WHO: Heather A. McKay, director of the Sloan Center on Innovative Training and Workforce Development at Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations
WHAT:  McKay will testify at a public hearing sponsored by members of the state Legislature on breaking the pervasive cycle of arrest, incarceration and re-arrest and its impact on families and communities.
WHEN:

 Thursday, Dec. 11, 3 p.m to 8 p.m.

WHERE:

Paul Robeson Center on the Rutgers–Newark Campus, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd., Newark

BACKGROUND: McKay and colleagues at Rutgers are evaluating a three-year pilot program designed to prepare New Jersey’s female prison inmates for re-entry into the working world through computer-based learning. The Prison to Community Project is offering hundreds of women at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women the opportunity to learn computer skills necessary to compete in today’s workplace.

Through her work with the Communications Workers of America, McKay also has received an invitation to submit a memo on online learning for President-elect Barack Obama.

Representatives of New Jersey’s 15th Legislative District – state Sen. Shirley Turner, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman – are sponsoring Thursday’s hearing, the last in a series of three.



 

 



 


Media Contact: Fredda Sacharow
732-932-7084, Ext. 615
E-mail: fsacharo@rci.rutgers.edu