WHO WE ARE

Auburn University’s Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project (APAEP) is a national leader in providing quality educational opportunities for people incarcerated in Alabama prisons. Since 2002, APAEP has offered a wide range of continuing education courses in the arts and sciences and recently expanded to offer incarcerated students who meet Auburn’s rigorous academic standards an opportunity to earn college credits while in prison.

One prisoner helping anther with his school work

Male prisoner listing intensely to lecture

APAEP BY THE NUMBERS

NUMBER OF CLASSES

243 NUMBER OF STUDENTS

3,650

CLASSROOM HOURS

6,624

BOOKS DONATED

21,000

LATEST CLASSROOM WORK

Our anthology is a collection of student art, creative writing, and poetry created by students in APAEP classes that took place in 2013, 2014, and 2015 in prisons across the state of Alabama. The most recent edition, "A Map I Might Have Drawn," is available now.

Contact us to get your copy.

“In retrospect now, what I remember clearest about that first APAEP class I took is not the course material but, rather, the light which appeared in some of my classmates eyes in response to the camaraderie created in the group or as they accomplished something meaningful for the first time in their lives. For some, the light continued to shine even after the course was complete.”

COLLABORATORS

AUBURN UNIVERSITY

APAEP is housed at Auburn University. Most of the instructors, tutors, and interns that work with our program are associated with other departments on campus in the Colleges of Science and Math, Agriculture, Engineering, Liberal Arts, and Education.

MORE UNIVERSITIES

APAEP has a strong partnership with the University of Alabama’s MFA Creative Writing Program to offer Prison Arts Fellowships to UA graduate students. Faculty and Graduate Students from Auburn University at Montgomery and University of Alabama at Birmingham have also worked with APAEP.

Inmates working on art projects as correctional officer watches

ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

APAEP works closely with the Alabama Department of Corrections to fulfill the mission of the program and to meet a great need in Alabama. Our program has served students in 10+ correctional facilities around the state.