New England

Prison Education Collaborative

Bi-Monthly Newsletter

February 25, 2026 | Issue No. 9

Hello,

Welcome to the latest edition of the NEPEC newsletter, your bi-monthly update from our team on our collective efforts to expand high-quality postsecondary education opportunities for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals across New England.

In This Issue

1. Reflecting the 2026 NEPEC Acceleration Summit

2. Recent Release: New Hampshire's Three-Year Strategic Plan

3. Recent Release: The Current State of Academic Reentry in New England: A

Landscape Analysis

4. The Next Cycle of State Strategic Planning

5. Upcoming Events and Opportunities

6. Staying Connected

Reflecting on the

2026 Acceleration Summit

Pictured is New Hampshire Senator David Watters speaking at the NEPEC Acceleration Summit.

On Thursday, February 5, 2026, over 100 stakeholders from across the New England region gathered in Bedford, New Hampshire to celebrate the progress we have made together in the first year of NEPEC's grant-funded activities and mark the beginning of our next chapter.

The day began with two concurrent working sessions tailored to two of NEPEC’s core activities: cross-agency state strategic planning and institution-focused Accelerator Grants. The former session, which was facilitated by NEPEC Director Sarah Kuczynski, brought together stakeholders involved in cycle one of NEPEC-supported strategic planning in New Hampshire, and those beginning this work in cycle two in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The session featured opening remarks from Molly Lasagna of Ascendium Education Group; Ved Price of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison; and Haley Shoaf of Unlocked Labs. Each speaker highlighted a unique angle on the importance of system-level approaches that leverage agencies and stakeholder groups across a state to accomplish ambitious and durable work. The meeting featured a panel discussion in which members of the cross-agency group in New Hampshire reflected on their experience as well as presentations from the strategic planning groups. A facilitated conversation in breakout groups rounded out the session by presenting attendees with an opportunity to learn from one another’s projects and experiences.

With the same goal of facilitating cross-state insight sharing, NEPEC Project Manager Zeia Fawaz co-facilitated a working session for Year 1 Accelerator Grantees with Ess Pokornowski and Grace Cope from ITHAKA S+R. Grantees provided presentations on their funded projects in which they discussed the various successes and challenges they have faced to date. Based on these presentations, Grace and Ess facilitated a discussion on the various trends and commonalities across projects.

From left to right: Matthew Kite (Roger Williams University), Patrick Conway (Boston College), Nichole Sawyer (Washington County Community College), James Monteiro (Reentry Campus Program), and Omar Reyes (Office of the Rhode Island Postsecondary Commissioner).

Pictured taking part in the Ithaka-facilitated Accelerator Grant Recipients Working Session.

The main event began in the evening with a networking opportunity for attendees. The joyous energy in the room was palpable as people gathered to celebrate all that has been accomplished in the first year of NEPEC’s activities and to connect through a shared commitment to expanding postsecondary opportunities for incarcerated and reentering individuals across the New England region. As Molly Lasagna, Senior Strategy Officer at Ascendium Education Group, noted in her opening remarks, it is rare and yet necessary to have an event with the primary purpose of taking a moment to look back at all that has been accomplished.

The evening program featured remarks from many distinguished leaders, including Nicholas Duffy, Director of Rehabilitative Services at the NH Department of Corrections; Evenor Pineda, Intervention Services Director at Manchester Police Athletic League; NH Senator David Watters; and Commissioner William Hart at the NH Department of Corrections. Each individual reflected on the benefit of the cross-agency and cross-sector strategic planning work that was undertaken by the NH Corrections Education and Vocational Planning Group and that culminated in the publication of the three-year strategic plan that was formally launched as part of the summit.

Following the release of the strategic plan, Omar Reyes, Co-Chair of NEPEC’s Higher Education Working Group and Director of Adult Programs and Student Success at the Rhode Island Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner, moderated a panel discussion featuring team members from the five Year 1 Accelerator Grant projects. Panelists spoke about the work that they were carrying out with this grant and touched on their particular experiences building unique credential pathways, expanding to a new facility, and building buy-in among postsecondary institutional leadership.

NEPEC Project Manager Zeia Fawaz followed the panel with a short presentation on the newly released white paper, The Current State of Academic Reentry in New England: A Landscape Analysis before before NEBHE President and CEO Michael Thomas delivered concluding remarks.

The summit was emblematic of the ways that the NEPEC team seeks to elevate the innovative work that higher education in prison programs and state agencies are doing across the New England region. The team is very grateful to all who attended the event and beyond that all who have worked in partnership with us over the last year. We look forward to another year of supporting the innovative, essential work that is underway.

Recent Release: New Hampshire's

Three-Year Strategic Plan

Over the last year, NEPEC has supported cross-agency, cross-sector strategic planning work in New Hampshire through the legislatively established Corrections Education and Vocational Planning Group (CEVPG). At the NEPEC 2026 Acceleration Summit, CEVPG members released a three-year strategic plan they created to serve as a roadmap for increasing programming to maximize the benefits to individuals and the community. Throughout, the plan emphasizes leveraging strengthened cross-agency collaboration to increase efficiency in meeting the goals outlined therein.

For Nicholas Duffy, Director of Rehabilitative Services at NHDOC and the planning group’s chair, having a robust group of stakeholders at the table regularly made all the difference.

Duffy reflected:

During my 11 years with the department, there has been a long-held commitment to expanding opportunities for those in our custody, but the work has been slow-going and impeded by individual departmental capacity. Through the CEVPG, we were able to generate significant forward motion and increase efficiency by drawing on the shared interests of the agencies at the table. The work reached above the siloes to align resources and capitalize on converged interests to build an educational strategy that is stronger and more efficient—one that positions the state to meet both institutional and reentry needs.

Pictured is Director Nicholas Duffy speaking to the NEPEC-supported strategic planning work in New Hamsphire.

The plan is guided by the planning group’s vision of “students thriving in an educational system within the New Hampshire Department of Corrections through access to a wide range of educational programs, career pathways, and critical supports that empowers individuals with the skills and confidence leading to successful reintegration into the workforce and their communities.” Early on, the plan focuses on establishing the foundation for expanded prison education initiatives, including securing braided funding for educational technology pilots, building infrastructure partnerships, and rolling out new Pell-eligible postsecondary credentials at facilities where such options are not currently available. Building upon this initial work, the plan will seek to deepen employer and workforce partnerships and formalize comprehensive reentry supports for program graduates while securing the long-term funding and policy alignment necessary to sustain the overall effort.

As a member of the CEVPG, NEBHE will continue to support the group as they shift to the implementation phase of this work.

The full plan, titled Strategic Plan for Correctional Education and Vocational Programming in New Hampshire, is available via the link below.

Click here to download the NH strategic plan

New Release: The Current State of Academic Reentry in New England

The NEPEC team is excited to announce the release of our inaugural white paper, The Current State of Academic Reentry in New England: A Landscape Analysis. Inspired by conversations with NEPEC’s Higher Education Working Group and stakeholders across the region, this research paper focuses on the role of postsecondary education programs in supporting returning students during reentry.

The paper is an exemplification of the NEPEC team’s core commitments: supporting expanded opportunities for incarcerated and reentering students across all six New England states, elevating the innovative work that higher education in prison programs are doing across the region, and finding ways to support program providers, including by creating opportunities for cross-state knowledge sharing.

It is NEPEC’s goal for this research publication to serve as a resource to individuals doing the crucial work of providing postsecondary education to currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. We hope that this white paper will facilitate cross-state dialogue and learning among postsecondary and reentry program providers and serve as a tool that providers can leverage in their work to expand or reimagine reentry supports.

Click here to read the full paper

The Next Cycle of

State Strategic Planning

As February 2026 comes to a close, the NEPEC-supported state strategic planning work is winding down in New Hampshire and Maine and beginning in the next two states.

At the Acceleration Summit, Brittany Lamarr, Director of Policy and Legislative Relations, and Undersecretary Daniel Karpowitz at the Office of Policy and Management Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division outlined their vision for potential NEPEC-supported future work in Connecticut.

In Massachusetts, the NEPEC team will be supporting the MA Executive Office of Education, the Commonwealth Corporation Foundation, and several other agencies and stakeholders in developing an initial, multi-year strategic plan to expand access to high-quality postsecondary education, industry-recognized credentials, and workforce training opportunities for individuals who are incarcerated or returning from incarceration. This project will tap into the insights of the leadership of the commonwealth’s multiple higher education in prison programs and will also seek to engage legislative stakeholders who have expressed an interest in supporting correctional education and reentry supports.

Pictured is Faith Ambrose, Policy Manager at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education, speaking to the upcoming NEPEC-supported strategic planning work in Massachusetts.

This work will focus on education and workforce related re-entry pathways within the correctional system, including post-release transitions. The plan that emerges from this project will be crafted with the goal of informing potential future state investments in planning, piloting, and implementation.

The NEPEC team is looking forward to supporting these two states in planning work this year.

Upcoming Events and Opportunities

NEPEC Quarterly Workshops

*Please note that we will be combining March’s workshop with the Accelerator Grants Request for Proposals webinar in May 2026.

NEPEC on the Road

National Conference on Higher Education in Prison**
April 9-10, 2026 | Cleveland, OH

**NEPEC team members have organized the following panel for which the title, date, and time can be found below.

Friday, April 10, 2026 | 9:00 – 10:00 AM ET
Title: Establishing an Ecosystem Approach: Lessons on advancing student success and expanding technological infrastructure from New Hampshire’s cross-sector statewide planning group

Stay Connected

Thank you for your continued support and partnership as we work to make postsecondary education accessible to all learners who are incarcerated in New England. We look forward to keeping you informed and engaged in our shared mission.

Best regards,

The NEPEC Team

ABOUT NEPEC:

The New England Prison Education Collaborative (NEPEC) is a regional initiative led by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE). In February 2024, NEBHE was awarded five years of grant funding from Ascendium Education Group to establish the Collaborative to build upon the recommendations of the 2023 New England Commission on the Future of Higher Education in Prison, a nine-month regional convening of leaders from across multiple sectors aimed at preparing the region for the reinstatement of federal Pell Grants for all currently incarcerated learners.

Through this initiative, NEBHE seeks to accelerate, support, and collaborate to help create a future where every incarcerated person in New England has access to high-quality, workforce-aligned, equitable postsecondary opportunities with a diverse range of educational pathways.

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