Grey LaJoie, recent MFA graduate and Prison Arts and Education Fellow, won Outstanding Teaching by a Master’s Student in Spring 2022.

LaJoie attributes their success in teaching to their influential instructor in community college: “Yesho Atil provided a model for me and saw what I was capable of becoming, and invited me to step into it, to try it on. She ‘loved me into being,’ as Mister Rogers would say.”

LaJoie’s mission as a teacher is to allow students to find their strengths and to show them that they are worthy and capable of using their voices. LaJoie also credits Atil’s teaching model for their success with the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project: “Once you’ve been given the gift of education, the gift wants again to be given.” Grey’s Outstanding Teaching Award shows that they are successfully sharing their gift.

LaJoie is now focused on their PhD program at the University of Utah and continuing with a prison higher education program. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

 

–Amanda Snyder