During COVID-19

Kimberly Malone, our Rising Hope coordinator at SingSing, organizing assignments to do “drop off” at the facility

The pandemic has certainly brought many challenges to Rising Hope.  The closure came just as we were midway through the semester, and then we were unable to go into the facilities for in-person instruction for fifteen months.

We went forward using correspondence which enabled the Class of 2020 to complete their year of study and for new students to begin in the spring of 2021.  The logistics of getting assignments to faculty for grading and evaluations and then back from them to take to the facilities proved to be a rather daunting operation. But we have persisted and are looking forward to returning to a more traditional class set up for the summer and fall of 2021.  Masks will be worn at all times and the mandated social distancing has a definite impact on the size of classes allowed. But we are determined to continue to offer Rising Hope to men who want to transform their lives through the education which we provide.

Creative Problem Solving

Story of one class in action during COVID-19

We offered Ethics: Theory & Contemporary Issues & Creative Problem Solving courses in all three sites. Due to the COVID lockdown in 2020—2021 students were obliged to take this creative problem-solving course using a correspondence format. Thus, students had to grasp the tools and the terminology on their own from the syllabus and an in-depth textbook rather than in the helpful group setting. A student in his first assignment remarked, “It feels as if we have been placed on this extraordinarily luxurious cruise ship, but without a clue as to how make it run.”

Read the full story of the creative learning that resulted from this course.