{"id":40296,"date":"2016-03-17T09:34:28","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T13:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=40296"},"modified":"2022-09-28T15:05:14","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T19:05:14","slug":"one-for-the-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2016\/03\/17\/one-for-the-books\/","title":{"rendered":"One for the books"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"English<\/a>

English instructor Carolyn Stoermer, pictured, worked with the English Club and Cheryl Meyer, a professor in the School of Professional Psychology, to collect books for the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. (Photos by Chris Snyder)<\/p><\/div>\n

Inmates at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville have a reading room bristling with donated books thanks in large part to a Wright State University psychology professor who supervises a class at the prison.<\/p>\n

Through the efforts of Cheryl Meyer, a professor in the School of Professional Psychology<\/a>, thousands of books have been delivered to the prison over the years.<\/p>\n

And now, a new service project by the English Club at Wright State promises to balloon the prisoners\u2019 collection even more. Dozens of new books bought from the English Club\u2019s used-book sales are being sent to the prison, which houses more than 2,600 inmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of access to books for these inmates due to cutbacks in prison funding is concerning. Reading and literacy can transform lives, so it’s good that our students have committed to getting them these books,\u201d said Carol Loranger, chair of the Department of English Language and Literatures<\/a> in the College of Liberal Arts. \u201cIt\u2019s part of English Club’s commitment to get everybody reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

The English Club has about 150 members, including students from various colleges and faculty, staff and alumni. Its mission is to promote the love of reading and studying literature and writing at Wright State and in the community.<\/p>\n

Inspiration for the book project came from Meyer. In 2012, Meyer, who teaches a class in forensic psychology, took some students to the prison to meet with a panel of women serving life sentences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the help of a psychologist at the prison, I arranged for my students to teach life-span development to women serving life sentences,\u201d said Meyer, who has co-authored an article \u201cInmate Education as a Service Learning Opportunity for Students\u201d that has been accepted for publication. \u201cI supervise and they teach.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the course of teaching at the prison, the inmates indicated that they had limited access to books and wanted to start a reading room.<\/p>\n

So Meyer began by collecting books donated by the library in Yellow Springs \u2014 one to two boxes a month. She picked up more books at yard sales and then began collecting books among those left over following sales by the Wright State English Club.<\/p>\n

Meyer also occasionally solicited books through campus email announcements, receiving donations from faculty, staff and others university-wide.<\/p>\n

Meyer goes through each box of donated books, weeds out inappropriate or irrelevant offerings such as cookbooks and travel guides, and repacks. Once she has about a dozen boxes, she delivers them to the prison warehouse.<\/p>\n

The books are then taken to the reading room and sorted by the librarian. Children\u2019s books go to the visiting areas or mother-infant program, textbooks go to the prison school, and outdated magazines go to the art program. The rest find a home in the reading room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reading room is about the size of a small conference room and is as organized as any library I have ever seen, and it functions like a library,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cOne woman pretty much runs it. Clearly the patrons are thrilled, and the inmate who runs it benefits as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>

From left, students Dylan Ward and Courtney Cattell worked with English instructor Carolyn Stoermer to purchase books for the prison using proceeds from the English Club’s used-book sale. (Contributed photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

When Meyer learned that the English Club had surplus funds for a service project, she contacted the reading room librarian at the prison and was told the inmates would love to have a few new books from certain authors or genres. Meyer passed along the list to the English Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir wish list was incredibly modest,\u201d said instructor Carolyn Stoermer, the club\u2019s faculty adviser. \u201cThere were specific authors that they wanted \u2014 Nicholas Sparks, Jodi Picoult. They also like romance novels, particularly supernatural romance. The ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy was a request. They also wanted a Robert Frost poetry anthology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collection of books in Wright State\u2019s donation includes such works as \u201cThe Chronicles of Narnia\u201d by C.S. Lewis, \u201cPlain Truth\u201d by Jodi Picoult, \u201cA Piece of Cake\u201d by Cupcake Brown, \u201cThe Girl Who Played With Fire\u201d by Stieg Larsson and \u201cThe Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell\u201d by Joe Loyla.<\/p>\n

The inmates requested several books that were redemption stories about people who went to jail and used the experience to turn their lives around.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy impulse would be that if they are in prison, maybe they don\u2019t want to read about prison. But those were the specific requests,\u201d said Stoermer. \u201cThat shows me these women are going to use reading as a way to process what they\u2019re going through. I can\u2019t think of a better way to spend English Club money than to help people understand their world through books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plans are for the prison book donation to be an annual service project.<\/p>\n

The collection from Wright State are books that were purchased from sale proceeds and a few donated books from Wright State faculty and staff. Stoermer and two students \u2014 English major Dylan Ward and nursing major Courtney Cattell \u2014 went book shopping together, spending about $300.<\/p>\n

They bought a few books that weren\u2019t on the inmates\u2019 list, but ones they thought the prisoners would like and could use. They bought books about dog training because the prison has a dog-training program and books about the treatment of certain medical conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese women would be diagnosed with something, but they have no access to the Internet,\u201d Stoermer said. \u201cSo they wanted reference books. Stuff about diabetes or depression or anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Book shopping for the inmates was an education for the students because they had to carefully consider the audience before settling on a book.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot every book about depression is appropriate for women in prison,\u201d Stoermer said. \u201cIf the book says, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re sad. Go watch a movie or go try a new restaurant.\u2019 That\u2019s not going to be something they can use. So the students really had to look at the books through that lens and put themselves in those readers\u2019 positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stoermer and the English Club champion the importance of reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cBooks exist as an artifact of the culture that creates them. If you are reading and thinking about these books, you are not just thinking about the plot and the characters; you are also thinking about your own culture,\u201d said Stoermer. \u201cSo you are learning about other people and at the same time learning about yourself. If you\u2019re interested in educating yourself in any way, you should be reading.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wright State\u2019s School of Professional Psychology and the English Club collaborate to donate books to inmates at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":40302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2025,2023,725,4863,747,715,2407],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-community-service","category-faculty","category-home-news-sidebar","category-humanities-and-cultural-studies","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-professional-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40296"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40305,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40296\/revisions\/40305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}