Professor William Gelbart is featured in a UCLA Daily Bruin article about his role as the instructor of the UCLA Prison Education Program course, Chemistry 19.1: “Viruses, Vaccines, and Pandemics,” which he taught this past spring to a combined class of five UCLA students and 15 incarcerated students at a federal prison.
Gelbart joined the UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry faculty in 1975, transitioning from molecular photophysics theory to statistical mechanics; 25 years later he pivoted to molecular biology and co-founded a lab with Professor Charles Knobler to study viruses, launching the new field of “physical virology” and advancing research on virus-like particles for RNA-based therapies.
[Related: Professor Alex Spokoyny and undergraduate researcher Emil Dominguez (Backus group) have been recognized for their prison outreach.]
From UCLA Daily Bruin (by Isabel Colburn):
Prison Education Program offers joint classes for UCLA and incarcerated students
The Prison Education Program is allowing UCLA students to learn with incarcerated students by visiting local prisons through a new class.
The PEP offers various courses taught by UCLA faculty for incarcerated students, which are open to UCLA students. During the second half of spring quarter this year, the PEP offered Chemistry 19.1: “Viruses, Vaccines, and Pandemics.” Taught by William Gelbart, a professor of biochemistry and chemistry, the one-unit class focused on a scientific perspective about how viruses and vaccines function.
To attend the class, Gelbart said UCLA students boarded a charter bus on campus every Friday at 7:30 a.m. to travel to the female prison camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Victorville. Upon arrival, UCLA students gathered with incarcerated students for Gelbart’s two-hour lesson, he said.
[Related: ‘Art changes lives’: Prison Education Program at UCLA hosts poetry recital]
UCLA students attend a mandatory orientation before taking part in the class, said Jai Williams, the PEP program coordinator. The orientation is organized with the Center for Justice at UCLA and familiarizes students with topics of privilege, academic integrity, assumptions about incarceration, trauma and PEP protocol, she added.
“We also have people sign a ‘language letter,’ saying basically that we don’t refer to incarcerated people as ‘prisoners’ or ‘inmates,’” Williams said. “We use language that is humanistic.”
Lucy Harllee, a rising third-year molecular, cellular and developmental biology student, said although the class is unconventional in many ways, the biggest difference stems from Gelbart’s emphasis on collaboration and question-asking rather than the seminar’s location.
Students sat together in a circle during each meeting, encouraged by Gelbart to ask questions as they arose, Harllee said. Gelbart often molded lessons around the scientific concepts that students expressed the most curiosity about, she added.
For Emil Dominguez, a rising third-year biochemistry student, the PEP allowed him to continue his involvement in prison education reform initiatives, he said. He realized the impact of these efforts during a previous experience volunteering with the California Institute for Men, when he saw the incarcerated people he worked with begin to look toward higher education, he added.
“Initially, they took the course because they were going to get time served,” he said. “But now, some of them talked about making higher education a long-term goal.”
Dominguez said that his experience with the PEP reaffirmed the gratification of participating in programs that increase the quality of education for incarcerated students.
“These experiences, they’re just so rewarding,” he added. “I know that this is something I’m going to do for the rest of my life.”
Gelbart said teaching in the PEP is an opportunity to help incarcerated people pursue academia. According to a video on their website, the PEP says it works to confront the problem of racialized mass incarceration through education, which decreases repeat offenses and returns to prison. By offering classes taught by UCLA faculty, the website says the PEP directly provides incarcerated individuals with a means to increase their education.
He added that many formerly incarcerated people he met have experienced social and economic inequality, resulting in committing unlawful acts to survive.
According to the UCLA Prison Education Program website, students can apply for the program on the “Courses” page of their website. The applications say that upon completion, PEP administrators interview students to determine their interest in the program.
As program coordinator, Williams said she encourages UCLA students to apply for the program because participating in courses offered by the PEP positively impacts not only incarcerated students, but also non-incarcerated students.
“I think they (UCLA students) should consider it if they want to have their lives changed,” Williams said. “I think these classes change people’s perspectives – it changes their mindset about incarcerated people, and I really think it will change your life.”
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
