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Professor Imparts Value of Collegiate Recovery Services at Congressional Briefing
More than 48 million Americans report that they have experienced challenges with drugs or alcohol within the past year. As overdose deaths appear to be rising again after a short-lived decline in 2024, improving and expanding recovery services that help people avoid relapsing remains a public health priority. Noel Vest, assistant professor of community... More
College Shouldn’t Be a Relapse Risk
For many students in addiction recovery, college is not just about education—it is about survival. The transition to higher education presents immense challenges for students recovering from substance use disorders (SUDs), as campus cultures often normalize drinking and drug use while offering limited support for those seeking to maintain sobriety... More
Elevated Suicide Risk Post-Incarceration Demands a Response Rooted in ‘Equity, Justice, and Human Dignity’
Leaving incarceration presents a unique set of challenges to individuals as they resume their lives in the general community. Persistent barriers to healthcare, stable housing, employment, and social support are often accompanied by the longstanding stigmas associated with serving time in prison. A recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found another... More
Few College Students Know How to Administer Naloxone
A majority of young adults are willing to come to the aid of someone experiencing an overdose, but few of them know how to administer naloxone, according to a new study by School of Public Health researchers. Published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, the study examined opioid overdose knowledge among college students... More
BU Marks 50 Years of Changing Lives behind Bars
Community organizer and poet Elizabeth Barker was an untenured instructor at Boston University in the early 1970s when she brought a group of BU students to the medium-security prison MCI Norfolk to compete against men who had created their own version of the popular College Bowl quiz show on radio and TV... More
Formerly Incarcerated Students Work More Hours, Have More Severe Substance Use Disorder
For formerly incarcerated adults, a college education can lead to well-paying jobs that provide stability and reduce chances of recidivism. As more than half of incarcerated adults also experience substance use disorder, research is needed to fill a dearth in knowledge about the unique challenges and needs of formerly incarcerated students in recovery... More
Locked Up in More Ways Than One
By Noel Vest Published December 23, 2023 “You’re gonna have to overdose to get treatment in here.” Though I had remained clean for two years in the county jail while awaiting trial, I was informed that overdose was the only option I had to obtain the lifesaving treatment I needed when I arrived... More
‘I’d Love to See BU Become a National Leader in College-in-Prison Programming and Collegiate Recovery’
In third grade, Noel Vest took a test to get into his school’s gifted program, but fell short of qualifying. That setback shattered Vest’s confidence and self-esteem, and his ambitious attitude dissolved into personal and academic apathy throughout the rest of his childhood. What eight-year-old Vest didn’t know at the time was that he would go on to develop many... More
Meet the scientists building a prison-to-STEM pipeline
New programs aim to help formerly incarcerated people enter careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. By Christina Couch Originally published on PBS. In a Missouri courtroom in 2008, Stanley Andrisse realized that he wasn’t seen as human. The case being fought that day centered around a drug trafficking charge—Andrisse’s third felony... More
Congress should lift the ban on Pell Grants to help people in prison get a second chance
By Noel Vest Published December 9, 2020 I entered the prison system at a time in my life when it felt like everything was against me. After a series of difficult events that took over my life, I turned to drugs and alcohol as a way to escape, landing me a lengthy... More