The Inaugural National PGP Campus Leadership Council
The inaugural National PGP Campus Leadership Council met this Spring to contribute to a new Campus Organization Guide for the PGP’s university chapters. As the Volunteer Engagement and Organizational Learning Fellow at the PGP, I have the privilege of working with campus groups on events, recruitment, and leadership development, and I am excited by the passion and dedication of our campus leaders. Members of our campus leadership council have shown remarkable commitment to growing the PGP's capacity to support university chapters while also contributing to our mission to inform the general public on issues of educational justice and mass incarceration.
University students have been foundational to our organization from the beginning, making up two-thirds of our active volunteers. Back in 2008, our first group of Princeton volunteers went into their tutoring sessions with the idea that they could make a positive difference in the educational journeys of incarcerated individuals. They quickly came to see the profound impact of their tutoring experiences on their own understandings of systemic injustice as well as their capacity to create change and founded a student organization on campus to respond to the social and educational injustices of carceral spaces. A similar pattern emerged as the PGP expanded to regions outside NJ, with university-based volunteers starting their own campus chapters to provide an outlet for educating the broader public as well as recruiting tutors to expand educational programing and serve more students.
As our campus organizations have continued to grow in scale and impact, in our 2024-2028 strategic plan we set a goal of formalizing the PGP’s presence on our partner campuses as well as further developing our volunteer support model. Towards this goal, we identified the need to create a guide to support campus leaders in developing their professional and organizing skills while streamlining processes for starting new chapters, hosting events, building community, and recruiting volunteers. Nominated by regional staff members for their excellence and commitment, this group of campus leaders came together to support future campus leaders through sharing their experiences and insights. Their contributions to the campus guide have been instrumental in making it relevant, accessible, and useful to future PGP chapters.
The five council members represent a range of contexts: from small liberal arts colleges to large public research institutions, from DC to Cambridge, and from chapters that have been around for years to ones just achieving active status. This year’s council members were: Jonah Geisner (University of Pittsburgh, Junior), Sahiba Tandon (Swarthmore College, Senior), JaNesha Peay (Howard University, Senior), Arush Mehrotra (University of Pennsylvania, Senior), and EJ Evans (Harvard University, Senior).
We are so grateful for their service and commitment to the Petey Greene Program as volunteer tutors as well as campus leaders. Their feedback and suggestions will directly benefit future campus groups, contributing vital insights into the development of the Petey Greene Program’s mission and vision. We are excited to roll out the Campus Organizing Guide in Fall 2025 and to continue working with our PGP university chapters to build greater awareness of and support for educational justice in carceral spaces. This work will assist future student leaders in cultivating best practices for organizing events, partnering with relevant organizations, and creating more robust opportunities for professional development and skill building.