When Maria Garza received her degree from Northwestern, there were crowds, the cap and gown, an impressive commencement speaker, but something felt off.
“It felt lonely,” Garza said. “It felt incomplete.”
Among other students who were surrounded by their peers who they had shared years of classes and activities with, Garza felt alone. “[My family] didn’t see the other people that championed me.”
Garza is a member of the first cohort of women at the Northwestern Prison Education Program, also known as NPEP. She got released in June of 2021, only a quarter into her studies, but she continued on with the degree program and today, October 16, with a commencement address from former Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi, Garza and her cohort will graduate and become the first group of incarcerated women to receive a degree from a Top 10 University.
The program, which began in 2018, is in select prisons in Illinois where Northwestern staff teach small cohorts of students culminating in the achievement of a Northwestern undergraduate degree. Courses are varied in topics ranging from philosophy to theatre to audio journalism.
Mary Pattillo teaches classes on things like field methods and sociology. The Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at Northwestern became interested in teaching in prisons after an invitation from her colleague, and future NPEP Program Director, Jennifer Lackey to sit in on her class at Stateville Correctional Center.
“Our students deserve all the credit. They really put in the hard work. They have stuck to the books, they have written the papers, they have done the problem sets. And so it’s just such an achievement that requires us to stop and honor them in this way,” Pattillo said.
It’s an achievement that has changed the lives of many. One example is Broderick Hollins who graduated from NPEP in 2024 in the second men’s cohort. He now works as a therapist in Chicago. “A lot of programs and people proclaim “[In] prison, they dehumanize you, and NPEP came in, and we start thinking differently, we start wanting more, we start, you know, changing the way we think,” he said.
However, for many NPEP students, due to their environments, getting a degree can still be incredibly challenging. Garza is a prime example. Being released from prison only one quarter into the program, both Garza and NPEP had to adapt.
“Everything that I was doing with re-entry and school and…not having a job and not having a roof over my head and not knowing which direction I was going to go. It was hard. It was really hard. And it was many learning curves, not only for me, but for NPEP,” she said.
Garza was taking classes from her car as she juggled all of this. But through constant support from NPEP and Garza’s hard work, she was able to get that degree. “I didn’t graduate high school, I didn’t even complete my freshman year. So I got my GED in prison,” she said. “This is what you never thought would happen…so I want to share that.”
And it’s something the NPEP staff wants to share as well. The organization has been uplifting the students through Instagram posts, graduation portraits, and now the best ceremony they can give them. “Professor Lackey will stop at nothing for NPEP,” Pattillo said. “So she’s been shooting for the stars.”
This led to the selection of Nancy Pelosi as the commencement speaker. The significance of Pelosi for this event in particular is not lost on Garza.
“I love the fact that it’s her because she is the first and the only female Speaker of the House. I think it’s important to recognize that she is the first, she is the only, but we can’t let her be the last,” Garza said. “We are the first female graduating cohort but there is no point to a degree if we are the last, you know, we have to continue to champion other women to make it to the finish line and to not minimize the impact of your degree just because there are still walls that confine you.”
As history is being made, Hollins has nothing but words of support for the new graduates: “I need to tell them that I love them to death, because we, we, the sisters of the struggle, like, we’re the brothers of the struggle, and this is a big, a huge step, and I’m proud of each and every last one of y’all,” he said. “Congratulations, congratulations, sky’s the limit.”
For Garza, this ceremony might seem a bit familiar: the crowds, the cap and gown, an impressive commencement speaker. But this time, she’ll be able to be with her cohort again and walk across the stage with those who walked with her both literally and figuratively every step of the way.