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Conference registration is now available
 Keynote
Address: Sister Helen Prejean
November 16 at 7:30 p.m.
(Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with information
fair in the lobby)
Conant Performing Arts Center
Sister Helen Prejean, a 1999 nominee for the
Nobel Peace Prize, is a Roman Catholic nun, educator and anti-death
penalty activist and author. Her book Dead Man Walking: An
Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States was
nominated for a 1993 Pulitzer Prize and made into an acclaimed movie
with Susan Sarandon. Fifteen years since beginning her crusade, the
Roman Catholic sister has witnessed five executions in Louisiana. As
the founder of Survive, a victim's advocacy group in New Orleans,
she continues to counsel not only inmates on death row, but also
families of murder victims. Her most recent book is The Death of
Innocence: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.
Welcome by Betsy Hansen, President of
Oglethorpe Women’s Network; Introduction by Bev Hoffman, community
activist. With audience Q&A and a book signing.
General
admission tickets available at the door: $7, $5 for students and seniors, free with Oglethorpe ID.
Sponsored by OWN.
Talk with
Youth
By Sister Helen Prejean
November 17,
10:00 – 11:30 a.m.
Sponsored by OWN
Conant Performing Arts Center
In a very special session, Sister Helen Prejean
will speak to invited high school groups. Sister Helen received a
bachelor’s in English and education from St. Mary's Dominican
College and a master’s in religious education from St. Paul's
University in Ottawa, Canada. She has been the religious education
director at St. Frances Cabrini Parish in New Orleans, the formation
director for her religious community and a junior and
senior high school teacher. As a part of her on-going work in
education, she initiated a high school Dead Man Walking School
Theatre Play Project.
Open to registered conference attendees
unable to attend the November 16 talk.
Conference: Dialogue on the Death Penalty
November 17
Registration: $25 for outside guests, $15 for seniors and
students, free with current OU ID. Includes wine
and cheese reception and performance of The Exonerated.
Individual tickets to The Exonerated are available for $5 at
the door.
Welcome and
Introduction:
William Shropshire, Provost of Oglethorpe
University
1:00 – 1:10 p.m.
Lupton Auditorium
Plenary
Session: Historical and Legal Perspectives on the Death Penalty
1:10 – 2:00 p.m.
Lupton
Auditorium
Participants: John D. Orme, Professor of Politics; Brad
Stone, Professor of Sociology; and Jonathan MacFarlane, Visiting
Professor of Politics
Respected Oglethorpe University professors offer cogent
background information on the death penalty issue and a neutral
survey of the pro-and-con arguments for capitol punishment in the
United States.
Concurrent Panels
Panel One: A View from the Trenches
2:10 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Lupton Auditorium, Lupton Hall
Participants: Jack Martin, criminal defense attorney;
Laura Murphree, Prosecuting Attorney's Council of
Georgia.
Two prominent attorneys discuss their experiences in death penalty
cases and what they see as the most pressing issues in the debate
today.
Facilitated
by Aimee Maxwell, Director of
Georgia Innocence Project
Panel Two: Round Table on
Arts and Activism
Participants: Hector Aristizábal, cofounder
of the Colombia Peace Project; Del Hamilton, Artistic Director 7 Stages; and Hope Mirlis.
2:10 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Greenwald
Room, Emerson Student Center
Celebrated international and local artists and
activists talk about their personal involvement in human rights
issues and the uses of art in social change.
Facilitated by
Deborah Merola, Associate Professor and Director of Theatre
Panel Three: Seeking Justice
Panelists: Laura Moye, Deputy Director of the Southern
Regional Office, Amnesty International; William Montross, Jr.,
attorney, Southern Center for Human Rights; a former jury member.
3:10 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Talmage Room,
Emerson Student Center
Engaged panelists explore the
international, regional and personal implications of seeking
justice including the perspectives of the convicted and a citizen
charged with carrying out the law of the State of Georgia.
Facilitated by Elizabeth Johnson, Associate Professor of
Psychology
Panel Four:
Youth Activism
Panelists: Shareef Cousin, young exoneree,
and Hooman Hedayati, founder Texas Students Against the Death
Penalty
3:10 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Greenwald
Room, Emerson Student Center
Student activists engaged in death penalty
work, including a Morehouse student on death row at age 16 and an
Iranian immigrant at the University of Texas at Austin, reach out to
their peers about young people making a difference.
Facilitated by Yvonne Druyeh, President of Student Progressive
Action Network (SPANK)
Wine and
Cheese Reception
4:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Lupton Auditorium
Conference attendees are warmly invited for
refreshments before the staged reading of The Exonerated,
with a chance to greet panelists and other participants.
Sponsored by
Oglethorpe’s Division of Education and Department of Theatre.
 Staged
Reading: The Exonerated
Featuring:
Mike Farrell, Hector Aristizábal, Del Hamilton, Faye Allen, Robert
Earl Price, Isma’il ibn Conner, Barry Stoltze, Tess Malis Kincaid,
Damon Waring and Anne Oredeko
Directed by Deborah Merola
Sponsored by
the Theatre Department and 7 Stages
4:30 – 6:00 p.m.
Lupton Auditorium
Mike Farrell, Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt on the
long-running M*A*S*H television show and co-chair of Human Rights Watch California,
joins Hector Aristizábal, director of the Los Angles Center
for Theatre of the Oppressed, Del Hamilton and Faye Allen, founding
artistic directors of 7 Stages and professional actors in this
exciting staged reading. Based on interviews with former death row
inmates whose wrongful convictions were eventually overturned, The
Exonerated is "compelling and challenging, and somewhat
unexpectedly, filled with hope and gratitude.”
Sponsored by
the Theatre Department and 7 Stages.
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