Music professor Mark Katz receives 2025 Harvey Award
His Carolina Prison Music Initiative supports incarcerated individuals’ rehabilitation and re-entry into society.
Mark Katz, John P. Barker Distinguished Professor of Music in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, received the 2025 Harvey Award for his innovative and community-engaged project, the Carolina Prison Music Initiative. The Harvey Award, presented by the Carolina Center for Public Service, provides $100,000 over a two-year period.
Katz, who is also the founding director of the Next Level Cultural Diplomacy Program, uses the power of music in this new project to support the rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals across North Carolina.
Developed in close collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction, as well as currently and formerly incarcerated people, CPMI offers music instruction, performance opportunities and training in music-related skills. The program not only fosters creative expression and pro-social behavior within correctional facilities, but it also works to equip participants with valuable skills to support successful re-entry into society.
The program’s full launch begins this fall with two courses, Introduction to Music and Songwriting, which will culminate in public performances.
Re-entry activities will include career coaching to develop entrepreneurial and networking skills, provide access to recording studios and craft individualized action plans for participants. Guest artists and speakers will supplement rehabilitative and re-entry activities.
CPMI stands out for its bold, collaborative approach, bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders, including prison staff, volunteers, musicians, faith leaders and members of the Carolina community. With its emphasis on dignity, creativity and equal partnership, CPMI aims to humanize and empower prison-impacted individuals, while also promoting social cohesion, lowering recidivism rates and improving public safety and understanding.
“The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction is committed to developing and offering a wide array of rehabilitative opportunities for those incarcerated in our state, and we are excited and grateful to partner with the Carolina Prison Music Initiative to open doors to the transformative power of music within our institutions,” said Charles Mautz, NCDAC director of rehabilitation services.
Katz’s award recognizes not only the academic excellence of the proposal but also its real-world impact and potential to transform lives across the state.
“Through CPMI, we aim to connect the resources of UNC with the creativity and resilience of people impacted by incarceration,” Katz said. “Receiving the Harvey Award affirms the importance of this work and the value of building bridges between the University and the community.”
Proposals for the 2026 Harvey Award are due by Jan.12, 2026, and may be submitted via the Carolina Center for Public Service application portal.
C. Felix Harvey III ’43 and his family endowed the C. Felix Harvey Award to Advance Institutional Priorities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In creating this award, the family fulfilled its longstanding mission of social service and intended to recognize exemplary faculty who reflect the University’s commitment to innovative engagement and outreach for the benefit of communities on a local and statewide level.
The family gift has been groundbreaking from its inception, funding projects in the humanities and social sciences that take exemplary faculty scholarship and move it out into the community to address real-world challenges. The award takes a model of scholarly engagement and outreach that is familiar in business and science and extends it to disciplines that have not been encouraged to grow or reach out in the same ways. Central to the family’s mission is support for the University’s commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation.
