Most of us pass MCI-Norfolk on Route 1A without giving it much thought. But inside that institution, something quietly remarkable has been unfolding — and it recently took a new turn that reaches beyond the prison walls to benefit the people who work there.

In February, the Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI) announced its inaugural Correction Staff and Families Scholarship, awarding more than $3,000 in total to seven recipients. Among the first recipients was Matthew Powers of Franklin, whose mother Paula Berndt is a staff member at the institution. MCI-Norfolk Superintendent Kenneth Lizotte and EPI Director Mneesha Gellman presented the awards at a ceremony held at MCI-Norfolk on February 10.

The scholarship can be applied to tuition, books, materials, application or testing fees, and transportation at any accredited college or university, not only Emerson. A job as a corrections officer does not require a college degree, and according to Dr. Gellman, that’s precisely the gap this scholarship is designed to address.

The Woman Behind It

Dr. Mneesha Gellman is associate professor of political science in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College and the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative, which brings a Bachelor of Arts pathway to incarcerated students at state prisons in Massachusetts. 

In a conversation in March, Dr. Gellman described the scholarship as an extension of EPI’s core mission: using education to interrupt cycles of incarceration and create opportunity. The program, she explained, is funded entirely through private contributions; no tax dollars support EPI or its scholarships.

The Superintendent’s support made it possible to go further than the scholarship alone. With his backing, Emerson has been able to offer corrections staff on-the-clock workshops at the prison itself, including sessions covering how to navigate the financial aid process and how to write a college admissions essay. For someone who hasn’t thought about college since high school, or never considered it at all, those workshops can make the difference between an aspiration and an application.

What EPI Has Built

Launched in 2017, EPI offers the same courses taught on Emerson’s Boston campus, with Emerson faculty, as well as guest faculty from other local universities, all bearing official Emerson credits. The program provides a pathway to a Bachelor of Arts in Media, Literature, and Culture. EPI students also receive a minor in Economics. EPI selects its students through a rigorous admissions process that includes in-person interviews and an essay exam scored by a faculty panel and accepts approximately 25 percent of applicants each cycle. Since 2017, EPI has admitted 80 incarcerated students and 20 have graduated.

The evidence for why this matters is substantial. According to a December 2024 analysis by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan research center established by the state legislature, postsecondary correctional education is the program with the highest rate of return among all adult criminal justice programs analyzed. The analysis concluded that the program delivers more than $14 in benefits to the state for every dollar invested.

That kind of return makes intuitive sense when you consider what a degree opens up. Education expands the range of legal employment available to people leaving prison, which is ultimately what makes reentry work.

A Graduate Who Came Back

To understand what EPI actually means in a person’s life, consider Kevin Keo.

Kevin Keo is a seasoned Circle Keeper and community organizer and activist who has been practicing restorative justice for eight years. He is a member of the Transformational Prison Project, a Boston-based nonprofit that brings restorative justice work into correctional facilities and supports people navigating reentry.

Keo was a member of EPI’s very first cohort. He recalled that the program began as coursework only — there was no degree pathway at the start. That changed when, early on, Professor Gellman brought the president of Emerson College to the prison, which led to a Bachelor of Arts degree program. Keo’s classes ran five days a week. He earned his BA in Media, Literature, and Culture in September 2022, which took five years, in part because of disruptions caused by COVID.

His path to that degree was not an easy one. Keo was arrested at 16 and convicted of murder at 18, receiving a life sentence. As a result of a Supreme Court ruling that found it unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in prison, he became eligible for parole after 15 years. He was released at 33 to a halfway house. Even with a family that was financially prepared to help him, he described the emotional reality as complicated because he sensed, even years later, that his father and brother were always holding their breath.

Today, Keo works with juveniles in the criminal justice system at detention centers. He described his approach as meeting young people where they are, listening, asking questions, and being ready to answer honestly from his own experience. The fact that he has been through what they are going through matters, he said, but it is not enough on its own. What works is being genuine in the moment.

When I reached Keo for an interview, he was walking out of a planning meeting for the upcoming Mother’s Day Walk for Peace, an annual 5K in Dorchester that raises funds to support mothers and families of murder victims. The Walk began in 1996, founded by Chaplain Clementina Chéry of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, after her son Louis was killed. She organized the walk in the neighborhood where he was killed, choosing to grieve and celebrate at the same time. To date, it has hosted more than 500,000 families.

That Kevin Keo, once sentenced to die in prison, was stepping out of a meeting to help plan that event is, in its own way, the whole argument for what EPI is trying to do.

What This Means Locally

MCI-Norfolk is our neighbor. The corrections officers who work there live in our communities — in Wrentham, Norfolk, Franklin, and the towns around us. A scholarship that helps them, or their children, take a step toward a college education is a direct investment in the people who do one of the more difficult jobs in public safety.

For more information about the Emerson Prison Initiative and the Correction Staff and Families Scholarship, visit emerson.edu/epi.