Higher Education in Prison: Strategies for Liberation

About the Facilitators

Deborah Smith Arthur, M.A., J.D.
Professor, University Studies Program, Director, PSU Higher Education in Prison Program, Portland State University

Deborah Smith Arthur worked as a criminal defense and juvenile law attorney for ten years. She has taught at Portland State University for 19 years, where she is a Professor in the University Studies interdisciplinary general education program. In 2019 she received the Campus Compact Western Region Engaged Scholar Award for her extensive work to bring college education and support to people experiencing incarceration. She was a member of the 2018-19 cohort of Child Defender Fellows selected by the Children’s Defense Fund. Deb is a co-founder of and the Director of PSU’s Higher Education in Prison Program. She teaches courses at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn and at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. She has worked on numerous successful clemency petitions, is a long-time volunteer with the Oregon Youth Authority, and serves on a statewide task force charged by the Oregon legislature to study and recommend state and local governmental actions addressing prison education. She organized and is an active member of the Oregon Coalition of Higher Education in Prison. She earned a Master’s Degree in Black Studies from The Ohio State University and a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

Walidah Imarish
Director of the Center for Black Studies and Assistant Professor in the Black Studies Department, Portland State University

Imarisha is an educator and a writer. She is the co-editor of two anthologies, Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements and Another World is Possible. Imarisha is also the author of Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison and Redemption, which won a 2017 Oregon Book Award. She spent 6 years with Oregon Humanities' Conversation Project as a public scholar facilitating programs across the state about Oregon Black history and other topics. In 2015, she received a Tiptree Fellowship for her science fiction writing. In the past, Imarisha has taught at Stanford University, Oregon State University, and Pacific Northwest College of the Arts.

Fields: Oregon Black history, carceral systems, and abolition, literature, creative nonfiction writing, science fiction/visionary fiction, history of social movements