MPH Speakers: Bard Prison Initiative

Megan Callaghan, Dean of the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), and Sebastian Yoon, BPI alum, will discuss the BPI program and the public humanities’ involvement in their work with current MPH students.

Megan Callaghan is Dean of the Bard Prison Initiative and a cultural anthropologist whose scholarship and teaching focuses on Northern Ireland. Megan joined the Bard faculty in 2005 and moved into the BPI administration in 2011. She has worked with colleagues to add and expand degree programs across seven New York State prisons, developed partnerships with community-based institutions to create the Bard Microcolleges, and introduced the BardBac, a full-scholarship pathway for students to complete degrees on the main campus of Bard College. Megan also helped create and continues to teach in BPI’s annual summer Residency, an intensive “how to” workshop series for representatives of colleges and universities working to establish or advance their own college-in-prison programs.

Sebastian Yoon earned a Bard College bachelor's degree in Social Studies through the Bard Prison Initiative in 2017. His story is featured in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary, College Behind Bars. Now a Program Manager at the Open Society Foundations, Sebastian manages Open Society-U.S.' BIPOC power building grants with the goal of developing a multiracial coalition capable of shaping and sustaining freedom, justice, and democracy in the United States by supporting Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI); American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN); Black; Latinx; and Muslim, Arab, South Asians (MASA) communities across the country. Sebastian is also pursuing an MPA at Baruch College.

Learn more about the Bard Prison Initiative.

This event is only open for current students in the Mellon Public Humanities and Social Justice Program.