He was an inmate. Now he's a Ph.D., and he wants to pay it forward.
Want to rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners into society? Offer them education.
For many former convicts, punishment extends far beyond the time they spent in prison.
A National Institute of Justice study found that 60-75% of individuals are unable to find work within the first year of being released from prison. With increased unemployment comes increased chances that they will return to their previous habits, winding up back in prison, and continuing a disturbing cycle.
Photo by Douglas Grundy/Three Lions/Getty Images.
Daniel Geiter knows this struggle firsthand.
In the 1980s and '90s, Geiter found himself spending years at a time in and out of prison for what he describes as "petty-theft-type crimes." He served his time, and, in 1999, set out to get his life back on track — but first, he needed a job.
"You have to background check to get a McDonald's job in Chicago, and there's no landlord in Chicago that doesn't background-check you," Geiter told Upworthy about some of his initial struggles. "In most of those instances, they discriminate against anyone having maybe an arrest, but definitely a conviction on their record."
Photo courtesy of Daniel Geiter. Used with permission.
While Geiter eventually found jobs, it wasn't until he went back to school and earned a degree that he found success and normalcy.
Geiter found that once he attained a college education — he now holds four degrees, including a doctorate in education — he was able to overcome some of the obstacles that kept him unemployed and on the verge of returning to prison.
Photo courtesy of Daniel Geiter. Used with permission.
Now, Geiter wants to provide others in similar situations with the tools they need to stay out of prison. His solution is Ward College, which opens this fall in Chicago.
Ward College has come to exist in part because of Geiter's belief that Illinois is doing a poor job of offering prisoners resources to help get them back on their feet after leaving. While the Illinois Department of Corrections offers some educational opportunities, he believes they can do much more, all while saving some money.
"Our goal is to change the understanding of life after incarceration, because it should be life after incarceration. It shouldn't be a lifetime of incarceration." — Daniel Geiter
Ward College is made up of educators, administrators, and community members that Geiter gathered together.
"My challenge to them and my hypothesis that I presented to them was that if others had the support and the mentorship that I had, then they can be just as successful, if not more than I was."
Photo courtesy of Daniel Geiter. Used with permission.
There's no escaping his criminal past, so Geiter has come to embrace it while showing he can overcome it.
Last year, he put on an orange jumpsuit, laced up his shoes, and set off to walk from Chicago to Springfield (nearly 200 miles) to protest how little the prison system does to actually rehabilitate and reintegrate former inmates back into society.
"My life is eternally wearing that orange jumpsuit," he explained. "As soon as someone does a background check on me, that's how they view me. It doesn't matter what I've accomplished. Our goal is to change the understanding of life after incarceration, because it should be life after incarceration. It shouldn't be a lifetime of incarceration."
Photo courtesy of Daniel Geiter. Used with permission.
"95% of everyone that goes to jail is going to be released," he said, making the case for more programs aimed at rehabilitating offenders.
If all goes according to plan, by this time next year, Geiter will have data about the effect programs like Ward College have on prison recidivism rates.
He hopes the state of Illinois takes notice and begins modeling its own education programs after Ward College.
Until then, he's willing to carry that load as best as he can.






A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
A man with tape over his mouth.via
A husband is angry with his wife. via 
a man sitting at a desk with his head on his arms Photo by
Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
Two women engaging in a pleasant conversation inside a coffee shop
Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.