Butler is a founding member of Pitzer’s Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA program
Kenneth Butler ’22
Claremont, Calif. (April 27, 2022–updated June 22, 2022)—Pitzer College student Kenneth Butler ’22, 他在中等安全级别的监狱里通过Inside-Out课程获得了推荐十大正规网赌网站学位, has been awarded a 2022–23 Fulbright US Student Program 研究从乌干达一所最高安全级别监狱释放的人的生活. Butler, one of the College’s 14 Fulbright awardees so far this year他是第一位获得富布赖特奖学金的推荐十大正规网赌网站大学前囚犯学生. He served 15 years before being paroled in June 2021.
“我即将以美国文化大使的身份在乌干达待上10个月,” Butler said. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed it possible.”
Butler, 47, 他在2021年春季参加的一门Inside-Out课程中首次了解了乌干达的监狱系统. 基于天普大学开发的模式，由克莱蒙特学院司法教育倡议监督, Inside-Out classes 把“里面的”被监禁的学生和“外面的”在校学生放在一起，在同一个教室里和同样的教授一起上同样的大学课程.
Butler studied the low recidivism rates at Luzira Upper Prison in Kampala, Uganda, in an Inside-Out course called Carceral State in Comparative Perspective, taught by Pitzer Professor of Political Studies Nigel Boyle.
Boyle says Butler, 他曾是黑帮成员，1992年参与了洛杉矶黑帮之间的一项协议，该协议后来被称为“瓦茨休战”, is one of the biggest student success stories in recent memory.
“Thirty years after he was a junior participant in the famous Watts Truce, 肯尼·巴特勒已经成为推荐十大正规网赌网站历史上获奖最多的学生之一,” said Boyle, 是谁推动了学院在克莱蒙特学院建立Inside-Out课程的倡议 Pitzer’s Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA program. “在这期间的几年里，他大部分时间都被监禁，他也是Crips的主要人物. But he was changed by his religious faith and his Pitzer education, and a life derailed is now spectacularly on the academic fast track.”
Butler’s Fulbright research will explore how the educational, athletic, 卢齐拉上监狱内的社交网络帮助人们在出狱后重新融入社会. 他还将研究为什么资源不足的乌干达监狱系统的累犯率比美国低, which spends more than $80 billion a year on mass incarceration, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
“我认为美国可以从监禁和累犯的不同方法中学到很多东西,” Butler wrote in his Fulbright application. “我对那些经历过乌干达拘留系统的人的生活的调查是这条道路上的第一步.”
巴特勒的大学学术之旅始于2015年的函授课程. 当他被转移到诺科的加州康复中心(CRC)时, CA, in 2018, he signed up for Inside-Out classes, initially “just to break up the monotony of daily life in prison.”
他不知道克莱蒙特学院的校外学生和教授会来监狱上课. Those courses, 12名校内学生和12名校外学生共用一间教室, made “an indelible mark on my life,” he said. 他估计，从2018年到2021年，他上了超过15门Inside-Out课程.
Recognized as a leader, 巴特勒被邀请加入由内部学生组成的智囊团，为项目管理人员提供建议，并主张为被监禁的学生创造一种方法，使他们能够获得Pitzer学位的学分, which became Pitzer’s groundbreaking Inside-Out Pathway-to-BA program. He also took classes through Norco College’s Prison Partnership Program 并最终从社区学院获得了转学副学士学位, which he applied toward his BA degree at Pitzer.
An organizational studies major, 当巴特勒还是一名校内学生时，他曾担任推荐十大正规网赌网站大学学生委员会的代表, 使他成为第一个参加推荐十大正规网赌网站学生会的在押学生. After being paroled in summer 2021, Butler took classes on campus in fall 2021，加入了学生会课程委员会，并成为全球/地方行动研究所 & Study fellow.
博伊尔鼓励巴特勒申请富布赖特奖和其他研究生奖和机会. On April 9, Butler and Pitzer senior Benjamin Sievers ’22, 谁曾经是“比较视角”这门课程的“外部”学生, received Napier Awards for Creative Leadership from the Napier Initiative.
巴特勒赢得了纳皮尔奖，建立了一个和平与和解项目，将生活受到帮派文化影响的前囚犯聚集在一起. 在瓦茨休战将近30年后，巴特勒将参加 the inaugural conference of the Justice Education Initiative为纪念“瓦茨停战”，将于28日和29日举行.
巴特勒的富布赖特研究目标之一——以及他作为一名活动家学者的余生——是“为无声者发声”.”
“Many scholars speak as experts on people and issues in spaces I occupy,” Butler wrote in his Fulbright application. “The subject population is not given a voice.”
作为一个曾经面临终身监禁，不得假释的人, 巴特勒说，自从他在CRC上了第一堂Inside-Out课程后，他的生活方式发生了变化，有时看起来并不真实. Less than a week after being awarded a Fulbright, 他得知自己被加州理工学院波莫纳分校的公共管理硕士项目录取了. 今年5月，他将戴上礼帽，身穿长袍，参加Pitzer学院2022年的毕业典礼.
In his Fulbright application, Butler wrote that before his educational journey, he was a man “with a lot of information but no purpose.”
“Now, I am a man with a drive to succeed at the highest levels of academia and, along the way, 作为“文化大使”，代表高等教育的救赎品质.”
UPDATE: KABC-TV Los Angeles aired an interview with Kenneth Butler on May 14, 2022, 那天，他走过推荐十大正规网赌网站毕业典礼的讲台，领取毕业证书.
UPDATE: NPR aired an interview with Kenneth Butler on June 21, 2022, 讲述他的教育历程，从在监狱里收到一本字典到赢得几项杰出的奖学金.
