Higher Education for the Justice-Involved

The Department of Philosophy is extremely proud to promote WMU’s prison education program, Higher Education for the Justice-Involved (HEJI), which is not only in line with the educational and transformative principles that guide our department, but is also run by two alumni of our M.A. program (Dale Brown, MA 2018, PhD 2025, and McGwire Hidden, MA 2024). We are also happy to say that the department continues to support HEJI in various ways: our graduate students have worked for the program; we have offered two courses at WMU-Coldwater (so far!); various faculty have presented to the HEJI cohorts; and Dave Paul, the department’s chair, and Associate Professor Dr. Ashley Atkins also serve on HEJI’s advisory committee.

Since 2017, HEJI has operated at Lakeland Correctional Facility (LCF) in Coldwater, MI and, more broadly, in close partnership with the Michigan Department of Corrections. While he was a grad student in our program, Dale Brown began HEJI as a research project contributing to his degree. Starting with non-credit coursework based on upper-level philosophy courses and grad mentoring for participants on a voluntary basis in 2017 under the supervision of Dr. Fritz Allhoff (serving 66 unique students across 4 course offerings), HEJI operated this way until the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. In August of 2023, HEJI resumed operation, this time as a credit- and credential-conferring program at the University’s newest branch campus: WMU-Coldwater (LCF). The core purpose of HEJI is to provide incarcerated students with access to quality, face-to-face higher education, which has been shown to provide myriad benefits to the individual, the prison, the surrounding community, and society writ large. Currently, 40 students are enrolled in the Student Planned Major (SPMJ), a Bachelor of Arts degree in the College of Arts and Sciences. The program’s curriculum is interdisciplinary, rooted in the liberal arts, and unapologetically rigorous. In order to complete the program, students must earn a minimum of 122 college credits over approximately five years. Filled with bright students and avid readers, we’re also incredibly happy to report that the average GPA of HEJI’s two cohorts is greater than 3.7 (excellence assuredly passed down to their students from our alum…!).  

Since 2022, the program has also brought in almost $1,000,000 to the university from various grants including state, federal, and private money. Though HEJI is now officially located in the University Center for the Humanities—another unit the department is proud to partner with!—we are proud of the philosophy department's role in HEJI’s current status and take it as a prime example of the experiences and opportunities available to both students and alumni of our grad program. HEJI is also an easy example of the ways in which WMU is committed to its mission: “so that all may learn.” Historically and currently WMU has been an access-oriented institution, and through both projects like HEJI and our department’s role in the University’s core curriculum, our department proudly considers ourselves leaders in WMU’s effort to continue expanding access to higher education.