The main draw for Shaun Libby when choosing MSU Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) and its Innovative Digital Education Alliance (IDEA) online youth development program to pursue his master’s degree was personal connection. When reaching out to universities, he didn’t imagine such a big school would feel so personal. Quickly after he requested information, Dr. Yuya Kiuchi, HDFS IDEA graduate director, reached out to set up a meeting.
“I'm an incarcerated student, so there are things that play a role in some of this stuff,” Libby remembered. “And for him to just say, ‘Let’s hop on a zoom and let's talk, figure things out and see what fits you best,’ -- that was something that really struck me. And from that first conversation, it just felt right and like there was no like judgment.”
Libby’s main goal was to complete a master’s degree in youth development, a goal that he successfully completed in summer 2025.
“I want the information and knowledge.” Libby said. “I will leave here one day in the not-too-distant future, and I want to be able to put this to work while I'm here. And after I'm gone, it didn't matter to me if it's a career or if I'm volunteering, it’s important to me to work with young people in similar situations that I found myself in.”
HDFS offers online master’s degrees and certificates through IDEA that address the need for advanced education in early childhood education, youth development and working with families. All classes are delivered online, and professors and students communicate through email, phone calls, Skype, Zoom and other technologies using an asynchronous format. Students take courses from MSU and from other universities in the network, but they have a home university with professors and an advisor.
“My advisor, Meagan Rau, has always been super helpful, super supportive!” Libby said. “My experiences with MSU and the other universities – and all the students and professors – everything has exceeded my expectations.”
“Shaun Libby is a unique individual,” said Dr. Franscisco Villarruel, a professor in the program. “He approached every course and discussion with openness, used the insights to build on his thoughts, applied them in his work with adjudicated youth, and successfully developed a curriculum to work with youth placed in secure detention facilities to build their capacity to be successful in life. Everything he did was based on learning, implementation, reflection, and adaptation to ensure the best outcomes for the youth that he has been mentoring.”
With the curriculum he co-developed, Libby created a mentorship program that connects youth who are incarcerated with adult mentors who are also incarcerated. He wanted to pay forward the mentorship he received when he first entered prison.
“It was because of other older prisoners who pulled me in and encouraged me to focus on the positives and find meaning in my life that I did not go down the wrong path early in my sentence,” he said. “Because of their encouragement, and the encouragement of my family, I have gone on to do many things that I can say I am extremely proud of.”
Some of the things Libby has done since his incarceration have been receiving his bachelor’s degree in the science of mental health and human services from the University of Maine at Augusta, becoming a certified literacy volunteer who has tutored many men and helped them achieve their GED/HiSET, becoming a certified recovery coach who has worked one-on-one with men struggling with addiction, becoming a peer mentor in the Intensive Mental Health Unit, training 18 shelter dogs for adoption, sitting on a Restorative Justice Steering Committee with other residents and prison staff working collaboratively to bring restorative practices to the prison environment, co-developing and facilitating a restorative justice basics course to other residents, volunteering in an advisory role to the Restorative Justice Project of Maine, facilitating a reentry course to residents preparing for release, and serving as an executive board member of the prison branch of the NAACP for many years. And as he pursued his master’s degree, Libby co-developed and began to co-facilitate a mentor-style program where incarcerated and previously incarcerated individuals work with incarcerated youth over Zoom.
“We developed the curriculum to begin as sessions that can also progress into one-on-one mentoring,” Libby explained. “We didn’t want youth forced into it, and we didn’t want to talk at them. We always have an agenda for our conversations, but we really try to center the time around youth voices and what they need to talk about.”
Libby went through multiple levels of reviews and approvals in order to launch his youth development program.
“For him to get this approved, he had to convince not only the commissioner but also state legislators that the policies in place that separate adults and youth could be amended so that he could work with these young people,” Dr. Villarruel explained.
Now that he has completed the master’s program, Libby will continue the youth mentorship program in addition to his full-time employment with a national nonprofit called Jobs for the Future that began as an internship during his master’s.
He is grateful for all the doors that were opened because of the master’s program.
“I would encourage anybody to go through this program,” he said. “I took so much from it on an educational level, but also from a personal level. I feel like it's done so much for me, even just my confidence as a student, as a mentor. I think a lot of people deal with imposter syndrome, but I feel like incarcerated people, there’s also this level of – ‘Do I belong here?’ But it helped that I got in on my own merit, getting the feedback and support and just like the conversations with people across the board, from Michigan State to other universities-- I ended up feeling like I really belonged, and my work lived up to expectations.”
To learn more about HDFS online graduate degrees and certificates, visit https://hdfs.msu.edu/academics/graduate/online.