Open Minds courses have been specially designed by VCU faculty to empower the incarcerated and the free, using our differences—in race, ethnicity, gender, class, education and experience—as catalysts for compassionate and critical thought. Realizing that no single academic discipline is fully equipped to articulate the many social problems associated with crime and incarceration, the program takes an interdisciplinary approach, offering a range of courses in the liberal arts, while emphasizing dialogue-based and writing-intensive work throughout the program.