On the eve of last Wednesday, December 11, 2024, The Judith Mara Carson Center of MMC hosted the Stand Up Speak Out Arts & Social Justice Festival, displaying the collaborative works of students from the Bedford Hills as well as the 71st street campus in the class of Cinematic Studies. The event was from 7:30-9:30 PM, featuring students’ live art and animation works, a display of the dance projects at the Immersion Lab showcasing the Divine fl~ight, and a panel conversation with the fellow alumni of the Bedford Hills College Program, MMC professors and students.
“The professor would ask, ‘Give me your first name?’ And when I said no, she asked ‘Why?’
I replied ‘Because I’m in prison.’
And the professor would say “No! You are in college,” said Cheryl Wilkins ’00, one of the Bedford Hills MMC Alumni at the Stand Up Speak Out Arts & Social Justice Festival.
There were four alumni of Bedford Hills present at the event. They shared tales reminiscing their time at the learning centre of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the challenges they faced during COVID in submitting their finals and writing research papers by mostly referring to the library of old editions at their learning centre.
“We didn’t have a coin, a dollar, we just had the volunteers at Bedford. It was MMC, who came up with degree programs along with the help of a few other private institutions. The 400 sq ft. learning centre was the heart of the prison where we could go and feel human again, where we were called by our first name,” said Wilkins ’00 during the panel conversation.
Their spirit of wisdom had not been dimmed as they lit the evening with laughter and insightful conversations with the students in the audience. The members of Bedford Hills Club were also present and shared their plans for their recently built Breaking Bars Book Club for the Spring as well as their latest initiative to conduct a book drive at the end of this semester to collect and send textbooks to the learning centre at Bedford. There will be a box kept at the library for MMC students to donate their old textbooks by the last week of finals.
Followed by the panel conversation, there was a series of live action and 2D animation works of the students sharing stories written by the students from Bedford and adapted onto screen through animation by students of 71st street campus. The names of students from Bedford had an element of comicality to them, with one of the works written by ‘Coffee, Cream + sugar.’ Tender emotions like fear and panic can be traumatic to craft into art, but the cheers and receptive faces in the audience seemed to appreciate the efforts —beaming with pride for the students of MMC.
