Duke Prison Teaching Opportunities
The Prison Engagement Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics is proud to offer three opportunities for teaching incarcerated people. Faculty (including non-regular rank or visiting faculty), staff who teach as the instructor of record at Duke, and PhD students who are ABD are all eligible to join these prison teaching efforts.
OPPORTUNITIES
1) Lecture at Butner Federal Correctional Complex
For two years, we have been running a regular lecture series at FCI Butner, a federal prison about 30 minutes away from Durham. Instructors deliver one-hour, dynamic lectures to a room of 40–50 incarcerated people, typically on Wednesday evenings. Lectures have spanned a wide variety of topics from different disciplines across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
2) Teach a 6–8 week workshop course at Butner Federal Correctional Complex
Together with Duke’s Center for Teaching and Learning, we have developed a “Certificate in Ethical Inquiry” that incarcerated students can earn if they take four non-credit workshop courses taught by Duke faculty or graduate students. These workshop courses consist of weekly seminars of about two hours, normally held during the day, for six to eight weeks. Subjects so far have been in writing and the humanities, but we welcome workshops on any topic that incorporates a relation to ethical inquiry, broadly conceived. Instructors may coteach if desired.
3) Teach a Community College course at Johnston Correctional Institution
In partnership with Johnston Community College and the Laughing Gull Foundation, we are proud to offer the first opportunity for Duke faculty and graduate students to teach credit-bearing courses at a correctional facility. Instructors will teach a semester-length course at Johnston Correctional Institution, which is around an hour commute from Durham each way. Instructors will be hired as adjunct professors at Johnston Community College (JCC) to teach a general education course based on a syllabus provided by JCC.
ELIGIBILITY
All teaching opportunities are open to all faculty (including non-regular rank or visiting faculty), staff who teach as the instructor of record at Duke, and PhD students who are ABD.
COMMITMENT
1) Giving a lecture as part of the Butner Lecture Series is a two-time commitment: new lecturers must attend one lecture before giving one themselves
2) Teaching a workshop course at FCI Butner is a commitment to teach a six-to-eight week non-credit course composed of weekly, two-hour seminars.
3) Teaching a community college course at Johnston Corretional Institution is a commitment to teaching a semester-length course and commuting to Johnston County, around an hour drive from Durham each way. The exact schedule of meetings will be determined with the instructor according to space and staff availability at Johnston Correctional Institution.
COMPENSATION
The Butner Lecture Series and the Butner Workshop Courses are volunteer positions. Instructors teaching a community college course at Johnston Correctional Institution will be compensated for this position at a comparable rate to teaching an adjunct course at Duke.
APPLY
If you are interested in any the prison teaching opportunities, please fill out an application form at this link.
CONTACT
If you have any questions, please contact Jac Arnade-Colwill, Prison Engagement Initiative Graduate Assistant, at jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu