Former inmate starts new chapter thanks to SCC, NDCS partnership [Video]

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Striding across a stage at Pinnacle Bank Arena on Tuesday night, grinning ear to ear, Jessica Whittaker became the first graduate from a program designed to increase incarcerated people’s access to higher education.

“I’m super, super excited,” said Whittaker, the Southeast Community College Prison Education Program student.

It was an idea living in the minds of administrators, on slips of papers signed by the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and SCC, even inside impromptu classrooms over the last several months. It finally took its first steps on a graduation stage on Tuesday, met with fanfare from Whittaker’s loved ones.

“To actually watch our first graduate march the stage and to see her family and other people here to celebrate her and just looking at the future that she in front of her,” Amy Doty, the dean of the program said. “It’s a magnificent moment.”

Whittaker, stepping …