In many ways, it looked like any college graduation. There were balloons, flowers and squares of frosted marble cake. Rows of family and friends faced a lectern in the fluorescent-lit gymnasium.

But the uniformed guards patrolling the gym underscored that this was no ordinary commencement. It was the first of its kind to take place inside the East Moline Correctional Center, a minimum-security men’s prison on the Illinois-Iowa border about two and a half hours west of Chicago.

As the procession music played from a tabletop speaker, three students in caps and gowns marched up the aisle on Tuesday to become the first graduates of Augustana College to earn their bachelor’s degrees while serving prison sentences.

“This moment is causing a lot of mixed emotions,” said one incarcerated student, Brandon Johnson, addressing the room. “They say there’s no crying in prison, but I brought some tissue just in case.”

The Augustana Prison Education Program, or APEP, began full-time in the fall of 2021 and gained accreditation the following spring. It now has about 30 people enrolled. Students take college courses on everything from physics to poetry — but without access to the Internet and sometimes writing assignments by hand.

“It’s the same Augustana degree requirements, same professors, same rigor — in a prison,” said Sharon Varallo, the program’s executive director.

The first to graduate, David Staples, finished his degree on-campus last year after his release from prison in 2022. Now, he has been joined by four more graduates, including the three present at Tuesday’s ceremony: Jorge Herrejon, Brandon Johnson and Chris Allen.

“I’m so proud of him. He’s taken a bad situation and made the best of it,” said Jim Allen, Chris Allen’s father.

He said he drove three hours from central Illinois the previous night to see his son, who was locked up as a teenager, graduate from college.

There is high demand for educational programs in prison but very few opportunities. Incarcerated students describe their time in the classroom as transformative, and it helps many earn time off their sentences. But only about 600 of the more than 29,000 people in Illinois prisons are enrolled in higher education programs, according to the Education Justice Project at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Steven Cardenas, a first-year student locked up at East Moline, said it took three tries before he was accepted into APEP.

“It’s an opportunity that’s not given in a lot of different facilities and one that I jumped at immediately because it’s like I get to do something positive with my time,” he said.

Herrejon said he enrolled in college not just for himself but primarily to set an example for his younger siblings. His little brother attended the ceremony.

“I had to change, and they had to see that,” Herrejon said. “And I am proud to say that none of them have followed in the footsteps that I walked before I was incarcerated.”

Herrejon said he’s not sure what he’ll do with his degree once he’s released. He is 31 and has been incarcerated since he was 17.

“I do know that I wanted to be in service of people who are underprivileged, underrepresented…and teach them that there are options in life,” he said.

Lauren Frost is the lead producer of WBEZ’s Prisoncast!, a journalism project serving incarcerated Illinoisans and their loved ones. Listen at 2 p.m. June 15 on 91.5 FM, and go online to wbez.org/prisoncast.

LITTLE RIVER, S.C. — A 19-year-old has been taken into custody in Illinois and authorities said they plan to charge him in a shooting that hurt 11 people after a party boat cruise in South Carolina.

The shooting happened Sunday night on a dock in Little River after a fight on the boat during the three-hour cruise, Horry County Police said.

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The suspect is expected to be charged with several counts of attempted murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, and then officials will seek to extradite him from Lake County, Illinois, back to South Carolina, police said.

The investigation into the shooting continues and more people could be charged, authorities said.

Officials said 120 people partied on the boat over the holiday weekend and were leaving on the dock when the shooting happened. Ten people were wounded by gunfire, mostly on the lower parts of their body, and one person was hurt by a falling speaker, authorities said.

Investigators think only one person fired shots. They didn’t say what started the dispute on the boat and how it led to the shooting on the dock and also would not say what kind of weapon was used.

About 3 miles down the Intracoastal Waterway, a North Myrtle Beach police officer accidentally shot himself in the leg as he tried to get a boat into the water to respond to the shooting scene, officials said.

Little River is about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach. The fishing village is known for its docks and marinas where fishing expeditions, casino boats and several dolphin cruises leave daily.

The video in the player above is from an earlier report.

CHICAGO (WLS) — It’s estimated that some 280,000 Chinese students are currently enrolled in American universities. Thousands of them are in Chicago and across Illinois.

But, with little detail to go on regarding what might happen to their visa status, many are now questioning whether they will even be able to complete their studies.

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On the University of Chicago’s campus Thursday there was fear and consternation. Much of the university’s international student body is Chinese.

“I’m an atmospheric scientist. I just graduated and started my postdoc here in the Geophysical Sciences Department,” Jin Yan said.

Despite being in Chicago for over five years and in the process of applying for a green card, Yan is now unsure she will be allowed to remain, or even if she wants to.

It’s the same story for Zi Tian, who is in the midst of getting his Ph.D. in geophysical sciences.

It’s unclear if theirs are among the “critical fields” Secretary of State Marco Rubio was referring to Wednesday when he said in a social media post on X, “The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

“I’m just an individual, and I think my personal effort is not going to be able to fight against a government action like this,” Tian said.

During a press briefing Thursday, a State Department spokesperson called every visa adjudication a national security decision, saying, “I have no idea what the numbers will be. What I do know is that the people who are deemed to be a threat to the country or a problem now will be vetted again or looked at seriously, and Americans will be safer. That’s the story here.”

Grace Chan McKibben came to the United States 41 years ago as a student from Hong Kong.

Speaking in Chinatown Thursday, she expressed concern about singling out students solely for Communist Party membership.

“Folks that might want particular academic opportunities or employment opportunities might join the party. It may not specifically be related to their ideology,” said Chan McKibben, who is part of the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community.

Most of the state’s major universities did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which has one of the largest Chinese student bodies in the nation, with more than 6,000 currently enrolled, said they, like others, are really still trying to figure out what this all means and how to best support their students moving forward.