Center for Community Alternatives
Rubenstein will mobilize educators, advocates, researchers, and students to reform the State University of New York’s admissions policies that impose significant barriers to higher education for people with criminal records.
Rubenstein is a leading voice on higher education for people with criminal records. She is the founder of the College Initiative, a reentry education program for men and women who are formerly incarcerated, on probation, or participating in alternative to incarceration programs. She served as academic coordinator for College Bound Programs run out of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a women’s maximum security prison. From 1983 to 1996, she was the coordinator for Special Academic Programs at Marist College, where she oversaw post-secondary programs in correctional settings. Rubenstein also has extensive experience with education-related media, having served as the producer for several documentaries, including Re-Imagining the Future: From Prison to College and The Last Graduation, which aired on PBS stations throughout the U.S. She holds a degree in anthropology from Columbia University.