With Darden’s Help, Four Walls Of A Prison Make Entrepreneurs

The Darden Prisoner Re-entry Education Program, launched five years ago, has enabled inmates of two Virginia prisons to earn certificate in special entrepreneurship, financial capability and foundations of business courses, all for free.

It all started with a letter from a prisoner to then-dean at Darden Robert Bruner saying that he would be shortly released and wanted to know if the business school could help turn his business idea into reality.

Many would have scoffed at the idea of approaching Darden, where program fees are pegged as high as $49,000 a year.

However, Bruner decided to act on the letter and sought the help of UVA associate professor of business administration Greg Fairchild. Fairchild, in turn, contacted Jim Cheng, a Darden alum and secretary of commerce and trade under Governor Bob McDonnell, who put him in touch with Banci Tewolde, whom McDonnell appointed as the state’s first prisoner re-entry coordinator.

It all started with a letter from a prisoner to then-dean at Darden Robert Bruner saying that he would be shortly released and wanted to know if the business school could help turn his business idea into reality.

Within three months, a course on entrepreneurship was launched for the prisoners at Dillwyn Correctional Center in central Virginia. Fairchild and four MBA students provided guidance to 13 prisoners on starting a small business.

The Darden Prisoner Re-entry Education Program, founded by Fairchild in 2011 and now co-administered by his wife, Tierney, has been extended to Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.

The couple, MBAs from Darden, had been active in social enterprise sector. Tierney was focussed on improving education opportunities for people in low-income areas. Fairchild was working to democratize business and provide financial services for immigrant and low-income populations.

In mid-May, the entrepreneurship program’s fifth cohort of offenders graduated from Dillwyn, and 25 women at Fluvanna will mark the program’s fourth group of graduates at that facility, making 137 entrepreneurship graduates since the program’s inception, and 265, in total, across all three courses.

Applicants for the entrepreneurship program should have at least a GED (General Education Development- high school level academic skills) and be able to pass an eighth grade-level math Standards of Learning test that requires a basic knowledge of algebra.

They should have taken a vocational education program such as welding, contracting, cosmetology or food-service work. They must also receive a positive report from the counseling and correctional staffs, be infraction free. At an interview with the Darden officials, they also have to prove that they are serious about completing an educational program and getting a job after their release.

Several entrepreneurship classes of 15 to 25 students run each semester. At one time, about 70 people will be in the program. In each facility, entrepreneurship classes meet twice a week, for two and a half hours at a time. In total, the classes meet for 34 sessions.

The Fairchilds have suggested to the Virginia Department of Corrections to recruit offenders, who have at least 25 months of their sentence left because the entrepreneurship class takes a full year, and the financial capability and the foundations of business course each take one semester. Ideally, a student would take all three.

The courses at the prison follows the same rigours of a B-school program. The inmates have to make presentations about their business ideas. One of them plans to set up a business that specializes in lawn care, mulching and power washing and offers a three-cut lawn service with free bagging for $50 an hour. It is projected to make $40,000 in revenue in its first year.

Meanwhile, the second-year students at Darden are competing with each other for an opportunity to join in teaching the prison inmates.

None of them get paid and only about half choose to receive university credit for teaching. But after Fairchild and four MBA students taught the first entrepreneurship class at Dillwyn, interest grew quickly. This year, 43 students applied for 28 volunteer spots and 45 attended an interest session for the next academic year. So far, 80 instructors have gone through the program. (Image Courtesy  : http://jeffersontrust.org)