LU Program Will Benefit State’s Inmates
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The News & Advance
Published: April 24, 2008
A prisoner-education proposal by Liberty University is now the model prototype for a statewide program. The governor recently amended the state budget to expand the program to every public and private college in the state.
The real beneficiaries of such a program, of course, would be the prisoners themselves. In prisons and other correctional facilities, rehabilitation has been put on hold for decades as inmates serve out the punishment for their various crimes.
Classrooms inside the prisons equipped with computers will give those inmates a chance to get the education they deemed unnecessary earlier in their lives. For many, that education would amount to courses leading to the equivalency of a high school diploma. For others, college-level courses could lead to specialization in one subject or another or to a college degree once they have paid their debt to society.
When the General Assembly approved the budget bill, it contained the proposal by Del. Kathy Byron, R-Campbell, that authorized Liberty University to set up and offer the prison program at the new Green Run Correctional Center near Chatham.
Liberty intends to set up a model classroom to provide post-secondary education at its own expense. Ronald Godwin, executive vice president of the university, said about a third of the Green Run center’s capacity of 2,000 inmates would qualify for the computer-based education program.
Although state prison officials have not yet approved Liberty’s proposal, Godwin said LU has been planning for it for some time.
Liberty is especially positioned to provide a top-notch program to the Green Run inmates. Liberty’s distance-learning program that serves some 27,000 students is clear evidence that the university is one of the national leaders in that field. Indeed, LU’s distance learning program saw growth of more than 43 percent in the current academic year.
One major difference between the existing LU program and the prison classroom is that the prison computers would not be connected to the Internet. The computers would operate from a server in the prison classroom that would contain nothing except course material loaded into it by the teacher, who would be a Liberty employee, Godwin said. No state money would be used for the program Liberty has proposed; it would all be paid for by LU.
The Green Run Correctional Center, Godwin said, was built with classrooms that would be ideal for the program.
Give credit to Liberty for advancing the classroom prison program; once the state Department of Corrections gives it the final OK and it’s up and running, LU will be in a position to help hundreds, if not thousands, of inmates.
It will give some inmates a chance to learn and to make something of their lives when they complete their sentences. In that, the program makes winners not only of the prisoners themselves, but all of society.
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( NAReader2 ) on May 02, 2008 at 9:16 am
Cosmo, no not at all. I do not think LU should have exclusive rights here. That’s not what I’m saying.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on May 02, 2008 at 5:59 am
Randy, why do you ask me questions you already know the answer to? All of the organizations you list could do just fine without somebodies religion mucking them up and making people who don’t share it feel like something the cat dragged in. You know that as well as I do. You ask about my “moral compass” as if to imply that without religion and a fear of divine damnation a person couldn’t possibly have one. It’s an insulting question and we both know it. But I will do this for you, in spite of the fact that you NEVER answer questions. [you post]..."Tell us a little about something you see as good.”.. TRUTH! HONOR! FAMILY!
[NAReader2] Posts..."I can tell you LU is the only NCATE accredited school in the region. That makes it a better school for that particular program.” Do you REALLY think that is enough to put Liberty in and exclude UVA, William&Mary;, VT and James Madison? A School of Education? Do we now hire convicts to be our school teachers? The only reason Liberty wants to do this is to proselytize to a captive population. I think it’s deplorable.
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Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on May 01, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Cosmo, you are full of bombast and blather, singing a monotonous note on one theme, droning on forever, it seems, with your purile perception of other people’s beliefs while giving no clue about your own moral compass. Tell us a little about something you see as good. Do you approve of Camp ###-Ba-Yah? The Y? Scouts? I am, of course, setting challenges that all have religious elements to them, just to see…
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Posted by ( NAReader2 ) on May 01, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Ok, maybe I used the wrong word when I said better. A nationally accredited program is one of the major things a company or educational institution will look for when looking at candidates.
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Posted by ( NAReader2 ) on April 30, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Just throwing two cents in. Liberty is SACS accredited and NCATE accredited for school of education. Working in the local education field in central Virginia, I can tell you LU is the only NCATE accredited school in the region. That makes it a better school for that particular program.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 30, 2008 at 11:23 am
Randolph, you mean like “Bob Jones”. I get it now. If you really want to find out what Liberty is worth just do the research. It’s a Bible school. You are fond of the oil companies, are you not? EXXON ain’t hiring Liberty grads to pray there will be oil at the bottom of their next well. They have geologists that use scientific tools and maps based on the fact that the earth ISN’T 6000 years old to find oil. Blasphemers all! Liberty is a joke. A “accredited” Joke. If you have a pulse and a check that will clear.....you are in.
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Posted by ( Randolph Knipp ) on April 30, 2008 at 8:15 am
The ‘Muslim/atheist dichotomy” ... I have come to have a suspicion of many Muslim institutions as training grounds for terrorism, but see no evidence of this from atheists in our society. I am guilty of my own profiling process, to be quite honest. As to amendments to the Constitution, they are also the Constitution — enlightened, as it were, over time. I just would like for the judges to be content with the intent of the framers, but not to change that intent by tweaking meanings of words. “Accredited” is the operative word, meaning that an institutional process has approved LU as an university, not a personal opinion.
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Posted by ( Punto di vista di paradigma ) on April 30, 2008 at 1:05 am
I’m really perplexed about the Muslim/Atheist dichotomy as expressed by Randolph. Why would there be reservations about Muslims but not Atheists? Since Randolph doesn’t want anyone putting words in his mouth, perhaps he’d like to clarify exactly what his statement means. I certainly hope the answer is not going to be some philosophically or historically misleading diatribe or just another Christian polemic which will amount to a view of a faith with nothing much else beyond.
On the issue of “originalist” constitutional interpretation: what exactly are the Amendments to the Constitution if not something of a series of annotation historically demonstrating that there is a “living document\” aspect to it? Race; slavery; voting; women’s suffrage; election of president; prohibition (what “concerns” started that?), dealt with in two amendments); poll taxes; voting age; etc.—seems that there is a “living document\” aspect that ultra-strict “originalists” don’t easily acknowledge. I don’t see a whole lot about “signing statements” or skipping over things like “Geneva Convention and torture concerns” that seem to occupy a lot of the current political landscape. There even had to be some constitutional interpretation given to determine whether McCain might qualify for election as President due to circumstances of his birth. Is it just convenient to claim “originalist” interpretation when one’s view likes and “living document\” when one prefers another reading? It’s not simple, and just droning on about “originalist” might make some folks truly queasy when they consider the “founding fathers’” personal lives and views on a number of issues from religion to slavery to some fairly “non-conventional” ideas about sexual matters.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 29, 2008 at 8:21 pm
You know, forget about the law. Put yourself in the place of one of the prisoners. I feel sorry for them. This is clearly cruel and unusual punishment. Fundamentalist nut cases control ALL information that can be accessed. The Earth is 6000 years old, supernatural things happen all the time and Jesus will forgive EVERYTHING bad you ever did if you just turn your brains over to Liberty. (I mean, the rest of us won’t, but Jesus will.).. [Kathy Byron, R-Campbell County]… Now, she isn’t shilling for the Falwell Group at ALL! She just feels that a far better educational outcome will take place if places like UVA and William & Mary and James Madison and Virginia Tech, you know, “fringe group” run diploma mills like that should be kept away for the good of the prisoners. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! Yes Central Virginia is poised to succeed in the 21st Century. If they can only figure out a way to get past the 15th Century. To force prisoners who WANT to better themselves to put up with religion as a prerequisite to education is sick. It’s UN American. It’s the product of minds that really believe they are “more equal” and should have “more say” in how the world is run and what people should believe than the rest of us. The phrase “mental rapists” comes to mind.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 29, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I will limit my comments Randolph. You posted..."I disagree that LU is “clearly” a religious organization. It is clearly an accredited university, much like Leftover Tech, or wherever it is that you got your education.” The term “University” is reserved for institutions dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge through the open and free exchange of ideas. You can call Liberty a Submarine if you like. It no more makes it one than it does a University. I attended “P.U.” I’m sure you remember our old fight song from the Bugs Bunny Cartoon. “PU-PU, we are ALL for YOU. Yeah....BOO!”
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