Raphael Ginsberg is the typical UNC graduate student, teaching his way through school. Except he teaches prisoners.
Ginsberg has worked with prisoners for about five years, but never during that time has he feared for his safety.
“These guys have so much to lose by messing with me that it was never a possibility,” he said.
Ginsberg is involved with the Correctional Education Program offered through UNC’s Friday Center. The program was started in 1974.
The program offers free educational opportunities to minimum-security inmates across the state in various correction facilities.
“They go from regular prisoner to actual student, and it’s empowering,” Ginsberg said.
This semester, UNC instructors are teaching 10 courses at six different prisons across the state, said Brick Oettinger, UNC’s associate director for correctional education.
Oettinger said UNC was the first institution to offer classes, but more N.C. universities have become involved with prison education.
“We’ve made it more of a consortium within the university system,” he said.