Death Penalty Foe Sister Helen Prejean Donates Her Personal Archives to DePaul University
Sister Helen Prejean, the crusading New Orleans nun and a leading national voice for abolishing capital punishment, announced Feb. 9 that she is donating her personal archives to DePaul University.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Sister Helen Prejean, the crusading New Orleans nun and a leading national voice for abolishing capital punishment, announced Feb. 9 that she is donating her personal archives to DePaul University.
Her archives include personal journals, notes from meetings, letters, speeches and other artifacts spanning a period of 30 years. The papers include her personal correspondence and manuscripts for her books “The Death of Innocents” and “Dead Man Walking”— the latter a best-selling account of Prejean’s spiritual relationship with a Louisiana death-row inmate that was the basis of an Oscar-winning 1996 film.
At a news conference, Prejean said she has written Gov. Pat Quinn urging him to sign a bill recently passed by the Illinois Legislature to abolish the death penalty. “I have a quiet kind of confidence that he will not go against the Illinois Legislature’s wave of moral integrity.” She noted that Illinois is among seven states that have recently passed or are poised to pass bills banning capital punishment. None of them, however, are in the Deep South, where 80 percent of state-sanctioned executions take place, she said.
She said DePaul’s Special Archives and Collections will be a great fit for her papers. Prejean, 71, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, said nuns owe St. Vincent de Paul, the university’s patron and the apostle of charity, a debt of gratitude. “St. Vincent de Paul found a way to get the nuns out of the convent and into the streets to serve the poor. He did that in 1610 and paved the way for other religious orders.”
The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., DePaul’s president, who introduced her at the news conference described Prejean as “a leading light in the fight for social justice across a wide spectrum of issues, especially the movement to end capital punishment in the United States. We are deeply honored that she has chosen DePaul to preserve the records of her life’s work. We are committed to making certain that her papers will long serve as an important and accessible research tool for scholars and others interested in fighting for the rights of the condemned.”
After receiving requests from a number of other universities, Prejean said today that she also chose DePaul to archive her records in part because of DePaul’s long commitment to social justice issues. DePaul’s College of Law is home to the Center for Justice in Capital Cases ( CJCC ), headed by Andrea Lyon, professor of law and one of the nation’s leading death-penalty attorneys.
The Prejean archive will benefit DePaul College of Law students participating in the clinical program associated with the CJCC. The clinic provides students a yearlong opportunity to study the complexities of this increasingly controversial form of punishment, to work on trial and post-conviction capital cases, and to examine the impact of capital punishment on society.
A criminal defense attorney, Lyon has spent decades representing numerous defendants in capital cases. Lyon’s work was a key factor in the decision to select DePaul as the site of a 2003 announcement by then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan that he was pardoning four men who had spent years on death row.
“I am grateful for this day, and I am grateful to Susanne Dumbleton,” said Prejean. She noted that Dumbleton, a DePaul professor and former dean of DePaul’s School for New Learning, suggested that she house her collection at DePaul. Dumbleton noticed the collection during a visit to Prejean’s residence in New Orleans while working on a book about three extraordinary women crusaders for social justice, including Prejean.
Dumbleton alerted the Rev. Edward R. Udovic, C.M., secretary of DePaul University and senior executive for University Mission, to Prejean’s interest in exploring DePaul as a possible site to house her archive. Father Udovic represented the university in the negotiations with Prejean and her religious order that led to the donation of her personal papers to the university.
“DePaul’s archives on social justice movements rooted in the Catholic religious tradition are rapidly evolving into a world-class resource,” said Udovic. “The addition of Sister Helen’s papers greatly enhances the breadth and depth of DePaul’s collection.” He noted that the collection already includes a broad array of social justice-related materials, including the Berrigan-McAlister collection, which gives insights into the history of the Catholic peace movement led by activists the late Phillip Berrigan, a former Catholic priest, his wife Elizabeth McAlister and his brother Daniel Berrigan, S.J.; and an important collection of historic materials on Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador.
About DePaul
With more than 25,000 students, DePaul University is the largest Catholic university in the United States and the eighth-largest private, nonprofit university in the nation. DePaul offers approximately 275 graduate and undergraduate programs of study on two Chicago campuses and four suburban campuses and at several international locations. Founded in 1898, DePaul remains committed to providing a quality education through personal attention to students from a wide range of backgrounds. For more information, visit www.depaul.edu.
How the Prejean Papers at DePaul University Will Benefit the Anti-Death Penalty Movement
1. ) What specifically is included in Prejean’s archives?
A. DePaul has received approximately 50 boxes of materials from Prejean, which will constitute the archive. Known officially as “The Prejean Papers,” it includes personal journals, correspondence and manuscripts of her books “The Death of Innocents” and “Dead Man Walking.” The latter served as the basis of the 1996 film of the same name that focused on Prejean’s spiritual relationship with a Louisiana death-row inmate.
The archive also includes video, correspondence with death-row prisoners, correspondence to Pope John Paul II and various governors and other public officials, as well as other papers associated with the film and her work. In addition, there are personal papers, music and other documents associated with the opera “Dead Man Walking,” and correspondence, posters, photos and other materials from the stage play “Dead Man Walking—The Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project.” There are also awards and honorary degrees received by Prejean, television interviews and recordings, and movie posters and memorabilia, including some of the costumes worn by actors in the film.
2. ) What will be done by DePaul to preserve and protect these archives?
A. DePaul archivists, who received the materials in late 2010, are working to catalog the collection and ensure that the materials are preserved for generations to come. Access will be provided once the collection is fully processed, later this year.
3. ) What can students or researchers learn by studying the archive?
A. A wide variety of students, researchers and anti-death penalty advocates will learn about Prejean’s commitment to the anti-death penalty cause and how her work evolved from the pastoral to the political. The papers would likely be of interest to those studying law, social activism, communications and even literature. The archive also lends insight into how the book “Dead Man Walking” evolved into a film, stage play and opera.
4. ) Who will be allowed to access Prejean’s archives?
A. As with all collections held at DePaul, The Prejean Papers will be open to the public once the collection is completely inventoried, indexed and preserved. The papers are subject to the same user guidelines for all materials in Special Collections and Archives. Nothing in Prejean’s archive will circulate because of the unique nature of the materials, but reproduction services will be available. By fall 2011, DePaul students taking certain classes on social justice or death-penalty issues will be introduced to the archive.
About DePaul University’s Mission, Special Collections and Legal Support for the Condemned
About DePaul’s Special Collections
DePaul’s Special Collections and Archives hold research and primary source materials that support teaching and research at DePaul. These resources include 30,000 volumes of special collections and rare books; 3,000 linear feet of archive material about DePaul as well as the papers of many Chicago community organizations; and a Vincentian collection that highlights materials relevant to the history of the Congregation of the Mission, the religious community that sponsors DePaul University.
The Prejean Papers include nearly 50 shelf feet of material and span30 years, from the early 1980s to the present, of personal journals, manuscripts, correspondence, awards and other records documenting the extraordinary life and work of Sister Helen.
The Prejean Papers will significantly enhance DePaul University’s Special Collections and Archives, which already include a wide array of social justice-related materials; the Berrigan-McAlister collection, which represents the history of the 20th-century Catholic peace movement led by activists the late Phillip Berrigan, a former Catholic priest, his wife Elizabeth McAlister, and his brother the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.; and an important collection of historic materials on Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador.
DePaul welcomes scholars from around the world to use its archives and special collections in order to bolster research that deepens the understanding of social justice issues. DePaul’s Midwestern location provides researchers with easy access to its important and historic collections.
About DePaul’s Center for Justice in Capital Cases
The Prejean Papers will be especially beneficial to the DePaul College of Law’s Center for Justice in Capital Cases ( CJCC ), headed by Professor Andrea Lyon. The center is a resource for capital defense attorneys nationwide. Founded in 2000, the center provides training for attorneys representing individuals charged with capital crimes and serves as a training ground for students interested in working on capital cases.
The center’s death penalty legal clinic gives students an opportunity to acquire significant real-world experience through responsibilities such as researching cases, locating and interviewing witnesses, and writing motions. In addition to providing continuing legal education for attorneys, the center provides students with hands-on experience in death-penalty cases.
DePaul hosted then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan’s Jan. 10, 2003, announcement of pardons for four prisoners awaiting execution and for two other men before an international audience at DePaul University’s College of Law. One of the death row inmates, Madison Hobley, was represented by Professor Lyon and DePaul law alumnus Kurt Feuer. Hobley’s appeals were aided by a team of DePaul law students. The event was hosted by the CJCC, which represented Hobley. Lyon, who founded the CJCC, fought for Hobley’s freedom for more than a decade.
About DePaul’s Social Mission
The university is named for and derives its fundamental mission from St. Vincent de Paul, founder of the Congregation of the Mission, who taught about God’s love by leading his contemporaries in serving urgent human needs.
As the nation’s largest Catholic university, DePaul prepares its students to be ethically and socially engaged leaders in their chosen fields. Its faculty and staff forge global, national and local educational partnerships to influence key social justice issues.
DePaul emphasizes the development of a full range of human capabilities for its students and an appreciation of higher education as a means to engage cultural, social, religious and ethical values in service to others.
Death Penalty Foe Sister Helen Prejean Donates Her Personal Archives to DePaul University
Sister Helen Prejean, the crusading New Orleans nun and a leading national voice for abolishing capital punishment, announced Feb. 9 that she is donating her personal archives to DePaul University.
Her archives include personal journals, notes from meetings, letters, speeches and other artifacts spanning a period of 30 years. The papers include her personal correspondence and manuscripts for her books “The Death of Innocents” and “Dead Man Walking”— the latter a best-selling account of Prejean’s spiritual relationship with a Louisiana death-row inmate that was the basis of an Oscar-winning 1996 film.
At a news conference, Prejean said she has written Gov. Pat Quinn urging him to sign a bill recently passed by the Illinois Legislature to abolish the death penalty. “I have a quiet kind of confidence that he will not go against the Illinois Legislature’s wave of moral integrity.” She noted that Illinois is among seven states that have recently passed or are poised to pass bills banning capital punishment. None of them, however, are in the Deep South, where 80 percent of state-sanctioned executions take place, she said.
She said DePaul’s Special Archives and Collections will be a great fit for her papers. Prejean, 71, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, said nuns owe St. Vincent de Paul, the university’s patron and the apostle of charity, a debt of gratitude. “St. Vincent de Paul found a way to get the nuns out of the convent and into the streets to serve the poor. He did that in 1610 and paved the way for other religious orders.”
The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., DePaul’s president, who introduced her at the news conference described Prejean as “a leading light in the fight for social justice across a wide spectrum of issues, especially the movement to end capital punishment in the United States. We are deeply honored that she has chosen DePaul to preserve the records of her life’s work. We are committed to making certain that her papers will long serve as an important and accessible research tool for scholars and others interested in fighting for the rights of the condemned.”
After receiving requests from a number of other universities, Prejean said today that she also chose DePaul to archive her records in part because of DePaul’s long commitment to social justice issues. DePaul’s College of Law is home to the Center for Justice in Capital Cases ( CJCC ), headed by Andrea Lyon, professor of law and one of the nation’s leading death-penalty attorneys.
The Prejean archive will benefit DePaul College of Law students participating in the clinical program associated with the CJCC. The clinic provides students a yearlong opportunity to study the complexities of this increasingly controversial form of punishment, to work on trial and post-conviction capital cases, and to examine the impact of capital punishment on society.
A criminal defense attorney, Lyon has spent decades representing numerous defendants in capital cases. Lyon’s work was a key factor in the decision to select DePaul as the site of a 2003 announcement by then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan that he was pardoning four men who had spent years on death row.
“I am grateful for this day, and I am grateful to Susanne Dumbleton,” said Prejean. She noted that Dumbleton, a DePaul professor and former dean of DePaul’s School for New Learning, suggested that she house her collection at DePaul. Dumbleton noticed the collection during a visit to Prejean’s residence in New Orleans while working on a book about three extraordinary women crusaders for social justice, including Prejean.
Dumbleton alerted the Rev. Edward R. Udovic, C.M., secretary of DePaul University and senior executive for University Mission, to Prejean’s interest in exploring DePaul as a possible site to house her archive. Father Udovic represented the university in the negotiations with Prejean and her religious order that led to the donation of her personal papers to the university.
“DePaul’s archives on social justice movements rooted in the Catholic religious tradition are rapidly evolving into a world-class resource,” said Udovic. “The addition of Sister Helen’s papers greatly enhances the breadth and depth of DePaul’s collection.” He noted that the collection already includes a broad array of social justice-related materials, including the Berrigan-McAlister collection, which gives insights into the history of the Catholic peace movement led by activists the late Phillip Berrigan, a former Catholic priest, his wife Elizabeth McAlister and his brother Daniel Berrigan, S.J.; and an important collection of historic materials on Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador.
About DePaul
With more than 25,000 students, DePaul University is the largest Catholic university in the United States and the eighth-largest private, nonprofit university in the nation. DePaul offers approximately 275 graduate and undergraduate programs of study on two Chicago campuses and four suburban campuses and at several international locations. Founded in 1898, DePaul remains committed to providing a quality education through personal attention to students from a wide range of backgrounds. For more information, visit www.depaul.edu.
How the Prejean Papers at DePaul University Will Benefit the Anti-Death Penalty Movement
1. ) What specifically is included in Sister Prejean’s archives?
A. DePaul has received approximately 50 boxes of materials from Prejean, which will constitute the archive. Known officially as “The Prejean Papers,” it includes personal journals, correspondence and manuscripts of her books “The Death of Innocents” and “Dead Man Walking.” The latter served as the basis of the 1996 film of the same name that focused on Prejean’s spiritual relationship with a Louisiana death-row inmate.
The archive also includes video, correspondence with death-row prisoners, correspondence to Pope John Paul II and various governors and other public officials, as well as other papers associated with the film and her work. In addition, there are personal papers, music and other documents associated with the opera “Dead Man Walking,” and correspondence, posters, photos and other materials from the stage play “Dead Man Walking—The Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project.” There are also awards and honorary degrees received by Prejean, television interviews and recordings, and movie posters and memorabilia, including some of the costumes worn by actors in the film.
2. ) What will be done by DePaul to preserve and protect these archives?
A. DePaul archivists, who received the materials in late 2010, are working to catalog the collection and ensure that the materials are preserved for generations to come. Access will be provided once the collection is fully processed, later this year.
3. ) What can students or researchers learn by studying the archive?
A. A wide variety of students, researchers and anti-death penalty advocates will learn about Prejean’s commitment to the anti-death penalty cause and how her work evolved from the pastoral to the political. The papers would likely be of interest to those studying law, social activism, communications and even literature. The archive also lends insight into how the book “Dead Man Walking” evolved into a film, stage play and opera.
4. ) Who will be allowed to access Prejean’s archives?
A. As with all collections held at DePaul, The Prejean Papers will be open to the public once the collection is completely inventoried, indexed and preserved. The papers are subject to the same user guidelines for all materials in Special Collections and Archives. Nothing in Prejean’s archive will circulate because of the unique nature of the materials, but reproduction services will be available. By fall 2011, DePaul students taking certain classes on social justice or death-penalty issues will be introduced to the archive.
About DePaul University’s Mission, Special Collections and Legal Support for the Condemned
About DePaul’s Special Collections
DePaul’s Special Collections and Archives hold research and primary source materials that support teaching and research at DePaul. These resources include 30,000 volumes of special collections and rare books; 3,000 linear feet of archive material about DePaul as well as the papers of many Chicago community organizations; and a Vincentian collection that highlights materials relevant to the history of the Congregation of the Mission, the religious community that sponsors DePaul University.
The Prejean Papers include nearly 50 shelf feet of material and span30 years, from the early 1980s to the present, of personal journals, manuscripts, correspondence, awards and other records documenting the extraordinary life and work of Sister Helen.
The Prejean Papers will significantly enhance DePaul University’s Special Collections and Archives, which already include a wide array of social justice-related materials; the Berrigan-McAlister collection, which represents the history of the 20th-century Catholic peace movement led by activists the late Phillip Berrigan, a former Catholic priest, his wife Elizabeth McAlister, and his brother the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.; and an important collection of historic materials on Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of San Salvador.
DePaul welcomes scholars from around the world to use its archives and special collections in order to bolster research that deepens the understanding of social justice issues. DePaul’s Midwestern location provides researchers with easy access to its important and historic collections.
About DePaul’s Center for Justice in Capital Cases
The Prejean Papers will be especially beneficial to the DePaul College of Law’s Center for Justice in Capital Cases ( CJCC ), headed by Professor Andrea Lyon. The center is a resource for capital defense attorneys nationwide. Founded in 2000, the center provides training for attorneys representing individuals charged with capital crimes and serves as a training ground for students interested in working on capital cases.
The center’s death penalty legal clinic gives students an opportunity to acquire significant real-world experience through responsibilities such as researching cases, locating and interviewing witnesses, and writing motions. In addition to providing continuing legal education for attorneys, the center provides students with hands-on experience in death-penalty cases.
DePaul hosted then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan’s Jan. 10, 2003, announcement of pardons for four prisoners awaiting execution and for two other men before an international audience at DePaul University’s College of Law. One of the death row inmates, Madison Hobley, was represented by Professor Lyon and DePaul law alumnus Kurt Feuer. Hobley’s appeals were aided by a team of DePaul law students. The event was hosted by the CJCC, which represented Hobley. Lyon, who founded the CJCC, fought for Hobley’s freedom for more than a decade.
About DePaul’s Social Mission
The university is named for and derives its fundamental mission from St. Vincent de Paul, founder of the Congregation of the Mission, who taught about God’s love by leading his contemporaries in serving urgent human needs.
As the nation’s largest Catholic university, DePaul prepares its students to be ethically and socially engaged leaders in their chosen fields. Its faculty and staff forge global, national and local educational partnerships to influence key social justice issues.
DePaul emphasizes the development of a full range of human capabilities for its students and an appreciation of higher education as a means to engage cultural, social, religious and ethical values in service to others.
Media Contact:
John Holden jholden2@depaul.edu ( 312 ) 362-7165
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