April 29, 2002 — The Bennion Center at the University of Utah is sponsoring “Dead Man Walking-The Journey Continues,” a lecture by best-selling author Sister Helen Prejean. The presentation is Thursday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m., in room 134 of the University’s Graduate School of Social Work, 395 South 1500 East. Student tickets are $4. General admission tickets are $5. Admission fees will be used to benefit the Inmate Services Program. Copies of Dead Man Walking will be available for purchase and signing by Prejean. For more information, call 801-654-0533.

Prejean has lived and worked in Louisiana her entire life and has written about her experiences as a religious counselor to death row inmates in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Her best-selling book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a motion picture starring Susan Sarandon, who won an academy award for her portrayal of Prejean.

Prejean, who has accompanied five men to their death by execution, is an expert on issues surrounding the death penalty. She is the honorary chairperson of Moratorium Campaign, a group gathering signatures for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Prejean has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four times and is currently working on a book about three possibly innocent men on death row entitled Innocence Betrayed.

The Inmate Services Program, sponsored by the University’s Bennion Center in partnership with the Metro City Jail, provides one-on-one tutoring to inmates in Salt Lake County jails. The tutoring helps inmates prepare for the GED exam, learn drug- and alcohol-free recreation habits and bridges cultures by providing equal opportunity for education to reach all races and cultures.