Education Through Service

Silvia Mejia came to HDS thinking she would pursue further graduate work in religion. Instead, she ended up having a life-changing experience that led her to discover her passion: serving those who were invisible to her, and to many others.

“I took the course ‘Ethics, Punishment and Race,’ taught by Professor Kaia Stern. The class took place at MCI-Norfolk, a medium-security men’s prison. Half of the students came from different Harvard schools, and the other half were incarcerated students,” she said. “In the class we explored the American incarceration crisis and its religious roots, but what was most transformative about it was learning alongside people behind bars.”

Mejia’s passion for service, particularly serving others through prison ministry, was brought out not only through her courses, but also through the experiential learning opportunities at HDS. The School’s Field Education Program and the Harvard Prison Education Project (HPEP)—along with Partakers and Boston University’s Prison Education Program—enables students to provide academic mentoring for those pursuing a college degree while incarcerated.

Mejia worked as a teaching assistant and co-taught a writing course at MCI-Framingham, a women’s prison about 20 miles from Cambridge. She also mentored a student through HPEP. Her passion endured despite having to allot three extra hours of time for commuting and processing through security at the prison.

As a teaching assistant for the course “The Art of Expression: Constructing Experience through Writing,” Mejia began each class with a check-in during which the students named a celebration or challenge that took place during their week. Lectures were kept to a minimum. The teachers instead posed discussion questions.

“It was a rewarding experience and taught me about the challenges of teaching in a carceral environment,” she says.

The combination of learning alongside incarcerated students and being a mentor to them added to the value of her HDS education.

“The continuing value of what I learned at HDS was to integrate theory and practice, to understand them together, and to be a lifelong learner,” she says.

Mejia says she wants to continue working with those who are incarcerated, but also to change perspectives and advocate for prison reform. She specifically wants to focus on helping women who have been incarcerated.

“Women are often not at the center of rehabilitation or reentry services, and I am passionate about changing that.”

—by Michael Naughton