HIPs Case Study

Cory Rowe and Jill Kehoe

Professors of Criminal Justice

HIPs Practice Area: Service Learning and Community-Based Learning, First-Year Seminar, and HIPs Intersections

Curriculum with Consequence: High Impact Practices in Criminal Justice

“Everyone talks about creating bridges, pathways, pipelines,” Rowe said. “But this is the real thing. Built by students, based on lived experience, and it works.

Case Study

When Cory Rowe began teaching, she was handed a syllabus but no training on managing a classroom. So, she sought out the kind of education she hadn’t been given: visiting faculty across disciplines, studying learning communities, and watching closely for what worked. “I asked my students who their favorite faculty were,” she recalled, “and then I asked those faculty if I could sit in on their classes.” This spirit of observation, adaptation, and humility has shaped her work ever since.

Jill Kehoe approached the classroom from a different but equally powerful direction: as a student who had seen firsthand what not to do. “I was taught by some of the most brilliant minds… but had some of the worst classroom experiences ever,” she said of her undergraduate years. “I decided that I would run a classroom that reflected the student body… not the professor.” Together, Rowe and Kehoe are redefining high impact practices in LaGuardia’s Criminal Justice program by meeting students where they are, and sometimes where society has placed them.

Their work has been most transformational in a project-based learning initiative that brings LaGuardia students inside Rikers Island. Using the framework of LaGuardia’s First-Year Seminar, Rowe designed a course that mirrors LaGuardia’s, but is adapted for a correctional setting. The students in the course receive 3 college credits from the non-profit, College Way. Students from LaGuardia get hands-on project-based experience as they assist Rowe in teaching the course. They play the role of Student Success Mentors (SSMs), mentoring, coaching, and teaching the students in the course. 

This First-Year Seminar has its challenges, however. With no computers, students and SSMs create paper-based portfolios, instead of ePortfolios, to document a student’s journey through the course. Each semester, a cohort of student mentors, many from outside criminal justice and from countries including Albania, Trinidad, and Colombia, join Rowe inside Rikers to facilitate learning, encourage reflection, and model what a college path might look like.

“These students aren’t just observing,” Rowe said. “They’re teaching. They’re building community. They’re showing what’s possible.” The results have been compelling. “When it works,” she added, “students go off to John Jay, graduate with friends and networks… They say this is how I made my community.”

Kehoe emphasizes the flexibility needed to reach a diverse and complex student body. Her own courses shift depending on the moment, sometimes entirely rewritten in response to major events like the George Floyd protests. “I’ve structured classes around field trips, current events, even conferences that popped up mid-semester,” she explained. “HIPs are just things you have in your toolbox… You pull out what fits that group, that time.”

But the challenges are real. Both Rowe and Kehoe describe today’s students as “stultified post-pandemic,” noting an uptick in mental health struggles, disengagement, and conduct issues. “Group work used to be where students learned to correct each other,” Rowe reflected. “Now it’s much more complicated.” As a response, Rowe has implemented support circles in her classes, inviting staff from LaGuardia’s Safe Zone Hub to model safe, structured conversation early in the term.

When traditional HIPs falter, Rowe and Kehoe find alternatives. “We realized some students didn’t thrive in the classroom,” Kehoe noted, “so we started creating opportunities outside of it.” They now offer paid internships, service learning, and court support roles through partnerships with the Succeed, Observe, Achieve, and Rise, (SOAR) Experiential Learning Program. Students can contribute by writing letters, assisting with curriculum, or helping coordinate events, even if they choose not to enter Rikers.

The project’s impact is personal as well as academic. “We had a student who did an incredible research project on cannabis shops,” Rowe said. “He must have sat outside all day tracking traffic, but it was brilliant.” The goal, she explained, isn’t to spotlight only 4.0 students. “We want the neurodiverse students, the ELL students, the slackers, the stoners, they all should feel like they can participate and belong.”

Institutional support remains a persistent obstacle. Rowe’s success, in part, stems from Kehoe’s strong support and advocacy as program director. Programs like this need strong advocates who are able to navigate a complicated bureaucracy. While both Rowe and Kehoe praise individual champions like Provost Gastic Rosado and the Center for Career and Professional Development staff, they describe frustrating red tape, from printing booklets to securing MetroCards to inviting student mentors. “It’s demoralizing,” Kehoe admitted. “You’re doing this amazing work, but you’re being asked to justify every staple.”

Despite these barriers, the program has grown steadily. Alumni return to volunteer. Students gain confidence and clarity about their futures. And the structure of the Rikers’ course, now built around the same pedagogy as LaGuardia’s First-Year Seminar, has inspired plans for asynchronous versions and broader inclusion.

“Everyone talks about creating bridges, pathways, pipelines,” Rowe said. “But this is the real thing. Built by students, based on lived experience, and it works.”

Courses Targeting High Impact Practices

Other High Impact Practices Used

About

Cory Rowe has been Professor of Criminal Justice at LaGuardia for the past 11 years. She is the Lead Professor for College Way at Rikers Island, a program that brings CUNY students into jail for a college course on the inside.

Dr. Jill Kehoe is a tenured Associate Professor of Criminal Justice where she serves as the Director of the Criminal Justice Program. Dr. Kehoe aims to provide students with meaningful opportunities, both inside and outside the classroom, to explore the Criminal Justice discipline and diverse academic and professional pathways. Traditionally, her research has focused on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and different forms of violent crime. More recently, she has been inspired by the LaGuardia student body to add critical pedagogy and experiential learning themed research projects to her scholarship portfolio. Dr. Kehoe holds a BA in Psychology from Columbia University, an MA in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and an MA and PhD in Criminal Justice from Rutgers University – Newark.