Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) has been offering classes to inmates at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia, since 2004, but the school now has plans to expand the program to offer two year associates degrees.
This fall semester, PVCC is offering eight classes to roughly 40 inmates, but the college will increase the number of courses for inmates until they are able to earn a General Studies Associate of Science degree from PVCC. According to a PVCC spokesperson, the college expects to graduate four or five inmate students in Spring 2013.
Because this new program allows a student to earn more than 50 percent of the credits at an off-site facility, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) has to grant PVCC a new accreditation.
SACS told C-VILLE that the institution seeking accreditation has to submit paper work six months before the start of the program detailing the budget, the resources available and the curriculum.
For an institution with less than 3 off-site facilities, SACS then sends a committee to review the location and give approval. John Donnelly, vice president for Instruction and Student Services at PVCC, said SACS has already sent a team to review the services provided at the correctional facility and compare them to the courses and services offered at the main campus at PVCC, ruling that the program was compliance with its mandate to provide “comparable” services.
The courses offered at Fluvanna are general education transfer courses and include English, history, sociology and psychology. Asked whether some of the courses may require equipment that is not permitted at Fluvanna’s correctional facility, Donnelly said it “has classrooms similar to the ones at PVCC,” with projectors and computers.
Although inmates have shown interest in increasing the number of courses offered at Fluvanna, Donnelly said the major obstacle to expanding the program was funding. Because inmates are not eligible for federal aid, the classes are offered through grants and funding from private foundations.
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