About Us

Mission

The CSU Project Rebound Consortium's mission is to empower formerly incarcerated individuals through higher education and successful reintegration. By providing mentorship and support from other formerly incarcerated students, graduates, faculty, and staff, Project Rebound offers a life-affirming alternative to mass incarceration's revolving door policies. We strive to make higher education accessible and supportive for these students, equipping them with knowledge and skills, fostering civic engagement and community leadership, securing meaningful employment, and empowering themselves and their families. Ultimately, our goal is to contribute to the creation of stronger and safer communities.

Vision

We envision a just and equitable work 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

Inherent Value of Persons: We believe every individual holds inherent value and has the potential for positive change and transformation.

  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.

College of Social Sciences

Project Rebound is housed in the College of Social Sciences. The College of Social Sciences (CoSS) creates inclusive learning environments that emphasize academic excellence, innovative research, and theory-informed practice. Students critically engage with complex social problems, generate dynamic solutions, and develop leadership skills to transform our communities and future world. CoSS faculty and students conduct cutting-edge research that advances understanding of the social, cultural, economic, psychological, and environmental dimensions of human behavior. Through our teaching, research, and collaboration, we advance solutions to society’s challenges in San José, Silicon Valley, the Bay Area, and the world.