‘An Even Battle’: EPI Student Finds Support in Transition to Boston Campus

Last November, when Kenneth Faulk ’26 took in his very first play — The Theater Offensive’s Where the Black Boys Are at Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) — he was ready and able to fully appreciate the piece, thanks to a class he took with Performing Arts Professor Joshua Polster as an Emerson Prison Initiative (EPI) student.

In Polster’s class, he read Sweat, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about race, class, and the American dream in a struggling Pennsylvania steel town.

“Anywhere else in the world, I would have never picked up this playwright… but because of the professor introducing it, and the many classes that I’ve had leading up to it, it was such a progression, and [I was] primed for [the BCA show],” Faulk said. “I couldn’t have fathomed maybe five years ago that that was what I would be interested in or excited about.”

This semester, Faulk continues his educational progression on Emerson’s Boston campus, where he’s working on completing his degree in Media, Literature, and Culture, a program administered through the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies especially for EPI students. He’s currently taking courses in behavioral economics, Spanish, science and mindfulness, and media criticism and theory.

Faulk was able to continue his studies after being released from MCI-Norfolk, where EPI currently is housed, thanks in part to a grant Emerson received last fall from the Sunshine Lady Foundation, which supports higher education in prison and reentry programs. For the EPI cohorts studying in Norfolk, it means critical materials such as books, laptops, and other school supplies. For Faulk, it means a “college continuity” award.

“There’s usually a gap in terms of the financial aid package [released students] get and what it actually is going to cost for the student to attend,” Associate Professor and EPI Assistant Director Cara Moyer-Duncan said. “Those funds are helping us fill the gap and make sure that Kenneth can study on campus and he has everything he needs in order to be successful.”

Because Faulk had a November 2025 release date set last spring, he and Moyer-Duncan could begin working on his plan for this spring semester ahead of time, while he was awaiting release in a minimum-security facility and working on a directed study in economics. Moyer-Duncan came in with a list of classes he would need to complete his degree, and the options available to him when he arrived on campus.

“The timeline really worked out very well for Kenneth, and he’s very motivated. It was able to come together in a pretty seamless way for him to be released in November and start on campus in January,” Moyer-Duncan said.

Faculty and tutors at MCI-Norfolk and the Boston campus have been supportive, both academically and personally, Faulk said, and made it clear that they believe in him and his ability to do the work.

“They come from different worlds sometimes, but they’re good at … inviting us into their world and wanting to know more about and understand our world. They do a really skillful job at that,” Faulk said.

This is not to say that Faulk’s academic journey, or his reentry, has always been easy. Helping him navigate institutions and processes outside of the carceral system, and keeping him on track academically, are the team at EPI’s Reentry and College Outside Program (RECOUP), a support program for students transitioning to life outside prison.

Faulk credits EPI staff, such as program manager Betsey Chace, with everything from driving him to appointments and taking the train with him to get a driver’s permit, to making sure he stays on top of emails and checks his calendar.

“Just having that support in spaces where you have to deal with systems … makes it an even battle,” he said.  

Faulk said it’s also been a change moving from a cohort model at Norfolk – where he progressed through the classes with the same group of men, forming strong bonds – to being in different groups in each class. He’s had to get to know his new classmates quickly, but he said he feels prepared and confident enough to speak up and fully participate in his classes this semester.

Just as Polster’s class prepared him to appreciate theatre and the themes within a live play, Faulk said every class he’s taken through EPI has built on the one that came before, and oftentimes helped him look at the world through new eyes.

Having to provide rationales for why he wrote something or came to a particular conclusion will prepare him to make strong arguments and advocate for himself and others. Though he did not particularly enjoy having to create graphs in affiliated faculty member Sally Davidson’s economics class, it taught him the importance of using different ways to communicate facts and ideas, because not everyone digests information in the same way.

“I feel like they’re trying to give you the keys to something: the keys to your freedom, the keys to your voice, helping you be able to be comfortable in your skin and actually be able to communicate the thoughts in your head [and] your heart in a way that’s authentically you,” Faulk said.

While incarcerated, Faulk completed a certification program in restorative justice practices from Suffolk University, and currently works as a substance abuse specialist in Brighton. He considers himself a “helper,” and is exploring a career in human services after he graduates from Emerson. He also has some ideas for a podcast, and could see himself working in broadcasting.

Whatever field he enters, Faulk suspects his future will involve more degrees.

“I’m scared of that, but I never let it stop me before, so I don’t know, maybe it’s lifelong education [for me].”