Our program was enormously impacted by Covid - we paused all in-person activities in March of 2020, and were only able to restart on an extremely limited scale in March 2022. In spite of this, our program continued to offer classes, run book donation drives, participate in statewide organizing for higher education, advise inside students, and pursue other goals in support of both on-campus and incarcerated students. Usually our interns would be recruited from students who have taken Inside-Out classes and therefore have experiences in the prisons. However, we have few–if any–students who have had those experiences due to the pandemic. We therefore are seeking students who are passionate about this kind of work, will be flexible in a changing work environment, have the emotional maturity to work in difficult spaces, work as a team but also be able to do independent projects, and are able to abide by a range of rules that make our work possible.

We are looking for students who have leadership experience or who have a capacity to step into new leadership roles. Experience with a project similar to our program is helpful but not required. Interns must be current UO students. Unfortunately, we cannot work with graduate students with GE positions.

Position Description:

Interns with the Prison Education Program provide essential support to our projects. The range of tasks varies widely. General areas include:

Administrative (preparing readings and other materials, data entry, preparing class folders)

Communication (website, LinkedIn, newsletters to distribute to email list and in print inside the prisons)

Project support (assisting a faculty member with a particular program, requiring a broad range of skills)

Classroom support (transportation logistics, student communication, support in in-class activities, etc)

Time requirements vary depending on current projects and prison schedules. However, we ask students to plan to commit to at least 3 hours per week of pre-scheduled meetings and/or work sessions, and at least another 3 of independent work. If we are able to hold in-person programs again, programs in the prisons will be in addition to this.

You will work most closely with Katie Dwyer, the Program Coordinator, who will help supervise and direct the intern group. The 2022-2023 intern cohort will be 4 or 5 individuals. You will also work with other PEP faculty, formerly incarcerated leaders, and other members of the campus and broader community.

Stipend : We are able to offer interns a $500 stipend per term in partial recognition of their work.

Questions can be sent to Katie Dwyer at kdwyer6@uoregon.edu