Bowdoin Community Service Resource Center for the Common Good - CSC Gollege Guild Inmate Correspondence Course

College Guild Inmate Correspondence Course - College Guild is a local non-profit organization run completely by volunteers, drawing teachers, readers, and prisoners from across the country. Currently, approximately 400 prisoners are enrolled as students of College Guild, and this number is rapidly rising, so volunteers are always needed. (Drawing curtsey Matthew Matteo)

Mission - To stimulate in prisoners an interest in life-long learning by providing a selection of non-traditional correspondence courses. Courses are designed to be engaging, challenging, and encouraging of creativity with the hope that such intellectual stimulation will enable prisoners to make their time more constructive and more interesting in general.

Volunteer Experience - Extremely flexible, interesting, and fulfilling! College Guild volunteers have the option of teaching a correspondence course (usually reserved for more experienced volunteers) or being a "reader" which entails reading and commenting on lessons that prisoners complete for a College Guild course. Grades are not given, only honest and thought-provoking written feedback. Volunteers may choose how many lessons per week or per month they would like to read (any help is very much appreciated!), and can complete this activity on their own time, returning the lesson within a week of receiving it. Complete confidentiality assured.

Website maintained by Alex Cornell du Houx - acornell@bowdoin.edu