In 2020 when Bakersfield College shut down as many educational institutions
did during the COVID-19 pandemic, the BC Rising Scholars program was forever
altered. The program's instruction is aimed at incarcerated persons and had its first
group of graduates in the fall of 2019.
Program Manager for the Rising Scholars Program at Bakersfield College, Sabrina
Aguilar detailed that the program is implemented at "a total of five state prisons and one
juvenile detention center this semester." Aguilar mentioned how the program is being
applied locally in a pilot program, "The Rising Scholars Program partnered with the Kern
County Probation Department to offer courses to students in three juvenile detention
centers."
Aguilar explained how originally in the program the professors taught in-person but due
to the restrictions from the pandemic, the program was remodeled to function without
face-to-face lessons, transforming into a model of correspondence.
"We ask that correspondence packets be provided to our office as we facilitate the
deliveries to the prison sites. There are approximately 22 faculty members currently
teaching via correspondence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, faculty and
students prioritize in-person instruction whenever possible," she emphasized.
Aguilar continued to detail how the program is functioning currently after the pandemic
opened people's eyes all over the world to the new methods available for how
businesses and organizations operate, "We discovered that some faculty may now
teach via correspondence if they are unable to teach in-person, which could expand our
course offerings as needed for students to graduate moving forward," she said.
The current faculty members involved in the program use Zoom to maintain a consistent
weekly meeting schedule for instructing their students, and in between the meetings the
students are assigned packet work as mentioned before.
"We plan to continue offering at least one course per semester, but continue to meet
with their administrators regularly since students are often released, transferred, etc.
causing the need for flexibility in our approach," Aguilar described.
This flexibility proved invaluable, "some faculty had to change back to correspondence
(at least temporarily) if there were COVID-19 outbreaks at the locations," she
mentioned.
The Rising Scholars page on the BC website details that there were "More than 2,400
enrollments in the first two years of the program." As of April of 2022, there are 950
incarcerated students enrolled in the Spring 2022 semester throughout five California
state prisons and a juvenile detention center.