Contact:
LaChauna Sumpter
Development and Public Relations
919-546-8269
lsumpter@shawu.edu

 
For Immediate Release

Shaw University to Confer Degrees in the Prison System
Raleigh, NC - (May 27, 2004) - Shaw University will hold its annual graduation recognition and honors ceremonies for 24 incarcerated students on Thursday, June 3^rd at 1 p.m., at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh; and on Tuesday, June 8th, at 1 p.m., at the Harnett Correctional Institute in Lillington, NC.

These ceremonies will be held at two of the four correctional Centers for Alternative Programs in Education (CAPE). This program provides rehabilitation in its purest form. As Raleigh CAPE Director Nnamdi Onuorah states “It is more [cost effective] to educate…inmates and [to] prepare them to become…productive, tax-paying citizens upon [their] release, than to have [a high recidivism rate].”

The University will confer two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sociology and 12 Associate of Arts degrees in Business during Thursday’s ceremony. Dr. Patricia Pierce Ramsey, Shaw University Vice-President for Academic Affairs is the speaker.

The University will confer 10 Bachelor of Science degrees in Business Management during Tuesday’s ceremony. Ms. Rosa D. True, the Director of Educational Services for the North Carolina Department of Correction/Division of Prisons is the speaker.

Shaw University, founded in 1865, is the oldest historically Black institution in the South. Since 2003, the University has been under the leadership of Dr. Clarence G. Newsome. President Newsome’s leadership pursues the theme: “Strides to Excellence: Only the Best!”