OTISVILLE — CUNY's Prison-to-College Pathways Pipeline held its first commencement ceremony in May 2026 inside Otisville Correctional Facility, recognizing six graduates.

Tony Acevedo, who had been incarcerated at Otisville for more than 13 years, was among the graduates. He enrolled in the program in 2022. "It all started with a poster posted in the housing unit where I used to live in Otisville Correctional Facility that said if you want to go to college, you can come to an information session," Acevedo said. "I was very skeptical at the time."

Acevedo was released from incarceration in 2024 and continued his education at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). The 40-year-old earned an associate degree in liberal arts and spoke at the commencement ceremony.

Michelle Ronda, a professor and chair of the criminal justice department at BMCC, said of Acevedo's address: "It was the kind of commencement speech that left everyone speechless." She added, "It's such a courageous move to decide, 'I'm going to enter a college classroom,' because some of them have never touched a computer, some of them have very shaky confidence in terms of being able to write, some of them are terrified about mathematics and they're going to have to challenge themselves with all of these things."

The Prison-to-College Pathways Pipeline launched in 2011 at CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. BMCC expanded the initiative by offering an associate degree program in liberal arts starting in fall 2024. The first two students in the BMCC expansion completed their degrees in spring 2025, and four additional students graduated in spring 2026.

Faculty members volunteer with the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to teach weekly classes using preapproved materials. Carla Barrett, academic director for the program at John Jay, noted challenges with technology access. "There isn't a lot of technology they have access to, so in many ways, they're coming to college in a very old-school way," Barrett said. "A number of them have really negative educational experiences."

Acevedo now works as an assistant in BMCC's criminal justice department and mentors justice-impacted students through Project Impact, the college's student success program for individuals involved with the criminal legal system. "My nervousness was in fear of returning to a place where so many negative things had happened," Acevedo said. "But I wanted to go and show them that I'm not only killing it, but that these men are going to kill it as well."