Student Community Fellows Help Those Impacted by Incarceration
For more than 40 years, Vassar College students have been engaged in programs and activities that support incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. Launched in 1979 by the late Professor of Religion and Africana Studies Lawrence Mamiya, the College’s prison education program has enabled students to interact with people in nearby correctional facilities.
This summer, two students enrolled in Vassar’s Community Fellows program continued this effort by working at local agencies that support individuals impacted by the justice system. Marissa Desir ’25 worked at Prisoners’ Brain Trust, an advocacy group created by and for people who are incarcerated or have been released. Desir’s main project was assisting with the 5th Annual Attica Uprising Community Remembrance Day event to honor Attica as a historic moment in the work against mass incarceration. The event will take place on the Poughkeepsie waterfront September 14 from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. Jake Lefort ’27 worked for Exodus, a nonprofit agency that helps those released from jail or prison find housing, employment, medical care, and other services.
Now in its 25th year, the Community Fellows program matches students’ skills and interests with community-identified projects. Each of the students is paid a stipend by the College. The Community Fellows program is supported by the Judith R. Birsh ’57 Community Engaged Fellowship Fund, and gifts from the Loeb Art Center and Vassar alums Deb Macfarlan Enright ’82 and Mary Ellen Weisl Rudolph ’61, P’98 and James N. Rudolph P’98.
Elizabeth Cannon, Director of the Office of Community-Engaged Learning (OCEL), said the program embodies one of Vassar’s core values: building long-term partnerships in the community. “The Community Fellows program creates opportunities for students to learn from those who are committed to their community,” Cannon said. “Through support of various alum donors and campus partners, the OCEL is able to fund summer experiences for students to connect their social-justice passions and commitment to the local community. Our students are getting hands-on experiences in issue areas that they care deeply about, while also learning more about themselves and their place in this world.”
Desir, a science, technology & society major with a prison studies correlate, learned about Prisoners’ Brain Trust (PBT) when she met the organization’s co-founder, Alisha Kohn, at the Newburgh (NY) LGBTQ+ Center. Kohn, who was incarcerated for 10 years, serves as Director of the Queers for Justice committee at the Center and runs conflict resolution workshops in prisons and in the local community. Fellow co-founders of PBT are Eric Paris Whitfield, Reginald Dugue, and La-Meik Taylor.
“When I met Alisha, her work really resonated with me because this is work that involves everyone; all of us are affected by how other people are treated,” Desir said.
The community event on the Poughkeepsie waterfront will commemorate the events of September 9-13, 1971, when prisoners seized the yard and demanded better living conditions. “We want to highlight a narrative not just about the four days of the riots but what happened before and what has happened since,” Desir said. “The goal of our event is to help people learn more about this history and to provide information on the resources that are available to not just people coming home, but everyone in the Hudson Valley.”
Desir previously worked with Professor of Education Erin McCloskey on a storytelling program to be held in the Dutchess County Jail. “I learned about this issue in an academic setting first and wanted to see where its roots and practices are,” she said.
During her work with Prisoners’ Brain Trust, Desir visited a state prison, Eastern Correctional Facility. “I met Paris, one of our co-founders, and learned it’s all about intentional work and centering the values we each bring that gets amplified when we are together,” she said. “In the PBT logo is a light bulb, symbolizing the ideas and knowledge coming from the inside. To solve these issues, we must center on those directly impacted.”
Lefort, a prospective education or political science major from Harrington, DE, said he applied for the Community Fellows program after serving as a volunteer with Vassar’s after-school mentoring program in Poughkeepsie during the academic year. “That experience got me interested in continuing to work in the local community,” he said.
Lefort’s duties at Exodus included guiding clients through the intake procedure, contacting other nonprofit agencies to find housing and employment opportunities, and maintaining the agency’s website. “Since I was the youngest guy in the office, a lot of the tech duties were given to me,” he said.
One of Lefort’s most rewarding experiences was seeing the smile on a client’s face when he and other Exodus employees helped him move into his new apartment. “Not every case is a success,” he said, “but there were definitely times this summer when I saw my work come to fruition. Seeing his face light up that day was definitely a highlight.”
Lefort said he planned to remain engaged in community-based activities in the future. “I’ll definitely continue doing this kind of work while I’m at Vassar,” he said, adding that the experience had raised his awareness about the need for such an agency in other communities.
“Back home in Delaware there are no programs like this, and it’s a gap that needs to be filled,” he said. “Exodus is a great example of something that works, something that fills a real need.”