joining our guests on stage tonight is professor hilary bender, a tisch college senior fellow in theunding director of the tufts university prison initiative at tisch college. i mentioned earlier that tisch college has expanded the scope of its educational programs and top it is one of our newer initiatives someone Ãba partnership between tax university and bunker hill community college to award an associate degree to a group of incarcerated men in the program. as part of the persian initiative hilary also runs an insight outside course at the maximum-security prison in shirley massachusetts through which tufts students and incarcerated individuals take a course together. hillary's current research is in the field of higher education and incarceration. she's a senior lecturer at tufts with a phd in english and also directs the program in women's, gender, sexuality studies. hillary is a strong advocate for the importance of bringing higher education into prison and we are grateful she joins us tonight in conversation with our guests. please join me in welcoming professor hilary bender