Hillcrest, OSU students release collaborative book

Laura Gordon, a senior at Oregon State University, remembers the day she and her classmates made the drive to Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility for their first day of class with the student inmates.

"We were all pretty nervous, and talking about what our expectations were," Gordon said.

She and her fellow classmates had registered for a sociology class under the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, which brings together a group of "outside" students and a group of "inside" students at Hillcrest , into one classroom. The class focuses on crime, community prisons, prevention and social problems.

"There was a pretty obvious divide that first day," Gordon said.

Wednesday night, all of the students gathered as friends to celebrate the fruits of their labor, the launch of their book, "In My Shoes," which features a poem, letter or essay from each student.

For the past four years, Dr. Michelle Inderbitzin, associate professor of sociology in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University, has been facilitating the Inside-Out class at Hillcrest.

"It all started with this crazy idea to write a book," Inderbitzin said. "They all bought into it and were really excited to have a concrete product of their time together."

Gordon wrote a poem called "Bouncing Back."

"It's about resiliency," she said. "My poem takes a metaphor of a playground ball, how it can bounce freely until it hits a tack then it's basically useless for a while until it is repaired."

Evan Gibson, an inmate at Hillcrest and a freshman in college, said this is his second time participating in the Inside-Out class.

"It's cool just to get to mix with outside students, to kind of get a feel for what it's like for an every day college student on the outside. And they get to experience what it's like for us who are incarcerated going to college," he said.

Gibson wants to earn his associate degree, majoring in economics, with a minor in social communications.

"I want to get involved in sales," he said.

The class received a grant to print 200 copies of the book to be distributed to the students' families and friends.

The book launch was the last gathering for the group. Going forward, the inside and outside students will not be allowed to have contact with each other.

aarmstrong@statesmanjournal.com; (503) 399-6745 or follow on Twitter at @AlexaArletta