The California State Prison Los Angeles County (CSP-LAC) in Lancaster, CA, has worked with Antelope Valley College (AVC, a California Community College) since roughly 2016 to offer inmates the opportunity to earn an associate degree for transfer (AA-T) in either Communications Studies or History through classes held inside the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Level III men’s prison. Successful students then have the possibility of pursuing a BA in Communication Studies through California State University (CSU), Los Angeles through additional classes held inside CSP-LAC.  

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many face-to-face classes to be suspended or shifted to a correspondence course model. Subsequently, CDCR began to offer selected students access to the Canvas Learning Management System and a select number of “white-listed” websites via desktops and student laptops. 

However, CSP-LAC had not offered any fully asynchronous online courses until summer 2025, when Physical Geology (lecture only, no lab) was taught by AVC faculty Aurora Burd to 24 inmates. 

This is the first time a fully asynchronous online course has been taught inside CSP-LAC, and thought to be one of the first times a fully online course has been taught inside a California State Prison. This course (fully transferable to both the University of California and CSU system and compatible with C-ID for GEOL 100) is a full-term course covering an introduction to the principles of geology, the internal structure and origin of the Earth and the processes that change and shape it. 

Offering the class required significant organizational effort, as the entire course had to be prepared in Canvas, then vetted by CDCR prior to the beginning of the term, with modifications from Dr. Burd’s typical fully online Physical Geology course (which has been listed on the California Community Colleges’ California Virtual Campus exchange since 2023 as a “quality reviewed” and “zero textbook cost” course), to bring the course into compliance with CDCR standards. 

Despite significant technical difficulties and logistical challenges, the students exhibit much greater engagement and more curiosity regarding the material.  

Final success and retention data will not be available until the end of the course (in August 2025) but will be assessed & summarized in comparison to Dr. Burd’s typical AVC Summer 2025 Physical Geology courses.