Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

Exciting Happenings: Sister Helen Prejean and Inside-Out!

Katie D.

January 10, 2010 - 4:46 PM

It has been a seriously eventful first week.

I'll go into classes and other activities in a later blog. For now, I want to invite you to two events I have been throwing serious effort and enthusiasm behind.

First, Sister Helen Prejean, anti-death penalty activist, author, and spiritual advisor Sister Helen Prejean will be visiting campus January 24th -27th. Please attend her public event at 7:00 on Monday, January 25th in Law School room 175 for her talk entitled "Inalienable Human Rights Today." Her visit is sponsored by the Savage Endowment on International Relations and Peace, and is a part of a speaker series entitled "Human Rights in Question."

Sister Helen has been active in capital punishment debates since she served as a spiritual advisor to a Death Row inmate in the early 1980's. Since then, she has been active in ministry and advocacy for the rights of incarcerated individuals, and for the abolishment of the death penalty. She has written two books about her experiences: Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents. She views her activism as an essential piece of her faith life and ministry, and writes about being a nun and what this means as an obligation to serving the marginalized populations among us, and to battle against injustice.

In a related event, the public is invited to join University Housing and the Clark Honors College for a screening of the movie adaptation of Dead Man Walking on January 21st in the Living Learning Center Room 101 at 7:00 pm. Before the movie, there will also be a presentation by Professor William Long, death penalty scholar and author, who specializes in the death penalty in Oregon.

Sister Helen will also spend her time at the UO visiting classes relevant to her work, and speaking with members of the campus and community who are involved in peacemaking and social justice work. Her presence here is an honor and an opportunity to expand the UO's participation in activism on the issue of justice for incarcerated individuals and the larger question of state-sponsored killing.

(A note of explanation)
I'm writing about this event, as well as the following presentation, in such detail because I have been heavily involved in the planning and arranging of Sister Helen's visit. Because of my internship with the Inside-Out Program, I have become involved with the Savage Endowment and with the larger group of campus peacemakers. For the past month and more I have been working closely with faculty leadership and a friend and fellow Inside-Out alum, Madeline, to arrange Sister Helen's schedule. So if you want to see evidence of student effort in action, please keep an eye on the Daily Emerald campus newspaper for articles written by the two of us. Also, come to the event: it's going to be fabulous.

On to the second event.

The University of Oregon and the Clark Honors College are becoming increasingly involved with the Inside-Out Program. Since I began my internship, we have made huge strides at expanding the program and working toward better research and evaluation. Because Eugene has become something of a "Hub" of Inside-Out activity, we are holding a regional meeting of Inside-Out instructors and stakeholders from around the Northwest region. These meetings will include networking for collaborative projects and research, coalition building, alumni organizing, and new instructor recruitment.

As part of this conference, Lori Pompa, the National Director of the Inside-Out Program will be joining us in Eugene. All interested faculty are encouraged to attend a public presentation of Inside-Out goals and history at 10:30 am on January 25th in the Clark Honors College library (Chapman Hall). This presentation will not only consist of a presentation by Lori Pompa, but will include local leaders and testimony by alumni of the program.

I am extremely excited about this event because it represents yet another piece of evidence that the University of Oregon is a vibrant center for informed action and scholarship. This conference is an important step forward for the Inside-Out Program, and represents an opportunity for new direction and potential.

I am also excited because I have been involved with the planning and implementation of both events, and because we are bringing Sister Helen and Inside-Out together for a conversation about collaborative opportunities and our common interests. So these two projects which have consumed a significant amount of my attention for the past weeks will come together in the Clark Honors College, my stomping grounds, for dialogue and plans for future action.

We have such fabulous opportunities to effect change. We are capable of entering into a national conversation with social justice activists on one hand, and the cause of radically equalizing education on the other. In two weeks, these topics will converge on the UO campus.

I hope you'll be there with me to see the change happen.