EMU students sent to prison for Alternatives to Violence training

Photo by Ellie Spaulding

Sara Swarr and Timothy Koehn show off a certificate earned by attending the Alternatives to Violence Program (AVP) workshop at Graterford Prison in Pennsylvania.

For the third consecutive year, Earl Zimmerman, assistant professor of Bible & Religion, took his students to prison for Alternatives to Violence training.

Eleven students from Zimmerman's Building and Sustaining the Peacebuilder class attended the three-day workshop last weekend at the State Correction Institute at Graterford, a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania. Students left Thursday evening and returned Sunday night. While attending workshops, they stayed at the home of David and Priscilla Benner.

Students were divided into three groups, each of which joined a class of inmates. The workshops began by focusing on community-building and communication skills. During one of the first activities, each person in the group acquired an "adjective name" using an adjective beginning with the same letter as their first name. These adjective names were used throughout the workshops.

Students and inmates brainstormed on the roots of violence, shared stories, discussed hypothetical situations, built with Fiddlestix (tinker toys), and acted out role play scenarios.

The Alternatives to Violence Program (AVP) began in 1975 as a collaboration between an inmate group at Greenhaven Prison in New York and an area Quaker group. At the inmates' request, the group worked up a series of exercises still used today. Sessions are led by inmates along with outside volunteers.

Students found the experience moving and enlightening. "I learned a lot about myself," said senior Megan Yoder. As a social work major, the experience gave her new ideas about what she might do after graduation.

Yoder said the workshops taught her not to stereotype or judge what an inmate is. "The guys that we worked with were not that different from you and I," she said. Yoder said if she had met one of them outside the prison, she would never have known the difference. Junior Kevin Ressler also found the experience helpful in putting a face to the person. "These are human beings who have feelings and emotions," he said.

According to Zimmerman, the field trip is a way for students to get hands-on experience in peace building. It's also something Zimmerman himself has enjoyed since his first trip. "I just got into it myself," he said.

The opportunity to participate in a program like this is unique. According to Sue Karpinski, who works at the prison counseling inmates, other schools had requested the opportunity to participate in AVP programs and were denied. EMU established relations with the program through the connections of Howard Zehr, co-director of Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and professor of restorative justice. Zimmerman told students that every year he wonders whether it will happen.

In addition to workshop sessions, students had a chance to talk with inmate AVP leaders friday evening, and with Marge Bainbridge, wife of inmate Bruce Bainbridge on Saturday evening.

Students who attended the workshop were Sarah Dick, Francis Johnson, Timothy Koehn, Andrew Millette, Kevin Ressler, Adam Shank, Sara Swarr, Elizabeth Syre, Blanche VanDyke, Megan Yoder, Miriam Yoder, and Sarah Yoder.