Mission The Prison Teaching Initiative seeks to bridge Princeton University’s academic and service-driven missions by providing the highest-quality postsecondary education to incarcerated students in New Jersey; offering Princeton University graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff innovative, evidence-based pedagogy training and the chance to diversify their teaching portfolios through intensive classroom experience; and fostering a robust campus dialogue on mass incarceration and its relationship to systemic inequalities in access to education. Our Team Our Partners Class of 1994 Partnership STEM for All History 2005 PTI is founded by a group of PU astrophysicists led by postdocs Mark Krumholz (’98) and Jenny Greene, and Professor Jill Knapp. 2006 Krumholz and his team teach their first PTI class, “Intermediate Algebra with Applications,” at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility (and accredited by Mercer County Community College). 2007 Krumholz and other Princeton scientists begin teaching classes at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. 2008 PTI begins teaching English composition courses in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson School and the Pace Center for Civic Engagement. PTI also initiates partnerships with The College of New Jersey and Rutgers University to expand course offerings. 2013 PTI becomes a founding member of the NJ Scholarship & Transformative Education in Prisons (NJ-STEP) Consortium, which begins to create a comprehensive statewide prison education network. 2014 PTI participates in the first-ever college graduation in a New Jersey prison, when 14 students at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women receive associates degrees from Raritan Valley Community College. 2015 Eight more students, this time at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility, earn associate’s degrees. 2016 PTI becomes part of the university’s Program in Teacher Preparation. Jill Knapp initiates a partnership with the Federal Bureau of Prisons at Fort Dix. 2017 PTI becomes part of the university’s McGraw Center for Teaching & Learning and moves to 87 Prospect Ave, Suite 220. PTI launches a STEM Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at Princeton for formerly incarcerated students, with funding from the National Science Foundation. 2020 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, PTI operates a restricted, low-touch, paper-based system for getting materials to and from students for grading. 2021 PTI is allowed limited in-person interactions with incarcerated students to reduce the spread of Covid. 2022 By the summer, PTI is largely back to normal operations. 2023 PTI hires two more full-time staff members: instructional specialists in Humanities and STEM.
