One of America’s top community colleges spurs economic prosperity, educates local prison inmates — and serves wine at its lectures

Walla Walla Community College is located on a 100-acre campus in the Pacific Northwest. And several of those acres have been devoted to an unusual college education program: wine making. 

The Washington state college’s enology and viticulture program has built an impressive wine industry practically in its back yard. Students learn to grow, harvest, bottle and taste their own wines.

“One of the things I love about this program is that over half our lectures involve glasses of wine in front of us, which we smell, sip, spit, analyze and talk about endlessly,” says one Walla Walla student named Alex. 

The Washington State community college is doing more than educating future wine connoisseurs, however. Their enology and viticulture program has contributed thousands of jobs to the local economy, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings. Impressive achievements for a public college in a rural city.

“Our vision was to provide education and training on how to grow the best wine grapes and make the best wine in the world. We have helped transform an economy by creating over 6,000 jobs and over $300,000 in earned income in a rural area and made Walla Walla a destination,” says school President Dr. Steven VanAusdle.

But not content with growing grapes, the school has taken on one of the toughest student populations in town. Walla Walla educates prisoners at the Washington State Penitentiary and Coyote Ridge Correctional Center. Inmates learn trades with have plenty of demand for workers, like auto repair or HVAC maintenance. By teaching them marketable skills and workplace behaviors, the school gives them a fighting chance at a job, once they’re released. All of which means there’s less chance they will end up back in prison.

“We’re experiencing extraordinary success right now with inmates that have gone through workforce programs,” Van Ausdle says. “We now educate about 1600 inmates each year, at two of the largest facilities in the state. That represents nearly 40 percent of the prison population in Washington state.”

Many at Walla Walla believe that, by focusing on students with a criminal background, they're helping make their community a better place.  

“I mean you can’t put a price on these guys’ education, because you’ll never know how much it impacted them and their family and their kids that aren’t even born yet,” says one Walla Walla instructor “Just having that impact and by just doing my job, I’m able to benefit from their benefit, in more ways than one.”

This story first aired as an interview on PRI's The Takeaway, a public radio program that invites you to be part of the American conversation.