Nebraska Wesleyan University’s chapter of Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD), the international sociology honor society, received the society’s Social Justice Award, a grant designed to help AKD chapters implement meaningful initiatives related to social justice.
NWU's AKD chapter will use the grant to have NWU faculty and students teach a reentry skills course for inmates at the Lancaster County Jail, as part of the Department of Sociology and Criminology’s Prison Outreach Course (CRIM 3400). NWU's AKD chapter president, Susan Wortmann, professor of sociology, and Heba Khalil, assistant professor of sociology and criminology, will offer the course in Spring 2026.
Additionally, the chapter will host a workshop with community organizations, college partners and advocacy groups to coordinate efforts in advancing reentry support for the thousands of Nebraskans incarcerated in Lancaster County and across the state.
Past winners of the Social Justice Award have similarly involved students and community partners in high-impact projects that promoted implementable, sustainable ideas. For example, last year, Bowie State University’s AKD chapter launched “Brothers Behind Bars,” a publication written by incarcerated students.
“NWU’s AKD chapter joins an impressive list of past award winners who have launched creative social justice initiatives engaging students and communities,” Wortmann said.
When designing the reentry skills course, Wortmann and Khalil gathered feedback from inmates, who shared that they needed job skills to secure employment upon release.
“Their responses motivated us to adapt our existing course and to seek support to make this course possible,” Wortmann said.