Tag Archives: Nalini Nadkarni

Celebration and Transition

Celebration and Transition

By SPP Project Manager Kelli Bush

The Sustainable Prisons Project (SPP) recently celebrated another year with our many wonderful partners.  The event, held on a cool summer evening at the Olympia Farmer’s Market, featured a wide range of guest speakers representing various aspects of the Sustainable Prisons Project.  Speakers from Department of Corrections, Joint Base Lewis McChord, The Evergreen State College (TESC), Center for Natural Land Management, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and a prison volunteer each spoke about the significance of SPP from their perspective.

 

The event was also an opportunity to honor out-going Co-Director and Co-Founder of the SPP, Dr. Nalini Nadkarni.  Nalini has accepted a position at University of Utah as the Director of the Center for Science and Math Education.  She will remain involved with SPP as Senior Advisor.  Nalini is also continuing work to share SPP with other states, including at her new location in Utah.

 

We also welcomed new SPP Co-Director Dr. Carri LeRoy.  Carri began working with the SPP team in April and she officially began her new role as SPP Co-Director July 1st.  She is a stream ecologist and a member of the Masters of Environmental Studies faculty at Evergreen.  Carri is an excellent addition to the team and we look forward to continuing the Project with her leadership.

 

After a year filled with declining budgets we are extremely grateful to our partners, students, TESC staff, foundations, and grant funding sources that helped keep this project going.  We are excited to see what the next year brings!

 

To donate to the SPP and help bring conservation into Washington prisons, click here.

SPP Launches a New Partnership with the Research Ambassador Program

By Research Ambassador Program Project Manager Amy Stasch

The Sustainable Prisons Project (SPP) recently strengthened its Science and Sustainability Lecture Series with the initiation of a new partnership with the Research Ambassador Program (RAP), a project of The Evergreen State College, funded by the National Science Foundation. The RAP is led by Evergreen State College faculty member Dr. Nalini Nadkarni and Project Manager Amy Stasch.

The RAP enhances scientific engagement and scientific literacy among the public by connecting scientists with non-traditional audiences such as senior citizen centers, prisons, faith-based communities, and businesses to develop accessible and interactive communication strategies for public engagement with science. The SPP will collaborate with RAP to host visiting scientists as guest lecturers in the SPP’s monthly lecture series at three Washington State prisons.

The SPP hosted its first RAP science fellow, Katie Renwick, on Thursday, January 14th, 2011 for a presentation at the Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women, a minimum security prison located in Belfair, Washington.  Renwick is a first year doctoral student studying the interactions of bark beetle infestations, fire, disturbance, and recovery in the Rocky Mountains.  She presented an hour-long lecture about her scientific research on how ecological changes affect forests, and how they can recover after these changes.  From these concepts, offenders drew parallels to their own lives and the disturbances they have experienced and are recovering from.

The lecture was the first Science and Sustainability lecture to be hosted at Mission Creek, and received excellent turnout. The women attending were attentive and asked insightful questions. Several inmates approached Renwick following the lecture, thanking her for her time and for helping them relate their own struggles to phenomena that are continuously influencing the forests.  Through this unique encounter, Renwick was able to engage an otherwise unaware audience in scientific discussion, while attending offenders reaped the benefits of her specialized knowledge and inspiration, an experience the SPP and RAP hope to replicate in the coming months.

The SPP will continue to collaborate with the RAP and monthly lectures have already been scheduled through June 2011.

Good News

By Graduate Research Associate Alicia LeDuc

The Sustainable Prisons Project (SPP) is in the news! We have received extensive press coverage from media sources nationwide. The common threads emphasized by all are the innovative nature and the collaborative mode of the work that have contributed to the inspiring success of the SPP. Click on the links below — and feel free to provide your comments.

KBTC Northwest Now: Click here to watch the episode

Northwest Now’s Daniel Kopec hosts SPP Project Co-Director Dan Pacholke, Project Manager Kelli Bush and Cedar Creek Corrections Center Superintendent Douglas Cole to explore how the unique collaboration between the DOC and The Evergreen State College is addressing some of Washington’s pressing social and scientific concerns.

KBTC Full Focus: Being Green: Click here to watch the episode

This episode of Full Focus takes a look at how the Sustainable Prisons Project is engaging offenders in the rearing of endangered frogs and the inspiring stories that have resulted.

KCTS 9 Connects: Click here to watch the episode

KCTS 9 reporter Leslie McClurg takes the show behind bars when she visits the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor, Washington to discover how the SPP has inspired one offender to pursue college credit by studying sustainability while incarcerated.

The Promised Land featuring Nalini Nadkarni: Click here to listen to the episode

SPP Co-Director Nalini Nadkarni escorts host Majora Carter from the treetops of the Olympic Rainforest canopy to the incarcerated men at Stafford Creek to lead them in a lively and insightful discussion of “what should happen next” for the SPP and sustainability in society.

Science Nation: Click here to watch and read

Science Nation explores how the SPP  and inmates at Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Washington are helping themselves and nature to recover by working together to raise endangered prairie plants for restoration.

PBS News Hour, Oregon Public Broadcasting:

Click here to watch the PBS news hour segment (short version)

Click here to view the OPB Oregon Field Guide segment (long version)

Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Jule Gilfillan details how the SPP is helping the military and two Washington prisons to reduce waste and protect the environment by training offenders as conservation scientists; all while saving money and supporting biodiversity.

To donate to the Sustainable Prisons Project, CLICK HERE to visit the Evergreen Foundation’s website.

Hard news in hard times: Sustainable Prisons Project Hits Economic Downturn

Post by Project Co-Director Nalini Nadkarni

Economic conditions at the national and the state level are increasingly difficult due to sharp drops in state tax collections. Responding to these lean times, Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire has instituted deep budget cuts.  She recently enacted a 6.3% across-the-board cut to head off a deepening budget deficit

Over the past three years, the Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) has funded the Sustainable Prisons Project through a contract with The Evergreen State College. During that time, the WDOC has cut more than $220 million from its budget, frozen or cut more than 1,200 jobs, closed two prisons, slashed inmate populations, and cut the number of offenders on community-supervision probation.

On October 1, 2010, Eldon Vail, Secretary of the WDOC, announced a new 6.3% cut in its budget, which translates to a $53 million reduction. To achieve the savings, one prison will be closed, and 300 jobs will be frozen or cut. Employees will experience employee furlough days and cuts in pay. Inmates in larger prisons will be locked-down one day a month to reduce staff overtime costs. Drug treatment and education programs will be reduced.

Sadly – very sadly – the two-year contract for the Sustainable Prisons Project that began July 1, 2010 will be another casualty of this process. With one month of notice, WDOC funds that have supported our staff and students to carry out our activities will disappear. These activities include our science and sustainability lecture series, green collar job training, and conservation biology projects. Recycling, gardening, and composting will continue, as they have become part of regular DOC operations.

Our SPP group and The Evergreen State College are working hard to find alternative and bridge funding through grants and donations. Although there are some promising leads from the many people who strongly support our project, we have no guarantees for the future at this time.

We will keep our readers posted on this blog and through the media. If you have any suggestions or contacts that might lead to future support for this project, please contact our leaders (below). We are hopeful that our project will flourish even in these hard economic conditions.

Contact:
Nalini Nadkarni, Co-Leader, The Evergreen State College
nadkarnn@evergreen.edu
(360) 867-6621

Dan Pacholke, Project Co-Leader, WDOC
djpacholke@doc1.wa.gov

Kelli Bush, Project Manager, The Evergreen State College
bushk@evergreen.edu
(360) 867-6863

Nalini Receives Education Award

Dr. Nalini Nadkarni received an Education Award from Washington Correctional Association for her innovative work as Co-Director of the Sustainable Prisons Project.  The annual award recognizes “an individual or agency employed in academia, who has enhanced the success of corrections programs, or furthered the aims of corrections through excellence in education.”  Established in 1913, the Washington Correctional Association (WCA) is a professional organization that serves as a forum for corrections.  Nalini is honored to be recognized as the recipient of this year’s award, particularly as it highlights our continued effort to blend the lines between academia, science, and prisons.

Nalini at Washington Correction Association Awards

Women offenders gather for health conference inside prison

Blog post by Graduate Assistant Sarah Clarke:

In September more than 100 offenders, correctional staff and guest scientists participated in the annual health conference at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW). Titled “The Mind, the Spirit, the Environment Maintained Equals a Healthy Body Sustained,” the two-day gathering featured a fitness instructor, inspirational speaker, poet, chaplain and two faculty members from The Evergreen State College. Imagine the scene as we all committed to healthier lives through laughter, tears and even aerobics!

Toxicologist and Evergreen faculty member Dr. Frances Solomon teaches inmates at the Washington Corrections Center for Women during the prison's annual health conference. Photo: Jeff Muse.

Dr. Frances Solomon, a toxicologist and visiting professor at The Evergreen State College, teaches inmates at the Washington Corrections Center for Women during the prison's annual health conference. Photo: Jeff Muse.

Led by Evergreen professor and forest ecologist Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, the second day kicked off with a multimedia presentation on the role of science in our lives, the importance of trees and emerging green-collar jobs. Dr. Nadkarni also announced our hope to initiate a butterfly-rearing project with the prison’s horticultural program and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Next up, toxicologist and watershed specialist Dr. Frances Solomon discussed the impact of toxic chemicals on the environment and human health, including illnesses such as breast cancer. Afterward, offenders were given the microphone to ask questions and express thanks during an insightful and heart-warming feedback session.

Offender feedback through surveys and interviews is essential to the Sustainable Prisons Project. Photo: Jeff Muse.

Offender feedback through surveys and interviews is essential to the Sustainable Prisons Project. Photo: Jeff Muse.

In my experience, WCCW is quite different from the men’s prisons in which most of our work takes place. Though it’s heavily secured, a gentler, family-like atmosphere pervades the facility. We hope that we honored that character and linked inmates to the world outside the fence where many have parents, siblings and children rooting for them to succeed.

Interacting with inmates and correctional staff as well as extensive survey feedback gave us a good direction for future activities. Our next presentation, led by yours truly, will be “Sustainability 101” in early December. Afterward, we’ll help the prison adopt goals and strategies for lessening its impact on the environment while improving the health of everyone who lives and works there.