About

Our Mission

The mission of the CSU Project Rebound Consortium is to support the higher education and successful reintegration of the formerly incarcerated through the mentorship and living example
of other formerly incarcerated students, graduates, faculty, and staff. Project Rebound constructs a life-affirming alternative to the revolving door policies of mass incarceration by making higher education more accessible and supportive of formerly incarcerated students so that they can acquire the knowledge and skills of a university education, enhance their capacity for civic engagement and community leadership, secure meaningful and gratifying employment,
empower themselves and their families, and ultimately make stronger, safer communities.

Vision

We envision a just and equitable world in which all people, including those with an incarceration experience, have access to high-quality higher education and comprehensive student support services that foster achievement, transformation, empowerment,
social responsibility, and flourishing. 

Guiding Values:

1. The Intrinsic Value of Persons. We believe that every person has inherent value and holds the power of possibility and transformation within them.
2. Equitable Access to Education. We believe that access to meaningful, high-quality, face-to-face higher education is fundamental to breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty, abuse, addiction, unemployment, and confinement.
3. Formerly Incarcerated Leadership. We believe that the integration, education, and leadership of formerly incarcerated people are essential to the work of creating solutions to the social crisis of mass incarceration.
4. Education as Public Safety. We believe that meaningful, high-quality higher education ultimately makes stronger, safer communities; we believe that public resources are better invested in education and other opportunities for transformation than prisons and punishment.
5. Civic Engagement. We believe that community engagement is at once a right, a responsibility, and a means of empowerment; we aim to inspire all Rebound Scholars to be informed and engaged civic agents.

Our History

In 1952, John Irwin (1929-2010) robbed a gas station and served a five-year prison term for armed robbery in Soledad Prison. During his time in prison, he earned 24 college credits through a university extension program. After his release from prison, Irwin earned a B.A. from UCLA, a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and then served as a Professor of Sociology and Criminology at San Francisco State University for 27 years, during which he became known internationally as an expert on the U.S. prison system.

In 1967, Irwin created Project Rebound as a way to matriculate people into San Francisco State University directly from the criminal justice system. Since the program’s inception, hundreds of formerly incarcerated people have obtained bachelor’s degrees and beyond.

In 2016, with the support of the Opportunity Institute and the CSU Chancellor’s Office, Project Rebound expanded beyond San Francisco State into a consortium of nine CSU campus programs. The CSU Project Rebound Consortium is now a state- and grant-funded network of programs operating at CSU campuses in Bakersfield, Fresno, Fullerton, Los Angeles, Pomona, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, and San Francisco. Since 2016, Project Rebound students system-wide have earned an overall grade point average of 3.0, have a zero percent recidivism rate, and 87% of graduates have secured full-time employment or admission to postgraduate programs.

At CSUN, prior to becoming Project Rebound, led by Lily Gonzalez and Johnny Czifra, both formerly incarcerated, students engaged in a grassroots effort to develop a campus support system. Their efforts resulted in the establishment of Revolutionary Scholars, a student organization dedicated to creating alternatives to criminalization and incarceration, and Revolutionary Scholars Project, the precursor to Project Rebound at CSUN. Professors Marta Lopez-Garza and Martha Escobar served as the faculty advisers for the Revolutionary Scholars Project.