ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Students at St. Bonaventure University have the opportunity to participate in service learning trips to state prisons. 

In the fall semester of 2005, Fr. Bob Struzynski, O.F.M., began this program to provide experiential learning through service to those in prison.  As a result of a high-demand to go on past trips, this semester the program was able to double the amount of dates offered to students. The program offers trips to Gowanda Correctional Facility and Attica Correctional Facility. 

“The service part is fulfilled by visiting men in prison, some of whom get no visits at all, and listening to them tell their stories helps in the healing process of the tragedy resulting from a bad decision,” Struzynski said.

For this semester there will be trips to Attica Wednesday, April 7, and 28 and May 5, along with Friday, March 26, April 9 and 23.  For Gowanda there will be trips offered Wednesday, March 10, and 24 and April 14. The Gowanda trip will have 13 students each trip and the Attica trip will have three students each trip as well.  

Both trips fill up quickly and Attica has a waiting list because only students 21 or older may go. To go to Gowanda a student only needs to request to go three weeks ahead of time to be approved by Albany, but for Attica there is more extensive paperwork because participants are considered a new volunteer for this one trip to prison. 

For the Attica trip, entrance to the prison is part of a volunteer program called Cephas. This program runs group therapy sessions in prison and then gives men coming out of prison a place to live while they make the transition back into society. The students sit in the therapy group and after a regular volunteer begins the discussion, everyone participates in accordance with his or her level of comfort. Prisoners will discuss why they are in prison and seek to discover why they may have made bad decisions. The student-volunteers sometimes relate to the prisoners and share their stories with them as well. 

“The result is a group where very good things happen in terms of insights, support and sometimes confrontation that brings deeper honesty with oneself and awareness of what must be changed if someone is going to be successful in society,” Struzynski said. 

The Gowanda program is similar except there is a tour of the prison and the participants sit down with men who have been convicted of driving while intoxicated (DWI) felonies. After this, students hold a discussion with three of the inmates. 

As a result of her trip to the Gowanda prison in Spring 2009, Jen Dempsey, ’12, started helping Struzynski with the program this past fall. She enjoyed the trip and was offered the opportunity to work with the program, and thought it would be a great chance to grow.  

“Going in and visiting the prisons and having discussions with inmates can be a very reflective experience,” Dempsey said.

This program can be used for University Forum Local Action Project (LAP) hours and many seniors take advantage of this opportunity. Students also visit the prison because they are looking to go into fields related to law or the justice system or they think it may be something interesting to do.

For more information on the Prison Ministry Program, contact Jen Dempsey at jdempsejc@sbu.edu or Fr. Bob Struzynski, O.F.M, at rstruzyn@sbu.edu.