Administration

I have always held administrative positions alongside my community work, teaching and research/scholarship. Prior to working in academia, I was director of a variety of departments within  human relations and civil rights organizations as well as community youth programs. Since 2009, in addition to teaching, I have been the Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement at Pitzer College and in that role I have been the director over the years of the Community Engagement Center, the Inside-Out Prison Education Program, the Office for Consortial Academic Collaboration, the Justice Education Center, and CASA (Critical Advocacy & Social Action community center and action research program), the last two which are my primary directorships at present.

CASA (Critical Action and Social Advocacy)

Tessa has taught the core courses of the CASA community-based, participatory action research program, CASA, since she began at Pitzer in 2006. She was appointed to the position of CASA (Critical Action and Social Advocacy) in July 2018, which she continues to today.

CASA Pitzer MISSION

CASA Pitzer advances critical analysis and community partnerships around the most pressing issues in Southern California’s Inland Valley. The CASA Pitzer community center (a large community space in downtown Ontario) brings local residents, organizers, activists, artists, and nonprofits together with Pitzer College faculty and students to build community and enact change. The CASA Pitzer academic program (a two-course community engagement and research program) facilitates student internships and community-based participatory research on issues of regional equity and justice pertaining to incarceration, immigration, education, environment, labor, art, culture, and health.

CASA Pitzer GOALS

  • Work collaboratively with community partners on research, service, organizing, and action projects that confront injustice and work toward justice, equity, rights, wellbeing, and community building.
  • Ensure work is responsive and accountable to the community, makes a positive impact, achieves long- and short-term goals, and generates meaningful community-building for all involved. 
  • Provide critical pedagogy-based teaching about self, other, social problems, social movements, and effective methods for social impact. 
  • Support, mentor, and critically teach our students, while respecting and learning from their knowledge and experiences. 
  • Create a space that is inclusive, welcoming, and supportive for community building, justice work, participatory action research, and personal and organizational development.

Justice Education Center and the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

In 2014, Tessa taught the first Inside-Out Prison Exchange course from the Claremont Colleges and went on to grow this effort into a Pitzer College program, and soon after a Claremont Colleges’s initiative and the Justice Education Center that it is today. She returned to a leadership post to direct the center in January, 2026.

Justice Education Center Mission

The Justice Education Center at the Claremont Colleges provides transformative educational pathways, policy advocacy, and reintegration support for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and non-incarcerated students. Through the Inside-Out model, interdisciplinary curriculum, arts/humanities programming, and community partnerships, the Center challenges racial injustice, reduces recidivism, increases awareness of mass incarceration’s impacts, and promotes human dignity across all backgrounds. The Center cultivates ethical growth while creating replicable models for higher education in prisons and reintegrating formerly incarcerated individuals into society.

Justice Education Center Goals

  • Support Claremont College students and incarcerated and formerly incarcerated college students engaged with justice education through classes and community-based programs related to the criminal justice system.
  • Grow Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program courses opportunities at more regional carceral and re-entry institutions
  • Develop an intercollegiate academic program (minor and major) for justice education
  • Host Lecture Series and Research workshops and white papers that advance justice education, abolition, community engagement, coalition-building and mutual aid
  • Reintegration and Reentry Support for justice-impacted individuals
  • Advocacy and Public policy reform of California’s criminal justice system

Justice Education Center Values and Aims

EDUCATE students on issues related to the criminal justice system and prison education through on-campus as well as semester-long, credit-bearing courses in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program.
UNDERSTAND the historical, political, and socioeconomic context of mass incarceration, as well as its deleterious impacts on the families and communities it affects.
CONNECT issues related to the criminal justice system and prison education through workshops, lecture series, film series, and art exhibits at The Claremont Colleges.
IMAGINE a world in which people’s needs are met, and harm is prevented by addressing injustice, inequity, and violence as root causes of incarceration; a world in which we work together toward justice and healing through restoration rather than punishment.
ACT decisively from an interdisciplinary framework to drive change in conversations, policies, and systems pertaining to mass incarceration.