Tufts University Prison Initiative of Tisch College held its fourth annual symposium on restorative justice and higher education on March 31. The event featured formerly incarcerated students, graduates and Tufts undergraduate students who work as teaching assistants in prisons and as program assistants in the Tufts Education Reentry Network program. The speakers addressed the importance of revolutionizing higher education, as well as the vulnerability and healing process that happens in the classroom.
According to David Delvalle, TUPIT education and reentry director, the program had a significant impact on what participants wanted to achieve in life. He summarized some takeaways from a survey conducted about TUPIT’s impact on undergraduate students on the Medford/Somerville campus.
He shared that 91% of students agreed that TUPIT elevated the level of instruction, discussion and other forms of learning. Ninety-seven percent of students believe that the program played a central role in engagement in civic action and social change.
“TUPIT has taught me so much about collective action and social change, and I’m grateful that I have a community of changemakers here,” Delvalle said.
Dayna Cunningham, the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, said that TUPIT is “not just transformative for the formerly incarcerated or continuing-to-be-incarcerated students that we work with, it is profoundly transformative for every student that touches the program because of the deepest commitment to human transformation.”
State Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven also attended the symposium. She shared that on Tuesday, following the symposium, the state legislature held its first hearing on a constitutional amendment restoring the right to vote for all incarcerated people.
During one of the panels, Tufts undergraduate students who participated in the program as teaching assistants and program assistants shared their personal connections to TUPIT.
Tziavi Melendez, a sophomore from the Duck Valley Community Reservation, told the audience that she had suppressed a lot about her identity once she came to Tufts.
She shared that her work in TUPIT made her feel more able to talk about her experiences as a part of the Shoshone-Paiute tribe and not feel like she was being “pitied, but empowered.”
“We’re reading things that apply to the MyTERN students, but it also applies to me too,” she said.
Toluwani Oso, a senior from Nigeria, said that TUPIT became a safe space for her where she was able to ask questions and see that her experiences were mirrored in other people.
“I was in a room filled with people who practice what they preach," she said.
Another panel featured what happens internally to a student who is incarcerated once they go through the program.
MyTERN student Luis Bizzarro said that once he started studying in prison, he started to look beyond his prison cell.
“Education is the thing that when I started, I started to see things in the world. I started to look outside, and I started to feel that I belonged in these places that I didn’t even know existed.”
TUPIT graduate Juan Pagan (LA’24) shared that at first he “didn’t really want to invest fully into [the program].” However, having received a degree from Tufts while serving his sentence, he is considering going to law school in 2027.
John Sanchez, one of the first TUPIT graduates from MCI-Concord, said about TUPIT: “Not only did it impact me scholastically, but it helped me grow through some of my emotional matureness. I gained emotional intelligence.”
Kimberly Dong, associate professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, teaches human nutrition at TUPIT. Her research focuses on food and healthcare access and has led her to participate in the program and advocate for it. Dong said the experience has been amazing.
“From the faculty standpoint, it’s super transformative. We get to really work with students that want to be in class, want to be challenged. It’s just been phenomenal. And I wish that every faculty person could experience something like this,” she said.
Louise Bond, a Tufts senior on a pre-law track, said that TUPIT gives time for Tufts students and both currently and formerly incarcerated students to learn together and learn from one another. For Bond, the experience gained in TUPIT is important because students witness the prison system itself, something that many people do not see.
“You’re not supposed to humanize people who are incarcerated because then you start to question the way everything works,” she said. “It really is world-changing once you see the reality that people are subjected to and learn more about our justice system.”
Rocio Lopez is a current MyTERN student whose case is still open. After being incarcerated for about four months, she was released in March 2024 and enrolled in the program this academic year. Lopez described her experience in the program as phenomenal.
“You create a bond with everybody who cares about your past experiences, and especially with the Medford students here; they’re very impactful to bring their knowledge and how they grew up and how they are able to accept us within the program,” she said.
