Joshua Dubler

The Mellon Foundation has renewed its support for the Rochester Education Justice Initiative with an additional three-year, $1 million grant.

The University's cornerstone prison education initiative receives a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to expand and further develop its programming.

Rochester will join forces with the Cornell Prison Education Program next year, as assistant professor of religion Joshua Dubler and his students bring the value of a higher education to an often invisible population while addressing the epidemic of mass incarceration.

Joshua Dubler, assistant professor of religion, will spend the next two years pursuing the question of whether the prison itself is a necessary component of modern society.

Joshua Dubler's project will shed new light on how changes in the religious landscape in America have contributed to tremendous growth in the prison system over the last 40 years.