
‘Incarceration has saved their lives’
‘Iwould never have listened to you out there.” Norman Dean…
Nashville, Tenn. — Bagpipes. Pomp and circumstance. It felt like a typical graduation ceremony.
But this graduation took place inside the guarded walls of the Tennessee Prison for Women.
Lipscomb administrators, including president Randy Lowry and provost Craig Bledsoe, present degrees to the graduates. Professor Richard Goode founded the LIFE program.
It was the first time Lipscomb University awarded bachelor’s degrees at the prison to “inside students.” The graduates were part of the Lipscomb Initiative for Education, or LIFE, which offers women in correctional facilities the chance to study alongside students from the university associated with Churches of Christ.
The women were the third cohort to graduate through the program. They received face-to-face instruction from university professors and studied with Lipscomb undergraduate students at the prison. All students involved earned college credit.
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