Folsom Prison Graduation Address (No Blues or Jeans)

Julian Vasquez Heilig addresses prisoners receiving diplomas and certificates of different types. One student was finishing his four-year college degree and two others were finishing two-year associates degrees. There were about 10 other prisoners that had finished their high school equivalency. The other 35 or so were receiving honors such as Microsoft, technology and parole program certificates.

Cloaking Inequity

Last Friday, I was honored to give a graduation address at Folsom Prison.

Folsom State Prison (FSP) is a California State Prison in Folsom, California, U.S., approximately 20 mi (30 km) northeast of the state capital of Sacramento… It opened 137 years ago in 1880, Folsom is the state’s second-oldest prison..  Folsom was also one of the first maximum security prisons, and as such witnessed the execution of 93 condemned prisoners over a 42-year period.

Folsom is probably best known in popular culture for concerts performed at the facility by musician Johnny Cash, particularly in 1968, when the two shows of January 13 were made into a live album. He had written and recorded the song “Folsom Prison Blues” over a decade earlier. Source.

The prison is as the end of a long, beautiful winding road through cow pastures and is located in front of Folsom…

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Our next reading: Tressie McMillan Cottom, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy

ICYMI (and even if you haven’t), join us at the book club /reading group cross platform free-for-all to read and talk about Lower Ed

Bryan Alexander

Last week I asked you all to vote for the next reading in our online book club.  After some good discussion and 88 votes, the selection was clear:

Tressie McMillan Cottom, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy. (publisher; Amazon)

This critical look at how the for-profit higher education sector boomed and took advantage of many Americans clearly appeals to you, and is definitely a major education book for 2017.  It may point us to what comes next, especially if Trump tries to restart the for-profit edu industry.

Later this week I’ll post a reading schedule and links to materials.  For now, grab yourself a copy.

If you’re new to our book club… welcome!  The way it works is I post about selections (circa one chapter) every week.  Each post is assigned a tag, https://bryanalexander.org/tag/lower-ed/, so you can…

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