Connections cultivating peace

Taylor Gallik ’24 felt nervous on the first day of class. She wasn’t sure what her fellow students would think of her, and she worried about saying the wrong thing.  

She didn’t realize it yet, but her new classmates in Roanoke College’s Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program felt the exact same way. 

“I was really nervous,” recalled one of the incarcerated students in this semester’s program organized in partnership with the Roanoke County/Salem Jail. “I thought, oh, these college students are going to come in here and just think of the rest of us as bad people — as nothing but criminals.” 

“But, once we sat down and we started talking, that changed,” he added. “We started laughing and sharing with each other. We came together as a community.” 

Inside-Out, a national initiative that Roanoke College joined in 2019, brings together people who are incarcerated (“insiders”) with traditional college students (“outsiders”) to learn alongside one another in a semester-long course. 

This fall’s class, “Peacemaking in World Religions,” was the fourth held by the local program and the first since the pandemic began. 

Nineteen students — nine insiders and 10 outsiders — met weekly at the county jail. Together, they discussed faith, life and what it means to cultivate peace. In the process, they bridged that divide they had felt in the room on the first day of class. 

“You know, society really paints very negative stereotypes of incarcerated individuals,” said Gallik, one of this semester’s outsider students. “This class challenged every single one of those stereotypes. The people I’ve met have been some of the most genuine and kindhearted. We could speak our minds respectfully to each other and come together over common ground. I’ll be forever changed as a result of being here.” 

Dismantling stereotypes and biases is part of the mission of Inside-Out. Students in both camps gain a deeper understanding of the world by looking at it through the eyes of another. 

Organizers said they hoped to impart a few fundamental truths beyond that found in a textbook: That there is more that unites people than separates them, and that we are all more than just a tally of our mistakes.  

“What we are trying to do is to empathetically engage and to learn more as we see what kind of peace we might be able to create and why it might be important to people around the world today,” said Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy Melanie Trexler, who led this semester’s course. 

“We live together in society and have the responsibility to all learn together,” she added.   

Roanoke College Associate Professor Melanie Trexler, who led this semester’s course, reflected on the mission of Inside-Out in remarks to supporters at a Dec. 1 graduation celebration.

Roanoke County Sheriff Eric Orange, a key partner in creating the program, said he hoped outsider students were able to shed misconceptions by getting a firsthand look at life within a jail. He also hoped insider students learned something about themselves by succeeding in a college-level course. 

“It’s not about where your story starts. It’s all about where your story ends,” he told them.  

This year’s course, for which all students earned credit, culminated in an end-of-semester graduation celebration marked by laughter, cheers and reflections on how their time together had changed the people in the class. 

The students took the lead in guiding the gathering through peacemaking practices they had studied from around the world, including a yoga meditation, Mussar reflections from the Jewish faith, a Taizé from Christianity and the stereotype-busting #myjihad campaign. 

The students themselves came from all belief structures — Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic — and had to challenge themselves to speak openly on a subject often considered taboo. 

“Dr. Trexler always told us there are no wrong answers. The question isn’t are we right or wrong. It’s why do we feel that way? That was awesome to me because then we could really get into things,” said one insider student (privacy protections prohibit naming insider students). 

“My perceptions about myself, about everybody, about life period have been changed by this class,” he added.  

Outsider students echoed that feeling. Zachary Kriebel ’24, of New Hampshire, described the class as a unique experience that broadened his understanding of others. The insights gained will stick with the biochemistry major, who plans to become a doctor, long after graduation and shape his future work. 

“In medicine, it’s invaluable to understand that you really have to judge every person individually, not jump to conclusions,” he said. “To be a good, compassionate doctor and person, you have to listen to what people are telling you and listen to what’s going on in their lives.” 

Gallik, a health and exercise science major from Tennessee, said she had jumped at the chance to be part of an Inside-Out class. 

“Part of what brought me to Roanoke College in the first place was the way it approached a liberal arts education and the importance of getting a lot of different experiences,” she said. “I saw this as an experience, quite literally, unlike any other.” 

“I don’t always talk very much in class,” she added, “but here I’ve learned how to communicate about hard topics. I’ve branched out and challenged stereotypes. I just feel like I’ve become way more confident and grown as a person.” 

Zachary Kriebel ’24 and other students led a yoga meditation during a Dec. 1 graduation celebration. Privacy protections prohibited identifying insider students.

This semester’s graduation celebration brought together leaders from Roanoke College, Roanoke County and Roanoke City — which is interested in expanding Inside-Out to its community — to hear from the students. 

Roanoke College President Frank Shushok Jr., who addressed the crowd and presented each student with their certificate, said he felt he had witnessed something remarkable and sacred. 

“I feel like I experienced a little bit of transformation myself,” he said. “This is how we change the world.” 

“I don't know what your dreams and your hopes are for yourself,” he told the students, “but I think life is going to surprise you. Because you showed up for something like this. Because you were self-reflective. Because you reached toward other people. Because you dreamed about what could be for a better future and for a world that's full of hope. I want you to hang onto that. I think good things really are in store for all of you.” 

In interviews, insider students shared what it had meant to them to be part of the class — to engage in debate with the outsider students, to earn an A as their final grade, to be picked by their classmates as a spokesman for the graduation. 

One described it as the best program he’s taken part in since his incarceration. “That’s from the heart,” he said. “I came in here and saw the sincerity of the outside students. They were here not only to learn, but to help. It made me feel like the future for our world was a little brighter.” 

The insider student added that he felt he had played a part in cultivating peace by enrolling in Inside-Out. 

“I realized that dialogue, especially this type of interfaith dialogue, it's almost like an act of peace itself,” he said. “Coming in here and being able to talk with people of other faiths, other walks of life, and take away a smile from it. How is that not peaceful?” 

Below: Hand-drawn art made by an insider student and reflecting the many faiths studied by this semester's class was among the displays during an Inside-Out graduation celebration held Dec. 1.

Inside-Out, first established at Temple University in 1997, is now a nationwide campaign made possible by partnerships between higher education institutions and law enforcement agencies.

The Roanoke Valley program was created in 2019 through a collaboration led by Roanoke College Associate Professor Daisy Ball and Roanoke County Sheriff Eric Orange. The local initiative is supported by the C.E. Richardson Benevolent Foundation.