1. 6 Apr. 23, 2012
Old 'Gold'
Still
Shines
By Daniel Peterson
I recently came upon an ob-
scure section of Alaskan poetry
in a dusty corner of Rainy Retreat
Books, a used bookstore down-
town. Scanning through the col-
lection, I glided my finger down
the binding of each volume until
I came across a small pamphlet ti-
tled, “Lemon Creek Gold: A Jour-
nal of Prison Literature,” which I
immediately purchased, noting at
the bottom of the cover the words:
“Lemon Creek Prison and Uni-
versity of Alaska/Juneau 1979.”
As a UAS English major myself,
I was floored to discover that the
school I currently attend had once
been involved in prison education. I
told the cashier that I didn’t realize
Lemon Creek had a literary journal.
He looked at me, mystified, turning
the book over carefully in his hands.
“Neither did I,” he replied.
It turns out that this obscure
little journal was produced as a
part of the University Within Walls
program, a secondary-education
program for prisoners established
in 1979 by Dr. Randall Ackley, a
university faculty member; Sheila
Nickerson, a former Alaska State
Poet Laureate and a teacher who
worked closely with the inmates;
and Michael Paradise, then chan-
cellor at University of Alaska/ Ju-
neau, the school we now know as
University of Alaska Southeast.
The U.W.W. program was a joint
effort between the Department of
Health and Social Services and Uni-
versity of Alaska. Funding for the
program came from the state, the
university, and a few private donors,
all together totaling about 1 mil-
lion dollars. The program enabled
inmates to access courses in Eng-
lish and the humanities, computer
technology, and vocational courses
in food services and agriculture.
The inmates were even able to
earn four-year bachelor’s degrees.
“One salient point is that any
inmate who went through this
program and graduated got a de-
gree that was the same as anyone
who went through any branch of
the University of Alaska. There
was no stipulation as to where
the degree came from; it was all
one in the same,” Nickerson said.
The classes were taught via tele-
conferencing technology and vid-
eotaped lessons. In this way, the
program served prisons throughout
Alaska,notjustinLemonCreek.The
use of technology and philosophical
grounding made the U.W.W. pro-
gram one of the most cutting-edge
in North America, according to
Nickerson. The Lemon Creek Gold
journal, which was circulated to
prisons throughout the state, reflect-
ed this state-of-the-art education.
Nickerson herself worked on
the journal Lemon Creek Gold,
an experience which she recalled
with reverence. She took over
as editor of the journal after the
original editor, visiting writer
Dr. Ricardo Sanchez, left Alaska.
Sanchez was a prolific oral poet
who was passionate about prison
education, Nickerson said. He had
himself been to many prisons as an
inmate, but it was during his stay
at the infamous Folsom Prison that
Sanchez decided to enlighten him-
self by learning to read and write. He
ultimately earned his Ph.D. while
in prison. His personal journey was
very similar to the trajectory that the
U.W.W. program encouraged the
inmates at Lemon Creek to follow.
The basis for the U.W.W. pro-
gram was steeped in the notion
of moral development, as articu-
lated by Lawrence Kohlberg, a
mid-20th century psychologist.
Kohlberg’s examination of moral
development in inmates led him
to the conclusion that if some
amount of agency is granted to a
prisoner who before--while outside
prison--had no sense of control in
his life, he may start making deci-
sions that have a moral origin to
them: an intent to change his ways.
One way in which Nickerson
and others tried to encourage this
kind of moral decision-making was
through the Lemon Creek Gold
journal. They granted the inmates
control of the journal by establish-
ing an editorial advisory board of
inmates. Choosing to create an in-
mate editorial advisory board was
inextricably tied to the agenda of
moral development, Nickerson said.
“The more students we could
get involved in decision-making,
the better. And this was just a
wonderful, wonderful opportunity
to get students making decisions
that would have almost immedi-
ate visual results [for them]. Sud-
denly, here were these manuscripts
that they had chosen [printed
in the journal]. Everything that
we did we tried to tie into this
process of decision-making.”
Creativity was another way in
which the administrators of the
U.W.W. program tried to encourage
a sense of potential in the inmates.
In addition to English classes, the-
atre and visual arts courses were
offered as well. The inmates who
were involved in the humanities
courses were given a tremendous ar-
ray of creative tools to work with.
“We always considered that
creativity was the way to achieve
some sense of self-worth; a way to
gain a voice; a way to start reach-
ing potential,” Nickerson said.
As inspiration for the in-
mates, many renowned writ-
ers and artists made their way
through Lemon Creek Prison in
order to visit the students. Some
stayed for days, others for weeks,
even months doing residencies.
“They included Simon Ortiz,
Carolyn Forshay—I’m sure many
of you have heard of her; Robert
The dreams that you taught me
Are tangled in briar
Are caught in the shadows
Like a fox in a trap
Leaving behind them
The songs of your brothers
Never-Got-Shot,
Standing-Among-Men,
Screaming-On-High.
- Excerpt from the poem “Night Song” by Randall Johnson
Above: Three old issues of the
Lemon Creek Gold literary journal.
Facing page: Sheila Nickerson,
former Alaska Poet Laureate and
a teacher for the University Within
Walls program at Lemon Creek
Prison from 1979 until 1982.

2. 7Volume 30 • Issue 10
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Duncan, who was a very famous
poet; Sam Hamill, who established
Copper Canyon Press, one of the
most successful independent presses
ever known; Jim Sheperd, who was
a Tlingit artist; Dale DeArmond,
the artist who is very well known
throughout Southeast Alaska; and
Steven Dogood, who was an his-
torian as well as an expert on in-
carceration,” Nickerson recalled.
Nobel Laureate Betty Williams
from Northern Ireland even visited
Lemon Creek as did some spiritual
leaders: Peter Caddy, a British spiri-
tualist; and Richard Alpert, who
was associated with Timothy Leary,
both made their way to the prison.
Nickerson said she has no doubt
these artists inspired her students.
To this day Nickerson looks
back upon the inmates’ work with
admiration, drawn to the themes of
loneliness that run through many of
their pieces. She points to the poem
“NightSong”byRandallJohnson,an
inmate and editorial board member.
“The dreams that you taught
me/ Are tangled in briar/ Are caught
in the shadows/ Like a fox in a trap/
Leaving behind them/ The songs
of your brothers/ Never-Got-Shot,
Standing-Among-Men, Scream-
ing-On-High.” (partial excerpt.)
It is pieces like these that
make Nickerson wish that the
U.W.W. program had continued.
“I look upon something like
Randall Johnson’s piece and I think:
that was kind of the flag waving the
way to the future of what would’ve
been if the magazine has gone on
and if these inmates had been able to
keep writing with encouragement.”
Nickerson said that she made it
a point to never find out why her
students were in prison. The focus
was to cultivate their potential, not
to judge them. After the program
ended, she continued to visit some
of her students and even took her
children to visit them. She recom-
mends visiting a prison inmate for
anyone hungry for life-experience.
“I would go and visit them, and
that’s a gruesome process. I recom-
mend it as an experience. That’s one
reason I took my children even when
they were very young, when they
were 6, 8 years old. It’s an experience
that they remember to this day. Any-
way, as I say, it was a program that
had great, just enormous promise.”
The University Within Walls
program and the Lemon Creek
Gold journal both ended in the
fall of 1982. The circumstances un-
der which the program was ended
are mostly obscure. What is clear
is that they arose from conflict be-
tween the University faculty and
the prison administrators. Ac-
cording to prison officials at the
time, the program ended in order
to give prison superintendents
more control of prison education.
Nickerson’s perspective is that the
reasons were more personal; that
tension between the prison admin-
istrators and the University faculty...
See Old ‘Gold’ on page 12.

3. 11Volume 30 • Issue 10
Sudoku is easy to play and the rules are simple. Fill in the
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Puzzle Corner
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Just Email us at:
uas.whalesong@gmail.com
Old ‘Gold’ cont. from page 4:
...caused political reper-
cussions which resulted in the
termination of the program.
In 1983 the Department of Ed-
ucation and the Adult Corrections
Agency issued a Request for Propos-
als for a new prison education pro-
gram. In other words, only a year af-
ter University Within Walls ended,
the state was calling for a new prison
educationprogramtobeformulated.
Nickerson and a team of four
other educators spent an entire
summer writing a proposal for a
new prison education program.
“We spent months and
months working on this pro-
posal; five of us working around
the clock on it,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Department
of Education and the Adult Cor-
rections agency changed the
requirements of the proposal
three times before the deadline.
In protest, Nickerson and her
team took the State of Alaska to
court. For years they fought to re-
instate the program, all the way
to the Alaskan Supreme Court,
where they ultimately lost the case.
After that, Nickerson struggled
for years to find employment but
eventually became the editor of
the Alaska State Dept. of Fish and
Game’s magazine “Alaska’s Wild-
life.” Today she continues to write
poetry and lives in Washington. The
experience of prison education has
affected her philosophy to this day.
What disturbs her most is the stigma
and lack of sympathy that society
in general holds towards prisoners.
“I spent a lot of time with the
prisoners, and I ate with the pris-
oners. And all I can tell you is that
prison is an unbelievably horrible
experience and once you hear those
metal gates close behind you, with
that clank, there’s just nothing re-
ally more horrifying; it means that
you’re simply cut-off from the
world. And it is interesting that
such a theme of loneliness runs
through these pieces of writing …I
really honor these prisoners who ac-
complished what they did under ex-
tremely difficult circumstances and
when you read through these pieces,
so many of them have to do with
loneliness and with self-loathing …
I know that if this journal had gone
on, some of these writers would
have become very accomplished.”
Since the shutdown of the Uni-
versity Within Walls program in
1982, the renamed Lemon Creek
Correctional Center has not seen
the reestablishment of a secondary-
education program within their
walls. None of the employees of
the U.W.W. program currently
work there today, and only menial
prison education is available to in-
mates now; these include Adult
Basic Education, a GED course,
Money Management and College
Preparation, and a few art classes,
including a Native art class. There
are no literature courses available,
and none of the current cours-
es are eligible for college credit.
Interest in prison literature
continues to flourish at UAS. In
the coming fall term English pro-
fessor Sol Neely will be teaching
an upper division course titled
“Fugitive Thought: Literature and
Philosophy Born of the Prison.”
I am inspired to discover that my
university was once so involved in
helping inmates find their creative
outlet through writing. The rem-
nants of the U.W.W. program in
the form of the Lemon Creek Gold
journals remain to this day as arti-
facts that reveal what open-minded
educators can accomplish given the
opportunity and the resources. Un-
derneath the rough jacket cover of
the Lemon Creek Gold journals, the
legacy of Sheila Nickerson and her
colleagues’ tireless efforts lives on.
Daniel Peterson is a radio journal-
ist for KTOO News 104.3FM and
a student at the University of Alask
Southeast currently pursuing a degree
in English, slated to graduate at the
end of the coming Fall 2012 semester.