New Effort Expands National Presence for Prison Education Program Founded at Darden

A celebratory group of students, faculty and staff, and supporters gathered this month at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business to honor the newest graduates of a unique program that provides business education and support services to both currently and formerly incarcerated individuals.

In a warm ceremony in Saunders Hall, members of the class shared their stories of resilience and gratitude, crediting family members, student instructors and demanding-but-supportive administrators.

“I knew nothing about money. Now I respect money,” one of the honorees told those attending the celebration. “Now I know how to manage my money, know how to budget my money. If it doesn’t make sense, I don’t do it.”

“I really appreciate the Darden School because now I have a sense of understanding of the financial world,” he added.

Under Darden PREP (Prison Reentry Education Program), a component of the nonprofit Resilience Education founded at Darden, MBA students have a chance to teach business courses, credited through the UVA School of Continuing and Professional Studies, to incarcerated people at three regional correctional facilities.

Now that service to the greater good is about to grow.

Resilience Education recently announced the launch of the Fair Chance Business Education Consortium sponsored by Ascendium Education Group and in partnership with Darden, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, and Georgetown University’s Pivot Program.

This new initiative brings together universities, colleges, and academic institutions to redefine the role of business in enhancing the economic opportunity of those affected by the justice system and their communities.

Resilience Education has been collaborating with business schools to provide entrepreneurial education programs to individuals in correctional facilities for more than a decade.

“We’re really excited to announce the Fair Chance Business Education Consortium made possible by a grant from Ascendium Education Group,” said Tierney Fairchild (MBA ’94, GSAS ’96), co-founder and executive director of Resilience Education. The Fair Chance Business Education Consortium will facilitate the exchange of research, best practices, and resources among the institutions across the country that elect to participate.

The formation of the consortium offers the possibility of a more tangible — and expansive impact — on cycles of justice system involvement and incarceration. “What is the collective impact that we can generate as a coalition of programs as opposed to just individual programs, each doing our own thing, in our own place?” asked Molly Lasagna, senior program officer at Ascendium. Lasagna said sharing resources and thinking “more creatively and more ambitiously” would set incarcerated and justice-impacted students up on a path for economic mobility. “That’s why I feel really excited about supporting this consortium,” she added.

The focus on enhancing business education, leveraging research to drive decision-making, and cultivating inclusive leadership models makes the consortium unique. By establishing The Fair Chance Business Education Consortium, Resilience Education is laying the groundwork for innovation in the sector, its coordinators said. New partnerships will open new opportunities to engage employers profoundly, change the narratives on justice-involved talent, and shift mindsets about what fair-chance hiring looks like moving forward.

“One major challenge for the work we do is scaling. We can try our best to make an impact at correctional facilities that happen to be close enough to drive, and that’s great … but universities aren’t set up to have programs that scale naturally. The way to do that is through a network and that’s what this consortium represents for me — a community of like-minded folks,” said Damon Phillips, Robert Steinberg Professor of Management at the Wharton School and faculty lead of the Resilience Education | Wharton WORKS program. The Fair Chance Business Education Consortium will enable those committed to improving economic mobility for formerly incarcerated individuals to collaborate and develop new approaches within the sector.

Darden Professor Greg Fairchild, Dean and CEO of UVA|Northern Virginia and co-founder of Resilience Education, said the announcement of the consortium provides a strong signal of the value of its work and its contribution to society.

“Helping improve society and create opportunity through education is a shared value and mission among higher education institutions,” Fairchild said. “Providing skills and knowledge about the fundamentals of the economy and financial management to those who will need this information to thrive gives us all something to be proud of, while also offering a unique experiential leadership opportunity.”

About Ascendium Education Group:

Ascendium Education Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to helping people reach the education and career goals that matter to them. Ascendium invests in initiatives designed to increase the number of learners from low-income backgrounds who complete postsecondary degrees, certificates, and workforce training programs, with an emphasis on first-generation learners, incarcerated adults, rural community members, learners of color, and veterans. Ascendium’s work identifies, validates, and expands best practices to promote large-scale change at the institutional, system, and state levels, with the intention of elevating opportunity for learners from low-income backgrounds. For more information, visit https://www.ascendiumphilanthropy.org.

About Resilience Education:

Resilience Education is a non-profit organization focused on breaking the cycle of incarceration by improving the economic mobility of formerly incarcerated individuals through high-quality business education and post-release support. By partnering with correctional facilities, academic institutions, and private sector allies, Resilience Education empowers formerly incarcerated individuals to excel in the workforce. For more information, visit www.resilience-education.org.