University of Houston Clear-Lake expands long-running Transforming Lives by Degrees program

University of Houston Clear-Lake expanded its Transforming Lives by Degrees program with the addition of the program’s first courses available for incarcerated women and a dedicated professor.

UHCL has been offering classes since its opening in 1974 at various Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison units, said Glenn Sanford, dean of the college of human sciences and humanities. The expanded program in 2023 now offers classes to incarcerated women, and a professor is assigned to the program to help it grow over time.

“The key is not so much the degree as it is the development of social capital and skills that may or may not have existed,” Sanford said.

Christina Novakov-Ritchey is the program’s first designated professor, who previously was involved with the prison education program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Novakov-Ritchey will be teaching humanities courses.

“You literally watch people transform into really high-level critical thinkers, good writers,” she said. “They’re able to move in the world and question things in a way they may not have done prior to getting incarcerated.”

UHCL offers courses at the Beto, Coffield and W.F. Ramsey units in Rosharon and now livestreams graduate-level humanities courses for women at the Mountain View unit in Gatesville.

“We’re starting the first master’s program for incarcerated women in Texas,” Novakov-Ritchey said.

Furthermore, Sanford stressed students in the program have to apply, pay tuition and fulfill the same graduation requirements as other students.

The program has more than 600 graduates and offers a bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences, a bachelor’s degree in humanities and a master’s degree in humanities.