"Whether we choose to explicitly recognize them or not, everyone operates under preconceived notions about people based on markers like gender, race and class. Taking a college-level course alongside incarcerated women at Taconic helped me to recognize and begin to question my own prejudices about prisons and criminals. The experience also helped me frame the questions I have about education in our country-- in terms of who has access to it and why. Learning with women of all different ages, classes, races and educational backgrounds made me recognize even more explicitly that there is a lack of genuine diversity of thought in classrooms at Vassar. Since we were dealing with how family and social policy intersect in American society, every person in the room had a unique and important perspective to draw on and offer. It was refreshing to see how we all approached the material differently. I hope that more students have a chance to experience that kind of shared learning."
-Siena Chiang, Class of '11