Ginsberg Center E-Newsletter
Spring/Summer 2009
Alexander, Founder of Prison Outreach Program, Named Finalist for Campus Compact Award
By Kemba Mazloomian
When the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) produced its 500th play this year, founder William "Buzz" Alexander knew just how far his program had come.
Through workshops, exhibitions and mentorship, PCAP helps incarcerated men and women create original theater, visual art and creative writing. Alexander, a University of Michigan English professor, founded the project in 1990 after he and two of his students taught a weekly theater class to two women serving life sentences in prison. When the semester ended, the two women asked Alexander if he would open the workshop to other prisoners.
Today, PCAP serves hundreds of participants each year and operates in prisons and juvenile justice facilities, as well as urban high schools and other locations.
For his work on PCAP and his long commitment to civic engagement, service-learning, and community-focused research, Alexander was named in June 2009 as a finalist for Campus Compact's 2009 Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award.
"Buzz Alexander is intensely passionate about changing this country's mass incarceration practices. He is also a brilliant teacher. He brings these two dimensions together in his courses and this has a transforming effect on large numbers of students," Ginsberg Center Faculty Director Margaret Dewar said.
Even early in his career, Alexander was involved in social issues. In the 1980s, he taught a service-learning course in which students traveled through the Midwest to create documentaries with labor leaders and others involved in the labor movement. Another of his classes examined action and guerilla theater—forms of improvisation and street theater—as ways to address social issues like homelessness, AIDS and homophobia.
Alexander now focuses on the prison population. Several of his courses provide the basic training for PCAP—students learn to facilitate art and theater workshops or help participants create portfolios of their work—and the opportunity to engage in creative work with the prison population. Many of these students choose to continue their volunteer work after completing the classes, and some stay involved with PCAP after graduating.
When people have lost other means of expression, Alexander said, creative opportunities can offer a valuable outlet.
"There was once a time when prisoners were allowed to wear their own coats and have their own property," he said. "As a result of mass incarceration practices and new prison legislation, prisoners have lost that and other aspects of outward identity, but have not lost access to other essential human sources of personal identity and voice."
Learn more about the Prison Creative Arts Project.
Spring/Summer 2009 Table of Contents
- Federal Stimulus Helps Ginsberg Program, Detroit Nonprofits
- Art Prof. Tobier Wins National Award for Community Engagement
- It's Summer in the City for Semester in Detroiters Who Stay On
- SERVE Celebrates 20th Anniversary
- High Marks for Service: University of Michigan Receives Double Honors for Civic Engagement
- English Prof. Alexander, Founder of Prison Outreach Program, Named Finalist for Campus Compact Award
- How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Pangea World Service Team in Ecuador