In this episode, we hear from two recent UC Irvine students, Babak Gilani and Alphonso Mata. Both men are graduates of the UCI LIFTED program, each graduating with honors in Sociology. The acronym, "LIFTED", stands for Leveraging Inspiring Futures Through Educational Degrees. And it's the first in-prison B.A. degree completion program in the University of California system. Piloted at UCI, LIFTED enables incarcerated individuals to apply to transfer into UCI as juniors and earn a bachelor's degree from UCI while serving their sentence.
The podcast is produced, recorded, and mixed by Frank Harrison, co-produced by Matthew Sichler, with additional production by Collin Smith.