Miami Hurricane, September 21, 1970

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Students Work in Jail
By Iris Horowitz
UM student volunteers working through the SUMMON program in conjunction with the Dade County .Jail Rehabilitation program can aid in academic training with illiterate inmates.
According to Chief Sandstrom, the program start.'d last spring with six UM volunteers working on a one to one basis with about 13 inmates concentrating on reading and writing.
“All of the prisoners in the County Jail, about 900, are awaiting trial or appeals, after sentencing they are transferred to the Dade Stockade,” Sandstrom said.
At the Stockade, the Dade County School Board provides academic training and vocational education daily.
“Its difficult to have a full scale educational program at the Jail because of the lack of classroom facilities, however, stu-
Rehabilitation
dents have been successfully teaching inmates most of which are of the lower socioeconomic groups, on a personal basis twice weekly in the Jail Chapel,” Sandstrom said.
Another rehabilitation program includes a work furlow program in which an inmate works during the day at his regular job and returns to the jail at night. Eligible inmates are persons sentenced to less than a year.
“Our only means of security is pure faith in the individual. If an inmate doesn't come hack to the jail, he can be charged with escape and if convicted, get a possible 10 year sentence,” Rehabilitation Chairman Russel Ihickhalt said.
Then	• is also	an extensive		recreation pro-
gram a	nd have	looked	into	federal grants
for voc	ational	training	in	areas such as
nutomol	bile me(	■hanies.		
“You	cifn’t	work on	.1	personal basis
without	person	gratifici	it ion	i and results,"
Sandstrom said.
Project SUMMON, a student directed attempt at broad university involvement in the disadvantaged areas of the Miami com munity, plans to enroll more than 200 students this fall
After a year of operation, SUMMON will send students to work in 11 agencies throughout Dade County, ranging from jails to migrant camps.
Junior Norman Manasa. founder and director of the program, sees work of this type as “a minimum of controls and a maximum of freedom having tremendous educational value for those who participate."
Several departments within the university are directly involved in the program, seven of them currently offering three academic credits on a pass-fail basis.
Manasa is now working with other departments and hopes that the program will offer academic credits in other areas during the year.
According to Manasa, the SUMMON program offers the student the balance between education and theory, the education being the work in the community and the theory being the seminar sessions with professors, which follow.
"SUMMON gives people common bonds because it gives them a common effort," Manasa said. “It pulls faculty out of their ivory tower and into the streets.”
SUMMON is currently seeking private and foundation monies with which to operate this fall.
Last year the program operated on about $1,000 for the entire year with an $850 contribution from the First National Bank of Miami and the rest coming from private donations.
Manasa said that more money is needed, however, in order to run a full-scale program.
If SUMMON’s massive fund-raising effort isn’t as successful as hoped for. the group will seek aid from the individuals within the university.
Since it was founded. SUMMON has operated as an independent, student directed program.
It has grown from 45 students, three departments and five agencies in one year to nine departments, II agencies and hopefully, 200-plus studei ts.
For more information, write Norman Manasa care of the Wesley Foundation, Box 8225, University of Miami, 33124, or hv (ailing 284-3039.