At SUNY Ulster, students live by the motto – Start here. Go far. The students that go through this program at Shawangunk Correctional Facility will go far in their lives, equipped with an education that has deepened their way of thinking and communicating.

Heavy emphasis is placed on both the humanities and social science. The program prepares students to understand and apply the methods social scientists use to explore social phenomena; employ quantitative methods to solve problems; produce, revise and improve coherent texts and oral disclosure and apply to subject research; and understand the basic narrative of American, Western or Other World history and their relationship to the rest of the world.

This innovative and challenging course puts Vassar students and incarcerated women side-by-side in a classroom inside Taconic Correctional Facility. It provides students with the remarkable opportunity to engage in a unique dialogue, as they examine issues of social significance through the “prism of prison.”

Through college classes and community exchanges, the Inside-Out program deepens the conversation about crime, justice, freedom and inequality in society. Since its inception, students of Inside-Out—on both sides of the prison walls—have time and again claimed that this experience transformed the ways they viewed themselves and the world.

Consistent with Judeo-Christian values and the Dominican tradition of education that values the inherent worth of the individual, the mission of Mount Saint Mary College is to create an environment that fosters close student-faculty interaction that enables students to reach their full potential as lifelong learners. Mount Saint Mary College strives to provide a stimulating environment that promotes the intellectual and personal growth of undergraduate and graduate students.