services to support incarcerated
students in achieving their academic goals. The Petey Greene
volunteer experience will inspire our alumni to advocate and take
on leadership roles that will re-imagine the criminal justice sys-
tem. We envision a world in which all incarcerated people have
access to high quality academic programs.
MISSION:
The Petey Greene Program
supplements education in cor-
rectional institutions by prepar-
ing volunteers, primarily col-
lege students, to provide free,
quality tutoring and related
THE PETEY programming to support the
academic achievement of incar-
GREENE PROGRAM cerated people.
UNDOUBTEDLY
CHANGED ME
For more information, visit our website:
http://www.peteygreene.org/
Introduction: OUR FUTURE LEADERS . . .
face a harsh reality.
The Petey Greene program recruits, trains, and coordinates Tutoring with Petey Greene was achieve successful life outcomes.
hundreds of volunteers each year, typically undergraduate and my most formative experience in What I learned in the classroom
graduate students, to tutor in educations programs in prisons college and helped solidify my was reinforced by what I wit-
and jails. commitment to serving those nessed in the prisons; and what
disadvantaged by unjust sys- I witnessed in the prisons stirred
tems. I came to Princeton with a up questions for me that I then
When integrated into existing programs, this supplemental
desire to help others, but without sought out answers to in the
service can significantly improve learning outcomes. Support- an awareness of the drastic un- classroom. Ill never forget the
ing education in correctional institutions is our mission, but equal access to opportunity that first time I tutored with Petey
along the way, the education is never one-sided. existed in our society. Greene and how shocked I was
to see how the overwhelming
As Joe Barrett, a veteran four-year tutor, put it, there was so Ill never forget the majority of inmates were of col-
much he wasnt exposed to previously: It was really through or. That didnt seem right or just,
my interactions with [the students], he said, that opened my first time I tutored and honestly just didnt make
eyes to a vast variety of issues in our contemporary criminal sense to me, so I sought to learn
justice system. As a public policy major I soon more.
learned how racism was institu-
Our tutors face a reality, and find themselves in a position to tionalized in our systems, and - Clare Herceg
how socioeconomic status, race, Director of Strategic Initiatives at
make a differencefirst at Petey Greene and then beyond. We
and place of birth could dramat- First Place for Youth
also hope to help raise the future leaders of the prison edu- ically affect ones opportunity to
cation and criminal justice reform movementsand it starts
with each tutors day-to-day experiences with the students
Of course, its inspiring as a tutor to see a student understand a dif-
themselves: the inspiration that comes from a students break-
ficult math problem or make progress on his persuasive essay. Just
through in a math problem or passing the GED. as tangible though is the transformation the program allows us to
see in ourselves. I still remember the first time I walked into a cor-
These are those storiesthe moments and inspirations that rectional facility. Everything about the prison environment with its
are building a next generation of leaders who will continue tight security, featureless interior, and slamming prison gates told
to advocate for a world in which all incarcerated people have me I should have feared the students I tutored each week, that I was
access to high quality academic programs. entering a space built for other people. But then, you sit down and
start talking to the students, you work with them each week, and you
begin gaining an understanding of who they are and what they hope
to achieve.
- Clare Herceg
Director of Strategic Initiatives at First Place for Youth
learn how to educate. mind with knowledge or ideas. I came to think that I and the tutors
I was coordinating should be neither models of ideal student be-
haviors nor ambassadors to educational enlightenment. Tutors, in-
stead, should facilitate learning by bringing out the expertise and
experiences learners already have and collaborating with students
to apply these to new areas. This idea profoundly changed how I
think of education, and of working with oppressed and marginal-
ized people, for others and myself.
Grace Li
Five-year veteran volunteer
Law student at NYU
Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar
www.peteygreene.org