Following a strong A&A precedent, Elise Chagas, Andrew Kensett, Nicole-Ann Lobo, and Sharifa Lookman are the most recent A&A graduate students to participate in the Prison Teaching Initiative (PTI). An excellent training opportunity, the program welcomes A&A graduate students interested in taking part. Chagas, Kensett, Lobo, and Lookman kindly shared their experiences below with the hope of drawing a new generation of teachers from the A&A cohort.

PTI bridges Princeton’s academic and service-driven missions by providing high-quality postsecondary education to incarcerated students in New Jersey; offering Princeton University graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff innovative, evidence-based pedagogy training and the chance to diversify their teaching portfolios through intensive classroom experience; and fostering a robust campus dialogue on mass incarceration and its relationship to systemic inequalities in access to education.

The art history course offered through the program “ARTH-101: Art Appreciation/Introduction to Art History” explores two- and three-dimensional artworks, including architecture, and their historical and cultural connections from a global perspective. With a class size of roughly 20, discussions center on art’s interaction with history, society, and culture.

The New Jersey State Department of Corrections reviews content to be taught “inside,” strictly forbidding any images of nudity, for example which, as Chagas and Kensett pointed out, “can pose a problem in teaching art history!”  Nevertheless, feedback in anonymous course evaluations has been overwhelmingly positive, including a request to offer the course more often. As Chagas pointed out, “If more A&A graduate students got involved with PTI, perhaps ARTH-101 could be scheduled more regularly!”

Visit PTI to learn about participating.

A closer look at PTI through the experiences of the most recent A&A participants

Q: Why did you decide to participate in PTI?

Chagas: Ultimately, I volunteer with PTI because I believe that everyone has a right to a college education. I have been periodically involved with PTI since fall 2020 when I co-instructed an introductory gender studies course. But I had wanted to teach art history with PTI since I began my degree at Princeton: I’d heard about what a meaningful experience it was from Ariel Kline, a friend and fellow A&A graduate student, who taught the semester I started at Princeton. Many other friends and colleagues in the department have taught ARTH-101, and everyone with whom I spoke–Joe Bucciero and Ewan Wallace in particular–had also strongly recommended the experience. 

Kensett: I wanted to teach inside because I believe in the broadest possible access to education and because I believe that participation in a degree program can materially benefit incarcerated students in any number of ways. Also like Elise, I had heard incredible things about the program from other graduate students. As a prospective student I’d spoken with a number of folks in A&A who cited PTI as one of their most meaningful experiences at Princeton, and the opportunity to teach with PTI was a draw for me when I was choosing a program. Ariel Kline was also generous enough to Zoom with me from Australia to speak about PTI early in my time at Princeton, and her reflections on the program were extremely valuable.  Teaching ARTH-101 last semester was my first time teaching with the program. 

Lookman: I first started with PTI in the Spring of 2023 as a Humanities tutor, before becoming an instructor this Spring. When I was initially applying to Princeton, PTI was a contributing factor and I was excited about the prospect of joining; my undergraduate university, Wesleyan, had a similar, more nascent program, the Center for Prison Education, and I remember speaking with professors who had taught on the inside about their experiences and how it fundamentally shifted their approach to teaching and pedagogy for the better. I was excited about this prospect, but I think more importantly for the opportunity to help provide a meaningful education for students who, by whatever storm of circumstance, don't otherwise have the access but are eager to learn.

Lobo: I decided to participate in PTI because I am passionate about restorative justice and wanted to explore how art history and radical pedagogy could make meaningful impact outside the Ivory tower. I had heard wonderful things from past students who participated in PTI, and knew the program would be demanding, but many of my friends who participated in PTI have done so for several semesters consecutively--a true testament to the value and importance of the program for all who participate!

Q: If you geared the curriculum to your audience, in what way? How did you develop the curriculum? Did you make adjustments during the semester and if so, why?

Chagas: ARTH-101 is an introductory survey with no prerequisites so we assumed that students would come in with a range of prior knowledge about art– including some with no experience at all. We taught with a required textbook, Exploring Art: A Global Thematic Approach. Beginning with the basics, we familiarized students with the “language” of art, building up towards visual analysis and image comparison. We made adjustments as we went along, adapting to the kinds of activities that generated the best discussions. I’ve never taught an art history survey “on the outside” but I imagine I would approach it in the same way. 

Kensett: We drew on a bank of syllabi and instructors’ logs from past iterations of the course, which gave us a great foundation on which to build and a head start in terms of knowing what worked and what didn’t for previous instructors. In addition to the required textbook, we taught with a range of supplementary materials, both images and texts. Some of those had been used by past teaching teams and some were materials that we and our co-instructors added to the syllabus. In that way, developing the course has been a collective project that’s been years in the making, with each teaching team contributing something. That being said, every class is different and comes in with their own body of knowledge, their own experiences, and their own areas of interest, so I imagine there would always be a period of getting to know a new group of students and adjusting to their needs. For instance, Elise and I are both part of a team that’s teaching ARTH-101 at another facility this semester and we have a striking number of students who are themselves artists, so we’ve tried to tailor our lesson plans to incorporate more exercises with an emphasis on making.

Q: How did a typical class session differ from an art history survey course at Princeton, if it did?

Chagas: I’ve never been an assistant-in-instruction for the art history survey at Princeton so it would be difficult for me to compare directly. We met twice a week for two hours, so we tended not to lecture extensively. Instead we favored active learning, and small and large group discussion.

Kensett: I’ve also never precepted for the art history survey at Princeton, but one other major difference besides the lecture versus discussion format is the great difficulty of doing anything like object-based learning when teaching in a prison (this gets to the next question about constraints, too). My understanding of the art history survey course at Princeton is that it incorporates ample opportunity for students to study and discuss objects from Princeton’s collections in-person in their precepts. This obviously isn’t an option for students inside—we’re teaching from the reproductions in the textbook and course reader and from printed handouts. This presents a host of challenges, and drives home what a privilege it is to have Princeton’s collections available to teach and learn from, but it also offers both we as teachers and our students the opportunity to reflect critically on the possibilities and limitations of viewing artworks in reproduction and on disparities in access to original works of art.

Q: What were your hopes, fears, and expectations in advance? What were the biggest challenges?

Chagas: I hoped that the course would be approachable, interesting, and inspiring to students. 

I learned from my prior experience volunteering with PTI that circumstances out of instructors’ and students’ control in the facility can affect the course. Students can arrive late, miss class, or be unable to complete assignments for a range of reasons. Instructors have to adapt to unforeseen circumstances that can include class cancellation. Luckily, the semester proceeded smoothly overall for us–thanks in part to colleagues from Raritan Valley Community College, the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons initiative, and the cooperation of staff at the facility where we taught.

Kensett: My greatest fear about teaching in a prison had to do with circumstances that would impact our ability to teach and impact students’ ability to learn, but, as Elise said, things went relatively smoothly from that perspective thanks to the cooperation of many. The facility where we taught last semester has the longest-standing education program of any state prison in New Jersey, and I’ve heard from others involved in PTI that, for that reason, it has an entrenched culture of education and a core group of staff who are dedicated to ensuring the success of the program. As for my hopes coming in, they were much the same as my hopes for a course taught on the outside: above all, that students would gain not only knowledge but confidence in their abilities as thinkers and scholars, and would come to realize that they possess a wealth of experience that might be brought to bear in their studies.

Q: What surprised you about the experience?

Chagas: Everyone I know who has volunteered with PTI speaks about how dedicated the students are, but it was still surprising to teach an entire class of students who were, across the board, intellectually curious, determined to improve, and serious about their studies. 

Kensett: The liveliness of our discussions and the diversity of opinions in the classroom. Our conversations were never anything but respectful, but they were often spirited and impassioned, with students taking and defending opposing positions. It never stopped being gratifying to see students engaging with and investing themselves in the course material in that way.

Lookman: Having already tutored with the program. I was already prepared to teach a class full of curious and intellectually generous students. And yet, from that first class, I was surprised by just how dynamic, excited, and inquisitive they were. Rarely were there ever disengaged silences; instead students were consistently eager to engage and share ideas, always delivered with respect and keen interest.

Lobo: Almost everything about the experience has surprised me, from how deeply emotionally invested I felt in the course to the resilience and effort students put in despite the conditions they live in. Teaching with PTI quickly became the highlight of my semester, and it made me feel so lucky to participate in a program that takes seriously questions of redistributive justice from the wealth of resources in Princeton to students eager for educational enrichment but who may not have had access to the same opportunities many are lucky to have here.

Q: Did any of the material resonate in particular with participants?

Chagas: Every student had different interests and it was brilliant to see them develop their individual tastes over the course of the semester. For the final project, students curated and presented small exhibitions, which gave the whole class the opportunity to see which artworks moved or fascinated each person.

Kensett: The range of topics covered in the final projects was so impressive. We had some students who chose to explore a given medium or genre, while others structured their exhibitions around a particular theme. There was great variety in terms of the objects that students selected for their exhibitions and the issues that they chose to engage.

Q: Do you feel like the course met your goals?

Chagas: It did. Our goal was to equip students with a working knowledge of the essential terms and concepts of art; to introduce students to a diversity of artistic practices from cave painting to contemporary art; and to provide opportunities for students to develop their own aesthetic tastes and interests. I feel that our students’ work demonstrates the accomplishment of all of these goals. 

Kensett: Absolutely—I’ll only add to what Elise wrote here that we had hoped that, in introducing our students to the methodologies of art history, we would give them a set of conceptual tools that would deepen and enrich their experience and help them to think critically about the world around them, and I believe that our students’ work last semester is a testament to the accomplishment of this goal, too.

Q: Would you repeat the experience and/or recommend it?

Chagas: I would absolutely repeat and recommend the experience. PTI recruits every semester. Interested graduate students can find out more online, join the listserv and look out for the call for applications. 

Kensett: Yes! I’m teaching with PTI again this semester and can’t recommend it highly enough.

Lookman: Absolutely!

Lobo: 100%, I would repeat this experience in a heartbeat and certainly plan to teach with PTI in future semesters. Not only has it made me a more conscious art historian, but I've learned so much from my students and developed new pedagogical strategies I am sure I will carry with me in my career for years to come.

Q: What were the best parts of the experience? 

Chagas: The final project presentations were very special; it was extremely gratifying to see how much each student had learned over the course of the semester and the enthusiasm with which students took on the task of curating their own exhibitions. Passionate discussion and debate between students about the course content throughout the semester were thrilling to witness and facilitate. It was amazing to see students tackle challenging texts and images and work together to parse complex material. I couldn’t have imagined a better teaching experience overall. 

Kensett: The final project presentations stand out for me, too, not only because the projects themselves were so wonderful and so varied, but also because the atmosphere was so supportive and generous. A number of students had expressed apprehension about presenting their work in a public forum, but I think those anxieties quickly dissipated because the class as a whole were so enthusiastic about one another’s work and came up with such great questions for one another. Beyond that, some of my favorite memories of the course are from group discussions that centered on the close analysis of particular works of art. In those moments, it really felt like we were producing new knowledge, and doing it collectively—building, observation by observation, an understanding of an artwork that none of us could have arrived at alone.

Lookman: I think for me, one of the best parts was supplying the students with feedback on their papers, as mundane as that sounds. As a student myself, this has always been one of those modalities that has the most impact - a space where a professor or adviser takes the time to read one’s ideas and mentor on how to take them further. At Northern, it was clear that our students felt similarly, and that our written feedback showed that we took their writing and ideas seriously; after that first paper, it was exciting to see students seek us out for advice on subsequent papers and ideas. By necessity, there are limits and boundaries on what can be accomplished while teaching on the inside, but it was gratifying to be at least something of a mentor to students in this way.

Lobo: The best part of the experience was seeing how engaged and excited our students were, how thoughtful and considerate they were about participating in classroom discussions and debates and how much enthusiasm was shown when a work of art would resonate with a particular student. On a personal level, it was a dream to be able to teach and adapt a very general syllabus that covered a wide range of topics on art and art appreciation to hone in on issues and topics students seemed most interested in: from teaching about Fanon and phenomenology in the context of architectural appreciation to discussing art in the era of decolonization and contemporary debates around restitution as they reveal the important role art holds in society.