Portland State Magazine Fall 2018

15 Deborah Smith Arthur and her Capstone students listen to the incarcerated young people at the Donald E. Long Detention Center. Photos by Motoya Nakamura, Multnomah County Communications opened their mind to something they had no idea about. All the stereotypes—that wasn’t the reality.These are just kids, and these kids have made mistakes, and we need to help them move forward to make a better life.” Some PSU students, profoundly affected by Arthur’s course, have changed their majors and career paths. A number have gone on to become teachers, hoping to engage young people before they enter the prison pipeline. “You can’t talk about juvenile jus- tice without talking about educational opportunities,” says Arthur. When Muñoz took Arthur’s course, she was already a crimi- nology and criminal justice major, but the experience focused her goals. Since graduating in 2017, she has worked as a sexual assault advocate and is now a gang outreach worker for Multnomah County. Muñoz says professors like Arthur have an enormous impact on the lives of their students, especially those who are unclear about their careers. “It’s people like her who inspired me to continue pursuing my career without limitations and fear,” she says. And Muñoz has maintained her relationship with the Donald E. Long center, going in weekly to teach poetry and art in the girls’ unit. Arthur herself has other endeavors. At MacLarenYouth Cor- rectional Facility inWoodburn, Oregon, she teaches a course in which PSU students and incarcerated young men all study the history of social justice and work on themselves as agents of change. And with Ailene Farkac, she co-founded Reversing the School to Prison Pipeline, which provides guidance to PSU students who were formerly incarcerated. “I really want to see PSU as an institution step more this direction,” she says. “There’s a need—and a benefit.We’re missing out.” In closing circles, youth who have participated in The Beat Within workshops have made comments like, “You made me feel that I matter outside of these walls, that I can make it,” and Guzman says that the workshops help a lot of kids in detention use writing to open up their world. But Arthur tells her students, “You’ll learn more from them then they’ll learn from you.” She says her classes always fill quickly, because the experience they offer is so transformative for the students. “They’re sitting down with this person they’ve only heard about on the news.They realize their common humanity.”  Stephanie Argy was a graduate assistant in the Office of University Communications. She received a master’s degree in writing and book publishing in June.