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UCI LIFTED Commencement 2025
University of California, Irvine’s LIFTED program celebrated our second graduation on June 18, 2025. In all, sixteen students earned bachelor’s degrees in Sociology. For the first time this year, eleven students also earned a minor in English. Following in the footsteps of the first cohort, these students won many academic honors, including three who graduated summa cum laude and four who graduated magna cum laude.
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Breaking Barriers
Pictured: Inaugural graduates of the 2024 LIFTED cohort celebrate their degree accomplishments. Courtesy of Steve Zylius/UC Irvine. Original article published on the UC Irvine School of Social Sciences website. Article by Heather Ashbach, UCI Social Sciences....
LIFTED: Transforming lives through higher education
By Nikki Babri Thinking of a prison setting, the image of incarcerated individuals reading novels like Frankenstein and The Yellow Wallpaper and engaging in deep literary discussions likely doesn’t come to mind. But at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near...
Community, Representation, and JEDI: How Formerly Incarcerated Students Can Thrive on Campus
Apr 5, 2023 | Smart Justice By Kenia Miranda Verdugo People leave prison with hopes of never having to return. As we learned in the beginning of the California’s Best Practices: Pathways From Prison to College series, the most proven way to end recidivism is...
Pell Grants will return to prison, but for many, college will still be out of reach
By: Charlotte West Open Campus Caddell Kivett is ready to go back to college. He sorted out some old, defaulted student loans. He figured out what he wants to study. And he thought he had found a new way to pay for his classes. Except Kivett, 52, is in prison....
Prison Education Program LIFTED Grants Incarcerated Individuals Opportunity to Earn Bachelor’s Degree at UCI
By:City News Writer Editor’s Note: This article has been updated on 2/5/23 to replace the term “inmate” with “incarcerated persons” in means of writing with inclusive language. The prison education program Leveraging Inspiring Futures Through Educational...
LIFTED pilot program gives inmates chance to pursue bachelor’s degree at UC Irvine
LIFTED pilot program gives inmates chance to pursue bachelor's degree at UC Irvine 25 inmates were admitted in spring 2022. By Phillip Palmer Saturday, January 7, 2023 IRVINE, Calif. (KABC) -- LIFTED, or Leveraging Inspiring Futures Through Educational Degrees, is...
Podcasts
“It’s Your Time” – UCI LIFTED
«It's Your Time» - UCI LIFTED In this episode, we hear from two recent UC Irvine students, Babak Gilani and Alfonso Matas. Both men are graduates of the UCI LIFTED program, each graduating with honors in Sociology. The acronym, "LIFTED", stands for Leveraging...
UCI Podcast: New in-prison bachelor’s degree to transform lives
University of California, Irvine · UCI’s new in-prison bachelor’s degree to transform lives For people who are incarcerated, college can change their life: The likelihood that they will wind up back in prison after they’re released drops dramatically when they...
KQED: UC to Launch Its First Bachelor’s Program in Prison
UC Irvine and the state prison system have reached a deal to create the first University of California bachelor’s degree program behind bars. Since California opened the door for community colleges to teach in prisons in 2014, some 2,000 incarcerated men and women...
Ask a Leader: Keramet Reiter
In-Prison UC Education Is Coming And “Pan-Damn It!” Posted on November 10, 2020by Claudia Shambaugh In the first segment, Keramet Reiter returns to the show to talk about UCI’s launching the first in-prison BA completion program in the UC system. Professor Reiter,...
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Mimi Ko Cruz
School of Social Ecology
Director of Communications
(949) 824-1278
mkcruz@uci.edu
Iain Grainger
Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching & Learning
Director of Communications
grainger@uci.edu