Counting More Than the Days: A Professor’s Journey through Prison Education
March 25, 2024
Professor Matthew Junge (center) with one of his classes.
Behind the confines of prison walls, the rare possibility of connection and purpose emerges through the efforts of college-in-prison educators like Matthew Junge, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Baruch College.
In a recently published paper in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, written as part of the 2022-2023 CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program, Junge reflects on his 10 years of guiding incarcerated students through probability, algebra, and partial differential equations on the inside, far beyond the conventions of the traditional classroom.
Navigating four-hour commutes, metal detectors, pat downs, lockdowns, compressed schedules, and emotional vulnerability, he has found the work so fulfilling that he has threaded his way through five prisons and three college-in-prison programs in the United States.
The experience has enriched his acumen as an educator and shown him countless examples of resilience, ambition, and the durable will to knowledge, he says.
“Prison education is a bright spot in a dark place. It creates a village of support and accountability inside the broader prison structure. This cultivates unexpected optimism,” Junge reflects. When released, most students in the programs he has taught do not return to prison, he says.
Expanding their knowledge of mathematics not only provides them with certifications, degrees, and paths to future careers, it may also have a resonating effect, positively impacting the communities they return to.
One resonant moment Junge shares is the emotional crescendo of the prison graduation ceremonies, where the air bristles with potential. “It surprised me how much math came up,” He recalls. “Each student speaker mentioned it like a badge of honor.” This underscores Junge’s relationship to math not as a mere exercise in abstract computation but as “the art of connection.”
Through his reflective lens, Junge highlights the unique challenges and rewards of teaching behind bars and calls for more mathematicians to venture into this arena. His narrative is a reminder to the apathetic of the profound difference education can make, offering a way to transcend a cycle of incarceration ridden with the inequality of race, culture, and class.
(Article originally appeared in The Weissman Newsletter)
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