Men at Stateville Correctional Center participate in a class through Northwestern University’s Prison Education Program on Aug. 15, 2022. (WTTW News)

As Stateville Correctional Center winds down operations, educational programs that garnered high-profile national attention have been left reeling as participants and organizers look to continue what they say is vital work.

As of the end of September, most men incarcerated at Stateville have been transferred out of the prison due to a judge’s order that found probable risk of irreparable harm from deteriorating conditions.

Stateville had robust higher educational programs, partnering with five Chicago-area universities. Located about 38 miles from the city, the prison was able to bring in instructors from Northwestern University, North Park University and others.

After the transfers, some students have been split from their classmates and are now hundreds of miles away from each other. Those divisions and distances now make it difficult for educators to reach students.

The transfers out of Stateville are part of the state’s efforts to close — and eventually rebuild — the prison, along with the Logan Correctional Center that houses women. The rebuilds could take about five years and the state has allocated $900 million for the project in the 2025 budget.

When asked why students in higher educational programs were split up, the Illinois Department of Corrections said in a statement that they “engaged in detailed discussions with each educational program to explore the best options for service delivery and facility placement.

“However, due to factors such as individual medical needs and security classifications, some individuals were not eligible to transfer to the same location as the program they were participating in at Stateville,” the statement continued.

The Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP) saw most of its students transferred to Sheridan Correctional Center and the majority of North Park University students were moved to Illinois River. However, both programs still faced the separation of some students.

The map below shows where students outside of those transfers were sent, in addition to the split of other educational programs.

While the North Park University: School of Restorative Arts program saw the majority of students transferred to Illinois River Correctional Center, dozens of others are scattered throughout the state, from Shawnee in southern Illinois to Danville at the Indiana border.

The program offers a master of arts in Christian ministry with a restorative arts degree program. The program’s organizers were told their students can start the process of transfers to consolidate students in 30 to 90 days.

However, when WTTW News asked IDOC if there is a plan for additional transfers to consolidate programs, they said “not at this time.”

“This has been very disruptive for the students and for alum who are now scattered all over the state,” said Michelle Dodson, director of the master of arts restorative justice degree. “My heart still is broken for the way that this is impacting their lives and their connections and being able to see families, being able to see each other in the same community that they built inside.”

The seven current students at Northeastern Illinois University’s University Without Walls program are split among Hill, Shawnee, Graham and Illinois River Correctional Centers. 

Hill, near western Illinois, is over 300 miles away from Shawnee in the southern tip of the state.

Because of this, an upcoming graduation has been upended, said Timothy Barnett, co-director of the program. The program offers bachelor’s degrees for students, with past areas of study including Critical Carceral-Legal Studies and Poetic Justice in Black Culture.

“[Students] identify in many ways with their educational programs as helping them … create community and new possibilities,” Barnett said. “And I think the feeling is that that’s been ripped away, and they're not sure if they’re going to get it back.”

The Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (PNAP), which partners with NEIU, has “lost a lot of core students and members.” The visual arts and education project that connects artists and scholars to incarcerated students had planned on moving to Hill Correctional Center. While some of their current cohort and teachers assistants are at Hill, many are scattered at facilities farther South like Shawnee, Pickneyville or Graham.

The plan to move their programming to Hill was already an arduous lift given that it’s three hours from their Chicago location. Their classes will be at a smaller scale with “an entirely different structure,” said Arianna Salgado, the program’s executive director.

“We’ve lost the majority of our core students,” Salgado said. “We definitely want to make sure that we’re able to continue to offer programming, but it’s definitely going to look way different than what it did at Stateville.” 

She said they were told by IDOC that the department would consider and review transfers once all men were out of Stateville. Then, she hopes the students can be reunited at Hill.

The Theatre Y program, where incarcerated students write and act in theater performances, is spread all over the state, from prisons in southern to west central Illinois; of the 25 participants, no more than three are in the same prison. 

They had their last class on Sept. 16, with just two students remaining. The future of the program remains open, as they wait to see if there will be another round of transfers.

“It’s really shocking, frankly, just how broadly they have scattered them,” said Melissa Lorraine, co-founding artistic director of the group. “They were all told that they would be moved together with their programs, and the opposite has happened, which makes it feel like because they were organized, educated, allied close to Chicago … it’s hard to view this as anything but punitive.”

While the DePaul University: Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program has some students at Hill, as they planned for, they too saw students transferred throughout the state.

Christina Rivers, director of DePaul University’s Institute for Restorative Educational Engagement, teaches with the program. Due to the three hour commute to Hill, she told WTTW News in September that she will not teach at the program this year.

“That would of course make it much more difficult for us to run our programming, particularly to recruit outside students who have the time in their schedule, and faculty, to basically do a six hour roundtrip course to take classes out there,” Rivers said. “We’re committed to making this work, but that’s what we’re dealing with right now.”

André Patterson, who earned a bachelor’s degree, said he had a teaching fellow position with Northwestern Prison Education Program while at Stateville. Through the program, he and 15 other men were the first group of incarcerated men to receive a bachelor’s degree from a top 10 university in November 2023.

But he’s been transferred to Big Muddy, nearly 300 miles from his classmates at Sheridan.

He wrote to WTTW News that the reason he was given for his separation was his security level. 

When asked what role security levels play in deciding transfers, IDOC said in a statement that “an individual in custody transferring from Stateville was limited to facilities that match their security classifications.”

“This separation has-I don’t want to say derailed me-but [it has] definitely presented a challenge that I need to rise to in order to keep moving forward,” Patterson wrote. “Big Muddy doesn’t have any higher education opportunities for someone who has already attained a bachelor’s degree, but they do have a few courses; culinary arts, horticulture, and auto maintenance; courses that they are currently looking for [instructors] to fill positions.”

This split was of concern to incarcerated students when WTTW News sent out questionnaires on the then impending closure of Stateville.

“We’ve built relationships and a really strong sense of community through these programs, which are all jeopardized if programs are broken up and or [separated],” wrote Darrell Fair, currently at Illinois River. “Staffing shortages has been a major hurdle for potential facilities willingness to accept our programs … Other sites are just too far. There distance would make it unsustainable to facilitate in-person programs.”

“The programming dynamic will never be the same as Stateville’s, simply because there are more options here to choose from. Besides this, we have built a close community here, with P-NAP, DePaul Think-Tank, Theatre ‘Y’ & other programs,” wrote Alberto Zavala, who’s now at Hill. “These transfers mean an end to this positive & transformative era.”

WTTW News reporter Jared Rutecki contributed.