By Robin Lally / Rutgers Today
Meet Donald Roden: The Professor Who Founded a Prison-to-College Program That Gives People a Second Chance
Mountainview Project at Rutgers has produced national scholarship recipients
Most people would never consider stepping into a prison to volunteer, much less to teach men and women serving time the academic skills that can help them succeed after release.
Donald Roden did. For more than a decade he has shown that incarcerated men and women deserve access to higher education and that investing in their learning produces powerful returns—for individuals, communities and taxpayers. Roden, an associate professor of history at Rutgers and a scholar of Japanese history, launched a prison-to-college program in 2005 because he believed the most promising students—whether from New Jersey suburbs or from inside correctional facilities—should have the opportunity an education provides.
Roden’s persistence helped expand college access for thousands of people in New Jersey correctional settings and later supported those who returned to campuses after release. Early participants in the Mountainview Project went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees from Rutgers; two alumni, Walter Fortson and Ben Chin, were later recognized as Truman Scholars for their leadership potential.
Chris Agans, director of the Mountainview program (now part of the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prison Consortium, NJ-STEP), notes that Roden’s early work was critical. “If Don Roden hadn’t been there in the beginning with the Mountainview Project, none of the students would have come into the program in the first three years and that would have pushed the entire program back considerably,” he said. NJ-STEP began offering college courses to people in prison in 2012 and now oversees prison-to-college programs linked to Rutgers campuses in Newark, New Brunswick and Camden.
When he began, Roden had no funding and no staff. He simply kept going. He started visiting Mountainview Youth Correctional Facility in Annandale in 2002 after his mother died; she had volunteered teaching reading at halfway houses and community centers, and he wanted to honor her work. At first he tutored students enrolled through a community college program, but he soon realized a deeper bridge to four-year higher education was needed.
Roden spent hours inside the facility, encouraging men and women he believed had academic promise to pursue college after release. Some inmates thought the idea was impossible—“a crazy old guy” offering unlikely hope—but Roden persisted, visiting halfway houses, speaking with prison advocates and working with department officials to build pathways into Rutgers.
“I believe that the public has a moral responsibility when it comes to criminal justice and education,” Roden said. “Those who are incarcerated deserve the opportunity of an education, and I was grateful for the support I received from colleagues at Rutgers.”
Research supports what Roden and program advocates have long argued: correctional education reduces recidivism and saves public funds. A 2013 RAND Corporation study found formerly incarcerated individuals who participated in education programs had a 43 percent lower rate of recidivism. A new five-year study, Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education, has begun in New Jersey, North Carolina and Michigan to examine prison education systems, including the program Roden started.
Since its inception, the Mountainview Project has enrolled 110 former inmates. Of those, 25 have earned bachelor’s degrees and five have completed master’s degrees; 49 are currently enrolled. Program graduates hold an overall average GPA of 3.1, and one alumnus achieved a perfect 4.0.
Most striking is the program’s impact on reoffending: just 5.3 percent of Mountainview participants admitted to Rutgers have been convicted again, compared with a 53 percent return-to-prison rate among offenders released from state correctional facilities.
“Ideally we would like everyone to graduate, but even those who don’t we try to keep in touch with because we know the experience has been a positive one,” Roden said. “In almost every case, those who didn’t continue still have the hope of completing their degree.”
Terrell Blount, who first met Roden at a Newark halfway house after serving a five-year sentence for robbery, credits Roden with making his Rutgers education possible. Blount, a 2013 Rutgers graduate, now works as an admissions and transition counselor with NJ-STEP. “Don is the one who made my going to Rutgers happen,” Blount said. “You knew that whenever you called or needed him, he would be there.”
Jason Bell, director of Project Rebound at San Francisco State University—one of the earliest programs to integrate formerly incarcerated students into college—praised Roden’s commitment. “Every Mountainview student that has met him has nothing but love for the man because he didn’t have to do all of this,” Bell said. “He’s not connected to prison reform by background or personal history. He’s driven by compassion and a deep belief in human potential.”
